Before we can get to the details, we gotta start by explaning the faction's strengths and weaknesses and how it fits in the general puzzle that is Grey Goo. These will largely determine your playstyle and how your matchups play out.

The human race pro and cons can be summarized in the following.
Pros:

• Powerful units that have the potential to be extremely cost efficient
  
• Quick to respond to attacks that threaten the main base
  
• Extremely powerful late game
  
• Secondest fastest expand rate

Cons:

• Eco extremely vulnerable to harassment
  
• Weak and slow early game and requires a great deal of tech
  
• Slow as heck units
  
• Easily contained

If you want, its fine to skip directly to whatever matchup you seem to have trouble with from here. Alot of these Pros and Cons won't apply unless you have a good understanding of the matchup, so feel free to go read how to play a matchup and then come back after you get a feeling for humans, and this will most likely align with your experiences. If it doesn't, then leave a comment!

Pros and Cons explained:

The humans have by far some of the strongest units in the game. Now you must be wondering, wait no what about the broken shroud units or the extremely efficient beta units? Well what I mean by strong is that our raw stats or potential is higher than the other races. A few examples are Scythes, Howitzers, and Lancers, all extremely powerful units if you can get them out. Our tier one and two are nothing to laugh at either, with the powerful Valients or Tridents that both offer incredible tank to your army. These units combined with our new shiny Teleporter creates a nasty late game combination that no race wants to play against.

The humans also posses the infamous AHS's (anti-heavy sents) which fend off attacks incredibly efficiently and quickly, which when abused you can easily find yourself in a place of advantage, which also allows you to facilitate your other strength, how quick and easy it is to expand. Its not quite Shroud level, but if left unchecked the Humans can go up to crazy amounts of Refineries.

These strengths are offset by glaring weaknesses however. The one that every human player will come to know is how vulnerable our economy is to harassment. Our Harvesters have only 60 health and carry 200 resources each and are slow as heck. Good players will make you cry through the abuse of this, as two damage units or three generic tier 1 can easily shut down the income of one refinery COMPLETELY. Furthermore we're unable to efficiently close the gap between extractors and refineries, so often our harvesters are vulnerable for large swaths of difficult to protect land.

To make this worse, our units are extremely slow, making small enemy hunting groups very very good against humans. Imagine on Mountain pass and you have a bunch of extractors on one of the side fields. Three units come inbetween your extractors and your base, and all of sudden you lose 40~50 income per second. So again, our economy is a huge weakness in our race.

To further emphasize slow, not only are the units themselves slow, but getting out the right tech and the right units takes much longer than the other races. We're by far the slowest when it comes to getting out the units we need past the early/mid stages of the game, and with an easily harassable economy its difficult to get to that stage. And also since our most powerful units are difficult to tech to, its easy to fall behind in the pace of the game where your opponent is able to contain you due to you not being able to get the right units out.

Here are some general tips that you will find handy in every matchup! These are VERY IMPORTANT.

1. Always scout. ALWAYS SCOUT. Never ever go past a minute without seeing the enemy base. You need this to expand properly, as you need to know what units, and how many units he has before determining how many refineries you can squeeze in.

2. Be aggressive when you have more units. The biggest mistake I see players do is have a sizable army, but do nothing with it. This is even worse if the enemy can see you. The simplest trick I use to stomp lower ranked players is a simple moniter, as i just keep track of where the enemy is and expand until he decides to attack. Even if he just takes a minute to say "rally" his units in base and then move out, at that point I've already gotten out three four refs and I can produce on something like 11-12 factories.

3. Feel pressured to expand. As the human, unless you know exactly the weak point of the enemy build, you will most likely want to get to mid/late game before really trying to shut out the game. You want five six refineries at the very least to pump out your high tech monsters with the proper tier 1/2 support, and most often more than that. If you're sitting in base not expanding, either the opponent must be all inning you, or you're doing it wrong.

4. Tech. Never stay on tier one past two refs, and try and get out of tier two as fast as you can. Tier one is revolvers and tridents, which pound for pound are good, but suck against enemy comps like anything Howler, anything Stalker, anything Strider (which is kinda sad honestly) or any enemy artillery. Your tier one units are good, but they're 200 times better under a Valient, and over 9000 times better when protecting a Howitzer or under the vigil of Scythes. Your tier two is very decent, but again you have no access to any AoE which you need against all the other races except potentially Goo.

