StarCraft 2: uThermal's ONLY Cyclones & Widow Mine Strategy!

[@seven2864]

There is a rule that Mark can make 1 reaper and 4 marines to defend from early aggression, but other than that its cyclones and mines(+medivacs for drops).

[@amythystmiriel]

5 marines, usually.

[@seven2864]

@@amythystmirielwell its 5 rax units and I believe he usually uses 1 reaper 4 marines

[@amythystmiriel]

@@seven2864 I've watched every challenge video since the start, it's 1 reaper and 5 marines. He went a few challenges trying without even the marines, but he's settled into that core setup except in one where he did two reapers and two cyclones before iirc ghosts in TvT.

[@kindlin]

@@seven2864 I haven't watched 'every' challenge, but yeah, 1 reaper and 5 marines are allowed. I'm not sure why 5, I haven't caught an explanation of that yet (4 loads up a bunker, a reasonable number. Maybe it's incase 1 dies, a bunker is still worth it?).

[@BlitzMachina]

I must come clean, I am a simp for Lowko. I already watched these matches on Uthermal's channel but STILL decided to take another 40 mins out of my life to watch what you had to say about them. I am also really enjoying Mark's sky terran challenge that is still on going.

[@heru77777]

touch grass

[@DamianSzajnowski]

No simping zone ⛔

[@DamianSzajnowski]

@@heru77777 grass is for cows, bro, leave their food alone

[@heru77777]

@@DamianSzajnowskiCows can join with him

[@TheFelmaster]

Same. The pair of them, Marc coming up with crazy strategies that are viable at the GM level, and Lowko's board historical knowledge of the game go great together.

[@kingjavier4769]

Hearing him say "Mr miajee" is so gut wrenching

[@Wright1331]

i laughed every time haha

[@R_manatee]

Maybe he hasn't seen the movies?

[@TheSpiritualCamp]

@@R_manatee He's too young for that... Maybe he's seen Cobra Kai and thought it was lame ? :D

[@Basically11]

I thought the same thing instantly. It killed me on the inside. All i could think is "Daniel-San would be ashamed of you"

[@jabooodee]

I read this comment before making it to that point in the video and it didn't soften the blow at all. It's a solid attempt to pronounce the name without context, but it still hurt lol

[@Phi1618033]

One of the best parts about uThermal's challenges is waiting to see how long it takes his opponents to figure out what's going on and to put up a competent counter. It took several dozen games just for his Terran opponents to figure out that Ghosts hard counter mass Ravens.

[@junweihe8229]

how do zerg counter that? I haven't yet managed to win a late game against mass raven hellion

[@manhphuc4335]

@@junweihe8229 infestor roach, also viper abduct hard counters raven hellion.

[@junweihe8229]

@@manhphuc4335 hmm sounds good doesn't really work because it's hard to catch them Raven will never fight you in a battle they just scan and fuck up one of your bases and run back to their bases full of missile towers

[@Phi1618033]

@@junweihe8229 Go sky Zerg: corrupters, vipers, mutas, broodlords. Helions become useless. Vipers spam parasitic bombs, forcing Terran to micro Ravens, while corrupters focus fire them down one by one.

[@junweihe8229]

@@Phi1618033 sounds viable thanks

[@Dank_Lulu]

I like to think that when pro players play fun and unusual stuff, in the back of their minds there's still that competitive mentallity of "which part of these shenanigans can I use in a tournament".

[@Hisu0]

They're just playing with their food. I honestly despise those "challenges" when an international heavyweight goes incognito against city champs of random weights and oh so graciously fights with one hand tied behind his back. It's incredibly dishonest. If you win against that, well, what did you expect, it's the handicap, so not really a victory. If you lose, more insult to injury.

[@Name-ru1kt]

@@Hisu0 sure against like a diamond league player sure But this is played against some very good players as well

[@manhphuc4335]

@@Hisu0 uh bruh, he is playing this against grandmaster, he took a game from Solar (Pro Korean Zerg) with his meme builds so I don't know whatchu talkin' 'bout.

[@Juice-chan]

it is just great to see how these weird builds force him to think outside the box and I believe it makes him a better player.

