Tactical Tuesday: When Cheese Fails by LAG TV

Wow, a cannon rush? You're original.

If you’ve ever played an RTS… or a fighting game… or really any game that requires tactical planning, you’ve faced cheese. Perhaps it was Kilik spamming A+B specials in Soul Calibur 4 online or an endless stream of 6-pool Zergling play. Perhaps one of your friends just can’t play Tic Tac Toe without using that fucking corner trap.

Unlike in real life, where all types of cheese are delicious, cheesy play is universally loathed by gamers. Yes, in the strictest sense, cheese is fair game under the playing to win mantra of the competitive spirit, but that’s not really the problem. Whether or not it’s fair, cheese results in games that aren’t fun or that force the match to a close before higher level strategy and execution come into play.

Because of this, you might take solace in knowing someone out there is putting a stop to cheese. Or, at the very least, they’re laughing their asses off at it When Cheese Fails.

While Life’s a Glitch TV has been producing videos for a while, their recent series When Cheese Fails has warmed the hearts of thousands of salty Starcraft players. The premise is simple: fans submit replays of how they defeated a player who attempted to cheese them, and these guys cast the game for hilarious results.

From the broadest perspective, these videos are almost completely entertainment focused, with little strategic discussion, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to be learned. Since every Starcraft player has lost to cheese before (even Huk lost to a proxy pylon in his base in Team Liquid Starleague 3), watching other players beat cheesers is not only cathartic, it’s also a lesson in fast reaction and out-of-the-box thinking.

You’re Terran and your opponent is trying to wall you in with Photon Cannons? Sure, you could drop a proxy Barracks or try to build a Marauder force behind your mineral line. Or you could do what no Terran does: a Planetary Fortress in the main. While you’re at it, why not build a second Command Center, land it in your opponent’s main, and throw a giant cannon on top of that one as well?

The point is simple: most players who rely on cheese simply aren’t very good, or don’t have a backup plan for when their cheesy strategy fails. With good scouting and quick thinking, cheesy play can be beaten, often with funny results and the extra satisfaction of sending a cheeser down the ranking a few notches.

LAG TV has completed the first season of When Cheese Fails (the later episodes are my favorites) and are always getting new submissions. As for the best one? I think most people would agree this recent addition takes the cake:

The sheer (bad) luck involved and terrible sequence of events that follow are the perfect recipe for a classic Internet failure. The non-cheesing player must have been so confused! Want to see more cheese failing? Subscribe to Life’s a Glitch TV on YouTube today!