5. Abuse defenders advantage. When you are defending, units fresh off the production line will join ur army faster than the enemy's. Therefore if you have the same production, you will always have more units than the enemy if you're defending, since ur closer to ur base. You can use this trick to either squeeze in a refinery before building factories and get out units just in time, or to get away with producing slightly less than the opponent. Also abuse bushes and AHS's, as both of those are needed to fight off enemies when you're trying to expand.

This is one of my favourite matchups, as you will be able more epic large army battles than any other matchup in the game!

General Dynamic:

The way this plays out is that generally the human will be pressured by the Beta in the early and mid stages of the game. This is because of two reasons: our economy expands faster than the Beta, and our tier one units are poor against tier one units of the Beta. As the Human you will generally be attacked by some kind of aggressive opener, transitioning into a brief stage where the Beta prepares for another attack, and then if you get past that the game opens to the Human player. *new: Sometimes Beta players will try and greed and expand after the intial aggressive opener, and the Human player can both greed in response or attack.

Major determining factors of the matchup is how well the Human is able to respond to the early and mid aggression of the Beta, primarily how much economic damage he can mitigate, and in the late game properly pressuring the Beta while building up to a critical mass of Human units.

General notes:
In the 200 vs 200 supply matchup our armies tend to be much better (depends on what units), and we also posses the ability to rapidly expand if the Beta is unable to pressure us correctly. These two are key to winning this matchup.

General Builds:

Early Game:
Your opener will largely depend on the map and the opener ur opponent uses.
Beta goes 2 Factory:
This depends on your map. If you have a map where you have 2 10/s refineries on the same spiggot (Barcas or Mountain Pass for example) you may go double ref into one factory, into one turret. Use the turret to protect your double ref and your fine. On maps like Scarred and Barcas you can conduit to ur third spiggot and get very far ahead by expanding with just one extra turret.

On maps where you cannot (Shattered Vale, Coastlands) holding this becomes quite difficult. On Coastlands I definetly recommend responding with 2 factories (never go 2 ref on any of the above mentioned maps) making Revolvers and try and defend using the bushes. This will be difficult, because you need to go on the offensive immediately when the Beta tries to expand. I recommend keeping a scout on the side (away from your and opponents armies) to constantly check opponents base for the expansion timing. After you see the expansion immediately halt unit production and start ur own refineries while sending your main army to attack.

On maps like WIthered Crossroads and Mountain Pass: Twilight you can still hold using double ref into a turret, but this becomes very difficult. On MPT make sure you go for a 8/s refinery really close to your base instead of a second 10/s. Use conduits and teleport micro to hold your defense. For people who aren't that well accustomed to teleport micro, I recommend using two turrets, and then just placing more 8/s on the river where your turrets can hold it. Its an improvised defense, but its something you learn to get accustomed to as you play more.

Beta goes Warbirds:

Use conduits to teleport your refineries as close to your spiggots as you can. This is very easy on maps like Winters Edge and Barcas where all 3 of your early refs are close by. The hardest map would be Coastlands, where normally you would've opened double factory. What I recommend is getting out 6-8 revolvers hide them in a bush NEAR THE ENEMY BASE, and then expand hard. When you see his warbirds over your base, kill his refinery as he shouldnt have many ground units. If you cant do that (say hes playing it safe) then mass expand (go up to 3 refs) and then get out longbows off 1 factory. Coastlands is basically a lost map in my opinion, so you're free to expirement as you wish on this map (even I dont know exactly how to win on that map).

Beta goes Double Refinery:

This is up to you. You may queue up 3 refs and then transition into mid game (next part) or you may immediately go into double factory. Roll out revolvers and kill him. Note: DOUBLE FACTORY DOES NOT WORK ON MOST CROSS SPAWNS AND WINTERS EDGE. I tend to favor ecoing in response, but this choice is definetly up to you. However, do not go this build if you scout late for whatever reason, and you decided to open with double refinery. Your units will be a little too slow.

Remember, the key is to get to 3 refs without taking damage. Using units in this early junction will almost never work, as Commandos are just a little too cost efficient against Revolver/Trident. The only time you'd do so is when you 2 factory.