[@alexs5814]

i like to believe this was the whole point of those exercises. He's forcing himself to use speci9fic units to see if he's been using them right and he's trying to learn if there's still new things to discover from niche builds.

[@ZantKLW]

Lowko missed it, but the three widow mines at the top of the ramp at the 3 o'clock position at 40:43 took out a full 12 supply of protoss army, and seemingly bruised quite a bit of the rest. The unsung heroes. That battle right after might have gone very differently without them. I absolutely love these challenges from uThermal, and having Lowko commentate them is just the cherry on top. Keep up the great work!

[@tyb9656]

Clearly lowko had never seen karate kid as he can't pronounce Miyagi

[@squee222]

29:25 The barracks is also cause the cyclone can outrange it's vision once locked on - like the siege tank. The barracks allows the cylclones to dance in and out of the range of the enemy while still firing their missiles.

[@Phi1618033]

I guess Lowko hasn't seen The Karate Kid.

[@Ty-bz7zx]

Thermy's play is brutal... His commentating and explaining his thought process during this high lvl play is Awesome. Love his challenge series. Best of luck to you both and keep up the great content!

[@Arkeli5]

I recently did a one soldier playthrough of 'xcom enemy within,' after watching other youtubers complete the challenge. I learned so much about how to play the game in a different light and I'd imagine uThermal is acquiring similar knowledge from doing these challenges except on the basis of starcraft II. If you restrict yourself to only a few units and can still take maps from people then you are going to learn a lot about that unit and strategies that might work. Whether or not that can be applied to a tournament environment I'm not sure, as usually the top players have already figured out the optimal way of playing, up until new maps or patches come out at least. Still it's very entertaining to watch. Thanks for casting them Lowko

[@geuros]

the strat with cyclones is obviously trade base because he could kill (and he did in the TvZ) like 5 bases, just the hatcheries in literally seconds while losing one base. The Zerg then mined long distance with like 40 workers for several minutes because apart from the main and natural all the other bases were dead.

[@kma3647]

Lowko just turned 30, but he's not so much of a boomer that he knows Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid movies! hard-g sound, like go or gas. Miyagi-san says you need more wax-on, wax-off!

[@liveinamber1307]

"You're lucky this wasn't Cyclone + Hellion" - uThermal probably.

[@Hisu0]

I'd say he's lucky this wasn't Serral and herO.

[@manhphuc4335]

@@Hisu0 Bruh he beat Reynor Terran with this and took a match from Solar at a tournament, whatchu talkin' 'bout.

[@Hisu0]

@@manhphuc4335 That makes is even worse.

[@You-ul8qw]

41:56, He may be 30 years old, however we all know lowko is a teenager at heart with that kind of voice crack

[@leperunclean]

"What I've got for you today is a very special high-level game of petting the cat" is a thing I just said to my cat.

[@jennybender2643]

So good to see Thermy´s stuff on this Channel, awesome comentary, as always. Much love for both of you guys.

[@Caladian]

It is a hard G like Me-ya-Ghee He got the name from Karate Kid movie

[@SusaVile]

One of the funniest aspects of his weird strategies is that, typically, the worst matchup is always TvT. Terran actually has the most hard counters versus their own race:p

[@milletmongoose]

Obviously, standard builds are standard for a reason. But I really like how these meme games show how complex, and fun (well, maybe not for the opponent), StarCraft can be.

[@bbtop07]

Oooooohh… a viewer submitted game! I love these 😝

[@1un4cy]

Even with the lurkers, I think the terran burrowed more units than the zerg.

[@You-ul8qw]

39:27 Woah Lowko I just realized this, but if you look at the shadow stride icon, it has the actual blink icon in the background, with a highlighted effect of the actual shadow stride movement in the foreground.

[@diplod5000]

Love your starcraft comentary the most! Thanks!

[@jamalgeorge3582]

I don't know why, but this matchup makes me wanna watch another Bronze League Heroes vid. I'm not talking sh*t about either of these players- they're both way more fantastic than I'll ever be, but something about uThermal trying to shift the Meta reminds me of the crazy stuff I'd see in Lowko's Bronze League matchups. They're soooo entertaining to watch and Lowko's commentary is absolutely hilarious.

