A beginner's guide to StarCraft: Brood War

What is StarCraft: Brood War?

StarCraft is a real-time strategy (RTS) game created by Blizzard played mostly between two players, each of whom selects from three different factions to play. The factions are the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; The Zerg, a swarm of super-species assimilated life forms; and the Protoss, a technologically advanced psychic alien.

Each faction has unique units with different qualities and attributes. For example, The Protoss field powerful and expensive machines, the Zerg use the sheer number of units to overwhelm bases and opponents and the Terrans are more versatile than the others but challenging to play for newcomers.

Players begin with limited workers and buildings and gather resources to build their army and bases. The winner is the player who eliminates the entire base and army of the opposing player. The start of a match is crucial as having an early lead puts the opponent on the back foot for the entirety of the game.

With three species to choose from and multiple strategies players utilise, the tactical aspect of the game is its significant selling point. Players are still discovering new ways to play the game years after its release.

A brief history of StarCraft: Brood War

StarCraft was released on March 31, 1998, with the expansion of Brood War coming a few months later. The expansion pack introduced new campaigns, new units and upgrade advancements.

The Brood War expansion was critically acclaimed upon release, with many praising the balancing tweaks.

Brood War and SC2 do appear similar and although the fundamentals of the game are the same, Brood War is seen as more mechanically challenging.

It proved to be popular, with over 10 million copies sold by 2007, which in turn created a buzz around the eSports scene. Although the first tournaments were small in size, the increase in the game’s popularity encouraged larger tournaments and sponsors to become involved.

Tournaments continued to grow in size and stature, with a peak of over $1 million distributed throughout 2007 in prize money. Unfortunately, with StarCraft 2 (SC2) released in 2010, the number of tournaments and prize money declined.

From over $700,000 paid out across 30 events in 2009, the number declined to 16 events paying out $100,000 by 2012. On May 2, 2012, KeSPA, Ongamenet, Blizzard, and GomTV all announced the introduction of SC2 to the professional scene in South Korea, with Brood War being phased out by October the same year.

The following years were difficult for SC as an eSport, but with the streaming service Afreeca, which is similar to Twitch, hosting Brood War tournaments, the game kept a small but loyal fan base. In March 2017, Blizzard announced plans to release a remastered version of SC and its expansion Brood War.

The release in August 2017 helped SC have its highest prize pools and tournaments since 2011, breathing new life into the game. The resurgence has continued in 2018, with over $100,000 offered at the 1v1 and 2v2 tournaments at Hangzhou StarCraft Carnival 2018.

How to bet on StarCraft: Brood War

Due to the increase in popularity of SC, the number of tournaments available to bet on has increased too. The most common market offered is the outright winner of a match, also known as the Money Line.

Other markers on offer include series or match Handicap and individual map winners. The odds on offer for each market reflect the perceived level of each player or team’s probability of winning a match. Serious bettors will use a team’s odds to calculate the implied probability offered by the bookmaker and compare it to their own assessment to calculate if they have an edge and positive expected value.

Betting on SC is similar to StarCraft 2 as both are played over multiple maps, with different characteristics. Comparable to the CS:GO map pool, each map requires different strategies to be successful at it, ensuring knowledge of the player’s preferential maps is paramount to be successful at betting on SC.

Unlike CS:GO, the map pool differs at each event, ensuring knowledge of a player and teams map pools is critical in StarCraft: Broodwar betting. For example, the four maps used at the Hangzhou StarCraft Carnival were Circuit Breaker, Match Point, Tau Cross and Longinus, whereas the Afreeca StarLeague (ASL) used Sparkle, Transistor, Gladiator and Third World.

Tournaments continued to grow in size and stature, with a peak of over $1 million distributed throughout 2007 in prize money.

An important thing to remember is Sparkle and Transistor are new maps in the ASL, which means it might take players a while to understand how best to play them. Preparation is essential, with players putting in extra work on these two maps seeming to have a slight advantage until others grow accustomed to them.

Betting on a series Handicap, individual maps or any market for that matter without understanding that players perform to a higher level on certain maps is a mistake that you cannot afford to make when trying to make long-term profit.

StarCraft: Brood War betting: Things you should consider

Brood War and SC2 do appear similar and although the fundamentals of the game are the same, Brood War is seen as more mechanically challenging. Understanding the mechanics of a game is essential in StarCraft: Brood War betting as it helps you realise why certain things happened in a match and will enable you to make more accurate assessments before placing a bet.

One of the essential aspects in deciding the overall level of a player is their actions per minute (APM). Building units and buildings quickly is vital in obtaining an advantage over the opposing player. Due to the way SC is designed, players need to have higher APM’s than on SC2. Far more actions are required to be done manually, with the game offering minimal assistance.

For example, workers constructing a Vespene Geyser in SC2 harvest the gas automatically upon completion but need to be told to do so in SC. Micromanaging units requires a higher level of skill and experience to do it effectively. Understanding these nuances in gameplay will help bettors with their assessment of the player and team strength.

Researching past events and results can help bettors understand which players and teams are in good form but it is also important to ensure these comparisons are relative and the quality of opponent is taken into consideration, not just the results. Looking at the past few seasons of the ASL, many of the same players have finished in the top few places, noticeably flash, who won three seasons of the ASL in a row.

With three species to choose from and multiple strategies players utilise, the tactical aspect of the game is its significant selling point.

While there are elite players who are consistently at the top of the rankings (like flash who won three Seasons of the ASL in a row) the introduction of new maps has made things interesting. Players such as mini and snow, who weren’t in the top 16 last season, progressed to the semi-finals of the tournament for the first time.

Spotting future potential and how changes in the game or tournaments (like the map pool) could benefit certain players could be the key to getting an edge when it comes to StarCraft: Brood War betting.

Now you’ve read this introduction to StarCraft: Brood War betting, why not take a look at the latest StarCraft: Brood War odds and see if you can find any value. Alternatively, read more of our articles to help you learn more about eSports betting.