Starcraft 2 Counters List

At a basic level, Starcraft 2 is a giant (and exciting) game of rock-paper-scissors. Unit A defeats Unit B, Unit B defeats Unit C, and Unit C defeats Unit A. You will win a lot of games just by building whatever counters your enemy's units!

Note that there are two types of counters: "hard counters" and "soft counters". A hard counter describes the situation where one unit is completely dominant over another. An example of this is the Hellion is a hard counter for the Zergling. A soft counter describes the situation where one unit is effective versus another unit, but it is not necessarily a landslide.

Hard counter example: The Immortal is a hard counter for the Roach. Three Immortals can defeat 24 Roaches.

Soft counter example: The Marauder is a soft counter for the Stalker. Marauders will beat Stalkers in 1v1 combat, but 12 Stalkers will defeat 6 Marauders without a problem.

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I have broken down this Starcraft 2 Counters List into 2 sections:

Counters by Race

On the left hand navigation menu under the "Starcraft 2 Counters List" tab, you will find three pages: 

• Starcraft 2 Protoss Counters
• Starcraft 2 Terran Counters
• Starcraft 2 Zerg Counters

Each of these pages lists its prospective race's units along with of all its hard counters in Starcraft 2.

You will want to use these sections in two ways. First off, if you are always losing to a certain race, check out its counter list. Also, you can also check out the counter list for your preferred race so you can see what to avoid building.

For example, I have listed the Zergling as a counter to the Marauder. If your enemy has massed Zerglings, you know you definitely do not want to respond by massing Marauders in return.

Note: I have not included every single unit counter, just the ones you will want to pursue. For example, any ranged armored unit counters the Reaper, but most players use Reapers to rush.

As an example, for Protoss I mentioned Stalker and Photon Cannon rather than the Immortal. Immortals counter Reapers, but you would never build Immortals for the express purpose of warding off Reapers when you could use stalkers.

Counters by Unit

However, not every unit has neat counters that can be put into charts. Let's look at the Siege Tank for example. Technically, this unit is countered by any air unit, since it can only hit ground units. For example, the Mutalisk could be considered a "hard counter" to the Siege Tank.

In practice, this does not work like that. No player in the Gold league or higher is stupid enough to build Siege Tanks without backing them up with Thors against Zerg players. In fact, most players do not mass a single unit but rather get several complimentary units.

Thors are a hard counter versus Mutalisks, and as a result, Thors + Siege Tanks are still a hard counter to Mutalisks.

For these tough units, I have added individual unit sections, such as the Starcraft 2 Siege Tank Counter section. These sections will give players of all races some ideas when dealing with particularly challenging units and unit combinations

You will win a lot of games of Starcraft 2 if you can memorize all of the Starcraft 2 counters for each unit. I will admit that this takes a bit of practice.

If there is a counter you do not see, I recommend checking out The Shokz Guide, which lists each unit individually including both its hard and soft counters.

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