[@mehmetatban1]

I got to know Uthermal from your casts (mass ghosts to gm) and still follow him. This one was an awesome match thnx

[@andytv22]

its Mee-Aww-gee! XD not me-ah-jee, not sure Lowko has ever watched Karate kid, the original one.

[@Wright1331]

Fun fact: Lowko has never watch a Karate Kid movie :P

[@IrishLegacy93]

I dont use the timeline to skip, more use it for longer videos i fall asleep too and choose a timeline I remember last. love the casts man!

[@bluebunnybooks]

Love his crazy builds

[@ElzariusUnity]

Michael Bay's Starcraft

[@ssj3neo]

lol my ears bled from all the MrMiyaJi ... ITS A HARD "G" ! XD

[@xXdarkmoon242Xx]

This is oddly I think my fav match I have seen all year xD Love the mines

[@lixnix2018]

I love his Challenges

[@zapoyou2]

Such a beautiful game! Love more like this :)

[@Pierre-gk5ky]

Just wait till you see his Marine/Medivac or Sky Terran builds :D

[@cutlercrow1416]

Skipping forward would make me miss story time with lowko which is basically why I’m here

[@nazeris1834]

hay Lowko first, love your vids i don't think I've missed one in the past 6 months or so. anyway I had a thought for short sence YT likes to promote them more, idea 1) A end of match recap of the last week in videos; showing all the game ending battles. Idea 2) just a battles short of particular interesting/devastating/hilarious battles

[@s9poncho]

miyagi pronunciation though xd

[@diplod5000]

U thermal needs to bring 5 scvs to fix cyclones continously. it would be so hard to hold him back

[@Zamiroh]

There is a fundamental problem with that. If you bring that many scvs in the beginning you are doing an all in (or are very behind economicly). Later on its pointless as cyclones are paper weights, and you'll be repairing the ash from where they once were. Sure at times if they make it back to safety I think it's wise to repair

[@noneofyourbusiness4133]

He talked about to this- it’s opportunity cost and build order disruption.

[@uni4rm]

In one of his last run bys that forces the long distance mining he actually does have a few SCV's following the cyclones.

[@morantNO1]

@@Zamiroh I don't think so. If you only station 2 SCV's on repairs, it is not a hard blow to your economy. That is a difference you often loose from harassment. Plus they are not ideling, they are generating money, because repair costs only 25% of original price and you get "free" units, since more survive and you have to rebuild less.

[@mikegomez2646]

lowko upload right as I sit down for lunch? tis a good day indeed

[@mrlithium69]

90% of the time uthermal is playing to show of troll tactics are viable and it works!! a lot! theres way more untapped creativity in this game left for us still. He could repair them more I think.

[@Jdog-tt8qe]

yea youre right, check out beastyqt's series to GM. He did all sorts of crazy combos of units. mostly protoss and terran but he had some zerg series too

[@bryandewby]

uThermal is the absolute man

[@messiethehamster957]

I know you did NOT just say MrMiyagi with a j sound. ❤ solid video.

[@gennaroliguori376]

the first game was such a banger! if you guys havent checked out uThermals channel, I highly recommend it! his challenges are so fun to watch, just an insane display of skill

[@mvhmk]

Tell me you haven't seen Karate Kid, without telling me you haven't seen Karate Kid.

[@excesivecroc1074]

Hi lowko your my fav tuber

[@illt3ck]

uThermal just vibing out

[@michaelhellwig421]

Before he lost his mind, beastyqt did all of this challenges years ago! He also completed them!

[@Jdog-tt8qe]

Beastyqt did only cyclones to GM and beat high level zergs. Now THAT was impressive, highly recommend it. No hate to uthermal but adding widow mines is way less impressive.

[@gokublack8342]

Gonna need you Zergs to admit your race is op as hell 😂

[@elcanaldelargan8575]

Yeah, Uthermal has kind of fill the space left by BeastyQT with SCII challenges and crazy strategies.

[@BillyBlundah]

Yeah Beastys was cyclones only and he had some bangers in that series

[@danielbedrossian5986]

I mean, Carbot animations made some Dank engine (cyclon) army fun videos years ago, and that was already based on legit strategy.

