Starcraft – Will I be demoted to a lower league in Starcraft 2 if I don’t play

Get them into watching replays by Husky or HDStarcaft or Day9 watching the pro level play gives you so much insight! Not to mention that they somehow manage to make it exciting to watch a replay.

Then after you watch a replay, do a custom game and have them try some of the tactics from the video, and you and your friends can both improve your skill at the same time.

This may not be the answer you want, exactly, as it doesn't cover how to recover from a situation where you mass up marines before scouting your opponent going for a tech build.

Skill levels between opponents being equal, it is not cost-effective to try to stick to a mass marines build vs an opponent going for marines and siege tanks. Siege tanks are a direct counter to marines, and any resources spent on trying to overwhelm siege tanks with marines are better spent on other tactics.

When you are a Terran player going against a Terran opponent, that should be your first indication to expect siege tanks. It doesn't always happen, but siege tanks are seen often in TvT play simply because they're a great answer to an opponent who might be massing the standard marine/marauder rush or teching up to the marine/marauder/medivac (MMM) ball. Because of this, it is dangerous to enter a TvT match-up and just start pumping out marines without proper scouting of your opponent.

Think of it this way: as a Terran vs another Terran, you have the following outcomes if you are dead-set on massing marines:

• You mass marine, they mass marine: Draw.
• You mass marine, they mass marine/marauder: You win.
• You mass marine, they tech to hellions: You lose.
• You mass marine, they tech to tanks: You lose.

If you are scouted as going mass marine, you'll end up encountering mech of some sort, and that is not good news for you. You're a bit better off if you have marauders as well since they do pretty well against hellions and siege tanks (provided you have concussive shells vs hellions and line-of-sight on the tanks (and stim always helps)).

The reason mass marines worked for you in lower-level play is because you were dealing with players who did not macro/tech as fast. I would suggest you abandon this strategy altogether in higher-level play. I could get away with mass reapers in Bronze, but trying that in higher level play is going to get me killed more often than not. It's better to go with a more traditional build.