StarCraft Keyboard Part 1 | Part 2

Sorry for being gone for so long everyone!  Things have been a little bit crazy here in Korea and I was super busy.  But with Season 4 drastically delayed I've decided to start blogging again!

We left off after making the Starcraft keyboard and working on gaining a comfort level with hugging the right side with your left hand (assuming your Protoss which is the race I will use for this entire series of Starcraft blog lessons).  What I want to focus on now are macro scales.  This is a concept very few people are aware of, especially non-Koreans.

Let me start this lesson with a story.

Over two years ago when I first came to Korea I didn't have my own place.  Thankfully my friends Rekrul, Spunky and Grrr allowed me to crash at their place for a little over a month. Playing tons of Starcraft and partying constantly were happy memories while I stayed there...  But there is also another memory that always sticks with me, a brief conversation I had with Grrr.



If your unfamiliar with Grrr it's about time you catch up.  He was the very original best Starcraft player.  Even before boxer.  He's not a Korean either--french Canadian actually.  This guy won the first Starleague ever playing random and is responsible for virtually all of the common build orders of that time.  Anyways lets just say he's kind of a big deal.

Starcraft players always love talking about theory.  This game is so deep and there are so many skill-sets to master that a conversation with another expert can be incredibly enlightening. 

One afternoon Grrr and myself were chatting about macroing with Protoss when I pointed out he had very large hands like myself. 

We then held our hands up together against each other to compare sizes, each of his fingers stretched out just about a centimeter farther than mine.  “You have large hands too” He said, “I bet this is pretty helpful at going from d to 0.” “Oh you know those macro scales too?” I responded.  “Yeah” he laughed, “It seems like hardly anyone knows that stuff.”



A trick that I didn't catch onto until six years ago Grrr had already been using back when he played only a few months since the game had been released.

So what are macro scales?  They're hotkey patterns which allow you mass produce units incredibly quickly, without even going to back to your base.  The larger your hands are the easier they are to pull off but anyone can do them with practice.  Before we start, you might already know a simple pattern you do without even thinking.  Type 1a2a3a without looking.  If you're an RTS player you can do that without even concentrating.  But what other patterns are there to be found?

Can you make 7 dragoons in a second?  It's not as hard as you think!  You just type out  4d5d6d7d8d9d0 with your left hand.  Why do we hotkey the 1st gateway as 4?  It's the most comfortable way to utilize all your fingers on the keyboard.  Your pinky can fit nicely on D while your ring finger can extend to 4.  from here use your ring on 5 and your index from 6 to 0. (you may want to tilt the left side of your keyboard toward you about 15 degrees) D


Hand by Lipton

Now open up note pad and start practicing this pattern.  “4d5d6d7d8d9d0”  Try doing it as fast as you can.  When you think you've got it down open up a custom game in single player, make seven gateways and practice making those seven dragoons at once without going back to your base.  When you get fast enough at this you can hit those 14 keys in under a second!

Whenever I tell people this online they always respond with something like “this is too hard” or “clicking on buildings is just as fast.”  Trust me when I say both these statements are wrong.  Just stick to it, it'll take a little bit but once you get it down you'll be amazed how much this helps.  Even in early game you can be rushing your opponent, microing your army, while still pumping your 3 dragoons out with 4d5d6d.

I'll have a new blog up soon with more stuff so we can continue our adventure in learning how to utilize your keyboard like a pro at Sdddtarcraft!

The first 2 Starcraft keyboard tutorials:
Secrets of StarCraft Pro Gamers - The competitive keyboard
Starcraft competitive keyboard tutorial - part II

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