[@kmpgos4158]

I wish they redesigned cyclone so that instead of a lock-on, it would do burst damage similar to shadow cannon in the campaign (target both air and ground). For example: When a cyclone is made, it would have 5 missiles out of 10, and gain 1 missile every 10 seconds, 10 missiles max. (but the first missile would be made in 2 seconds). When attacking, cyclones would shoot 5 missiles per second at 7 or 8 range, doing massive burst damage. Then retreat, reload missiles, and attack again. ( 2 seconds for the first missile and 10 seconds for any extra missile). But in a direct fight, they would shoot only 1 missile per 2 seconds, making them great for hit-run tactics, but horribly bad at defending. It would guarantee that if the enemy is passive, you could send cyclone/hellion hit squads and do guaranteed damage, or have a group of cyclones and burst down enemy valuable units like carriers, spellcasters, ravagers and so on.

[@knivesoutcatchdamouse2137]

"When attacking they do A but in a direct fight they do B". I don't understand what the difference is here between 'attacking' and 'fighting'.

[@kmpgos4158]

@@knivesoutcatchdamouse2137 Simple, you gather cyclones and wait for their missiles to load (similar to how you wait for templar/raven energy to gather), then you move out, scan, and shot 5 missiles per second (10 missiles max) at 7-8 range and retreat, making sure that enemy army or structures take high damage while losing as few cyclones as possible. The weakness is, you now need to wait 10 second for each missile to load, so your cyclone army is weak to enemy counterattack, and since they can load the first missile per 2 second, you get one attack each 2 second, which is weak. So yeah, it would be powerful at hit-run, or to snipe enemy high-value targets, but if the enemy constantly attacks and keep pressure on you, they will do terribly, because of how slow they load missiles. Long story short: good at hit-run, bad in continuous fights.

[@Drunkengoat69]

I think I've heard uthermal saying that cyclones attack damage counts as spell/ability damage so that attack upgrades don't effect cyclones.

[@RDMatija]

Mr. MiyaG xD someone hasn't seen Karate kid :D

[@anshchandarana]

As a protoss i hate going up against mass widowmines, couple that with anything from mech and you're steam rolling protoss armies

[@p.p.wienersson]

Does blinding cloud work on spells?

[@diplod5000]

Cyclones mines and marines - that would hurt

[@checkmatenate]

Wow if he had hits made a few tanks on the high ground vs those lurkers. Idk 🤷🏻‍♂️ or made ghost?

[@nuclearlaunchdetected9050]

Even just 4 infestors would have been a huge help, not that I as a terran main would ever want a zerg to win.

[@R2D2xC27]

Hahahahah.... the last one was awesome.... can't tell who's winning....

[@mikeshivak]

21:44 goes to some humanoid dying in creep with a weird sound wtf 😳

[@hwthwt9951]

"miyagi" is pronounced with a hard G like "geese", not "jeep"

[@ernestgatsby]

The obvious thing that the Terran is missing are nukes to deal with the lurkers.

[@joveniel11]

I think he used the same strategy vs pig in a recent tournament.

[@EskiZagra]

I want a Viking/Banshee strat next xD

[@zerg6471]

Have you ever seen the original karate kid movies lowko?

[@wolfclaw3812]

Cyclones and widow mines are absolute cancer I play both, I would know

[@NorthernWrath66]

Tell me you haven't seen Karati Kid without telling me you haven't seen Karati Kid ;)

[@mitjapintar4609]

it is fun to watch tvt this challange. because half of the time he is just talking that he has no idea what to do vs. tanks xD

[@jesusruiz9611]

¿es en serio? superó el récord de perder más de 50 zánganos en una corta partida y para colmo perdió no 50 ni 100 ni siquiera 200 sino 300 zerglings con tan solo rush de widows mines geniaaaaaaaaal

[@marklindsey1995]

Imagine how much better if he brought some SCV along for repair.

