Tutoring thread

[Demon]

(03-16-2014 11:00 PM)Mag!cGuy Wrote:  What?

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Not that you're the devil lol.

[Mag!cGuy]

Some tips I think are pretty general to get to ST are these ones:

- Know everything your opponent has. Do a pass and play if needed, but knowing the opponent's amount of wits and the exact moves he did help you so much know what is the bets to do. This is something I don't do anymore because I tend to play too quikly, and it simply led to many losses.

-Wonder "what is the best to do?", "if I were him, what would annoy me the most?". Sometimes the solution that seems the most obvious is not. It will shock some people here because I've always talked about wit efficiency, but sometimes a wit unefficient move can be the best by far. And the best way to know what you should do is think as if you were your opponent.

- Plan. If you are close to ST, you can't play anymore without doing it. Provoke your opponent, make him think he will be doing a great attack when you have a scrambler behind... This is what outwitters is the most fun for: mind game. When it is your turn, you must know before you even see the new face of the board what you are gonna do, because you predicted everything the past turn. When you are in the top 100, players play fairly well, so it is far easier to know in advance what would be their response. The best example that comes to my mind right now is my game against doodat, for the world cup, where I was feedback. This:

http://osn.codepenguin.com/replays/view/...CArKajqQkM

Turn 18. I knew I could do something to win here. But I had to be sure of what doodat would do. I had countered his attack, I had a positionnal and unit lead. So, he wouldn't do something crazy, he wouldn' be greedy. My guess was that he would just spawn something, and that was all. So I spawned a scrambler without healing it. I could have healed it, but if I did so, I would have had only 6 wits next turn, not enough to win! This is why I had to ensure doodat wouldn't use his two soldiers to kill mine.
I'm not saying it's an amazing turn obviously, but I think it's a perfect example of a basic plan. Can I take the risk? If I were him, what would I do? Will I have enough wits? Am I sure there is nothing hidden behind?
I was able to answer all those questions, and it paid off!

[Demon]

^^ Thanks!

[AttackBomb]

(03-16-2014 09:06 PM)Mag!cGuy Wrote:  Haha guys

Yeah you shouldn't be scared, I'm not doing well at all nowadays, compared to other top players! LER4T or pharmafan are far scarier.

I still have a lot of games, once I'll have less I'll send you an invite attackbomb. Been a while I actually didn't coach someone - rather playing friendlies but giving no advices.

Believe it or not, my first ever 2v2 game was with LER4T. Then I was against him on the next. He won both sides of the table.

[Alvendor]

Great example Magic showing how a play can make sense depending on who you are facing. I would consider doing the same against masters and low STs. Gifted and below are just too unpredictable, yeah I know I'm generalizing =), and could find the scrambler. Against any top 10 super titan I would be too afraid they figured out I do that exact move.

[Necrocat219]

Alright, I think I have a good example that I've just finished 10 mins ago for signs to look out for to figure out your opponents wit count, how to analyse a situation and to take a turn based on that:

outwitters://viewgame?id=ahRzfm91dHdpdHRlcnNnYW1lLWhyZHIVCxIIR2FtZVJvb20YgICAnNGpvAoM

I this game i decided I wanted to try going away from always spawning a mobi on this map do decided to play a game without one to start to have more wits to attack and defend. Turns out its a perfect example of how to make sure you know what your opponent can do with their wits is. Turn 12 onwards I knew exactly how many wits my opponent had, and turn 14 he could have won if he had 9 wits. However as I was confident he didnt have enough wits to do that I left the base open, which ended up working. I was at serious threat of him winning now. As he used 7 and the last to spawn a runner and not do anything with it other than to protect the spawn, I was confident he had 0 wits left. He could win by either spawning a sniper and sniping the base which costs 6 wits or attack soldier, move it away, spawn and mobi a runner and kill me with the base which costs 6 wits too. I decided I needed to kill the runner that was there and capture the wit spaces so that he had only 5 wits and block him successfully, and thankfully it worked out. I think that's a good example of how to use certain turns to know whay signs to look for when your opponent runs out of wits and to take advantage of that.

[Alvendor]

(03-17-2014 12:56 AM)HuskyPete Wrote:  Actually that's the difference as you go up in difficulty. When I was gifted, something as simple as a general tip on how to start the match properly and make sure you count out your turn before you start were enough to make a big difference. At the higher levels, there is no tip to make you win. You just need to play better. So learning what "better" is seems to be the key. Since ST have seen all the opens and attacks, it is not enough to follow a script. You need to be able to understand how the plans are generated and modify them to counter your opponent. One mistake at a very early point in the match cann doom you to lose. I sometimes review a 50 turn game and really believe I lost on turn 5. Crazy.

I went through a period last year when it felt like I had stopped learning new strategic concepts or tips and trick or whatever you wanna call it. Any league games I lost felt like I was quite even in skill to the other player and it was due to randomness or that he had more experience on that map, not that the he had a better understanding of the game in general than me.

The conclusion I drew was that all the strategic concepts were already known and the only way to become better was to learn openings on each map or try to think further in advance on each turn. This was quite demotivating and I didn't play much for a long time.

Things changed when I got back into Outwitters because of the Elite Championship tournament and noticed that other players' skill level had definitely increased during the time I had been away. This kind of spark my interest again.

Today I can point to several points I didn't know a year back when I foolishly thought I knew everything =) I think its true you stop learning easy to use tips that will improve your play as you get better. But if they are thought of as strategic concepts they are still there and you will probably never run out of things to learn. The problem is only that they are subtler and harder to discover the better you get.

[HuskyPete]

I hope I didn't give the impression that I feel I have nothing to learn quite the opposite. The more I play the more I realize how much it have to learn. It might just be terminology I consider a tip to be a short strict rule to follow. These are very helpful at the lower levels and if you never break these rules you will win. But as you said perfectly, as you get higher you need strategic concepts. With these concepts you try to understand when to follow one path and when it's not ok. Like when I was learning I was told never use 3 units to kill 1 unit. That is a useful tip and great to learn. But on rare occasions, it might make sense to deviate from that when the moment is right. But understanding the strategy enough to know when it smart todeviate from the"rules" or tips is what am learning!

[LegacyofEight]

Thanks so much FrozenNorthernKid for tutoring me I really appreciate it.
See y'all in the tourney?
LegacyofEight

[Alvendor]

Not at all, completely agree with you HuskyPete. Just wanted to share how I viewed it earlier.

Here is an example of a fairly new concept for me:

I knew since before that you almost never should get 2 mobis if opponent has 0 (or 3 if opponent has 1). If you do, the opponent will have so many more wits invested in attacking units than you that you will not be able to defend an attack even if you can move around units more effective.

Recently i realized you can take this concept one step further. If you have 1 mobi and opponent has 2 you can actually bait the opponent to kill your mobi in a what seams like a wit efficient trade for him. But if the opponent goes for it, you go for an all-in attack and win even though you are behind in wits.
And from the other point of view, if you got 2 mobis and opponent 1 you shouldn't always kill it even if the trade would be wit efficient.