[@CountSpartula]

A group of 40 zealots with charge would shut this down. Or 20 blink Dark Templar. Dont fight weird stuff like this with how Miyagi did it. Improvise, don't play the skirmish and maneuver games against this. If you commit with a blink or a charge with a severe bulk of units i think this setup will lose if the mine count is low. If not then start culling them specifically or bring stuff in from split angles.

[@shadowmeister5432]

Can someone explain to me why they dont repair the units?

[@joshraiverbuitizon8591]

Do you do harstem games?

[@Glantir]

Lowko please watch Karate Kid Mr Miyagi is not pronunced like this :D

[@phileas007]

So is this kinda like BGMWSS?

[@NVMDSTEvil]

at 16:17 if he had finished off the hatchery he probably would have won.

[@Zach_Routhier]

Mr. Miyaji? BRO. It's pronounced ME-YAW-GEE. You are forbidden from forever making BOOMER jokes if you don't know your movie history. Go watch the Karate Kid right now for your penance. :)

[@frankwhite2072]

Thermy is so wild.

[@1un4cy]

I don't understand why terrans don't repair their units more often. I always see them go in with like 20/150 hp units when it costs a dime to repair them back to full. I'd rather repair for a quarter of the cost than to just make a whole new unit for full price.

[@Rockboygg]

Nice! Now blizz will nerf the cyclone making it even more expensive and nerfing DPS while hydras will now shoot and move to counter them. As usual, almost any stratergy against zerg has to be nerfed into obliviona that was a close one! Zerg ALMOST LOST! Blizz definitely doesnt like that. Remember People really love those zvz 10 minute matches in the finals. And make zealots immune to cyclones being able to one shot them.. TERRAN OP! PLZ NERF! Edit: seriously though. Male Hydras useful again by adding a shoot and move! That would be badass!

[@michaelfleming8451]

Top video as always Lowko,.... but BeastyQT did it 12 months ago... Feel like its the south park episode where its hard to be original because Simpsons did it...

[@jacobsvensson8193]

uThermals subscriber count has gone up over 500% since he started this in less than a year so people seem to like it. How could you do something completely original in a 13 year old game

[@Neceros]

You should watch the Karate Kid. Great movie. classic

[@ajcannQn]

BeastyQT did a bunch of similar things a long while ago. Ghosts to grandmaster is prob my favorite because of all the nukes

[@knivesoutcatchdamouse2137]

How would Protoss ever counter this???

[@manhphuc4335]

Harstem suggested using mass stalker with perfect micro, meanwhile Uthermal suggest using laser giraffe with chargelots.

[@Kevkoss]

Not first, not last.

[@bobbymsq]

I just stoped skipping exactly when you said, "you guys never skip forward" :))))

[@junweihe8229]

So satisfying to see that bullshit get denied

[@Ericwong2ooo]

Can we get more ZERG CONTENT whats up with that!

[@babageneral9739]

Didn't BeastyQT do this ?

[@CookDinger]

I’ll be the jerk to say it: Miyagi is a hard ‘g’ like “gate,” not the soft ‘g’ like “giant,” Lowko!

[@MetalMan1245]

Yes.

[@jayyrod1]

Yeh I'll skip forward 2 minutes... When you don't do it for me!!! 😂 No I don't skip through your vids... Can't say the same thing when I watch zwag xerath lol content lol

[@martinprince8253]

you didn't tell me your name at the beginning of the video. how would I know who you are?!

[@ericwadebrown]

Watch Karate Kid, you're mispronuncing Mr. Miyagi.

[@jacobsvensson8193]

I think he could learn to pronounce it without watching a whole movie, for example reading at least 5 comments to this video

[@augustincampeau3310]

I LOVE HIM

[@junweihe8229]

Honestly cyclones are actually quite imba, it does way too much damage especially after the upgrade Combine with scan or a flying building they can constantly get free kills against all early game zerg units, with a bit of micro though Queens,roaches and hydras pretty much are annihilated. zerglings are fast enough but so vulnerable against hellions

[@sersys1]

I'm fairly sure that "u" at the beginning of uthermal is supposed to represent a greek mu that's usually a metric scale abbreviation for micro, therefore it should be micro thermal not you thermal.

[@jacobsvensson8193]

he's been competing for 10 years and called youthermal by everybody and pronounces it youthermal himself