Also remember~ Don't be bound by builds! Play your style! Just know the overall objective: Get ahead in refineries without taking significant damage!

Mid game:
Mid game is reached after the initial attack by the Beta is over, or when you reach 3 refineries. It is EXTREMELY important to scout at this phase. Generally the moment you see the Beta stop pressuring you, you should send at least one unit into the enemy base, as you need to see what the Beta is trying to do to respond correctly.

If you see the Beta going for his 4th refinery (or even more possibly) you are free to expand after getting out enough units to fight what he currently has. Generally what happens for the Beta is that they will expand during their original attack, and by the time you scout them they will have either 3 refineries and they're getting out factories, or they will go up to 4 refineries and then begin making factories. If you see three refineries and no signs of more refineries, get up to five factories with a tank and an air attachment and get out 3 tridents/1 valient/1 gladii at a time, after getting out a Moniter. Use the moniter to judge how many units you will need, and to see if hes actually going to follow up on aggression or those factories are just there to be safe. If he gets out no units at all, you can actually just kill him with what you have if you continue producing and move out immediately. Normally he'll have more units than you and so you'll be on defense trying to squeeze in units AND a fourth refinery.

If hes expanding after the factories or is going up to four refineries, depending on the size of ur armies and maps you can go up to five refineries or even six. I tend to get out a very early moniter, so I can get away with being greedy as I can see exactly where the Beta army is. Even if it is larger than mine, I will continue to expand until he shows a sign of moving out, or unless that army size is getting a little ridiculous. The general goal is to at LEAST catch up in refineries, and eventually get to the magic number of 6 refineries. It is important to BE PROACTIVE WITH YOUR DEFENSE, putting your army in good bushes to maximize their effect against the Beta. A poor engagement will lose you the game, and engaging with not enough Valients or just general units will also do so. Not engaging if your opponent is playing greedy is another loss condition. Sometimes offense is the key to defense, sometimes defense is.. well the key to defense.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ATTACK IF HES NOT PRODUCING UNITS You will fall behind if you made a decent amount of units, only to discover he went straight refineries. Go into his face, and beat up his refineries, all the while expanding behind your attack.

After finishing your 6th refinery, get out your large factory.

Summary for Mid Game:
1. Scout and read how aggressive your opponent is.
2. Expand as much as you can according to your opponent.
Enemy making no units = you attack while building many refs,
3 ref factories = you build enough units to defend then expand(generally 4 fact into 4th ref),
4 ref factories expand once and then either attack if he builds more refs or expand and defend if he makes units (generally 4-5 refs depending on map size into 5 fact and large)
3. Get up to six refineries with a large factory.

Late Game:
After you hit six refineries, you need a large factory. Using your large factory you produce 3 scythes at a time, while going for the air repair upgrade. The goal of this Scythe style is to get to a critical mass of scythes. This means, DONT TRADE THEM. EVER. This is an extremely micro heavy style but is by far the most efficient, and it revovles around taking good shots at the enemy and taking map control.

ABUSE YOUR REPAIR UPGRADE. You can engage anti air units all you want, as long as you kill them but not lose your scythes. They can take all the damage they want, BUT DONT LET THEM DIE. Your scythes have the potential to be unmeasurably cost efficient, but also can easily lose you the game if you dont baby them early on. They're expensive, take long ass time to build, and are weak in small numbers. Once you get up to 6 scythes, you want to try and sneak in a few refineries, because at this point your ground army supported by the scythes should be able to at least occupy the Beta army. The goal here is to try and keep his attention on defending his refineries around the map, all the while halting some of ur ground production to sneak in 1-2 refineries. After you sneak them in, continue production of scythes. Once you get up to 9-12 scythes you can actually straight up kill refineries. However, its more important to secure the map, and get more refineries going until you can make another large, and make Howitzers out of them. With Howitzers and Scythes, your army is unbeatable as long as its similar in size to the Beta army.


Summary for Late Game:
1. Baby them and get up to a critical mass (15 is a good number before you can really start winning)
2. Use them to sneak in refineries (air units can show up anywhere, keeping the Beta on the defensive and away from where you might expand)
3. Get out Howitzers to make your ground army competitive, and at this point you will of reached critical mass. Your army is now unstoppable, so go and crush him.

Ahh the Goo, how far they have fallen since their nerf.

General Dynamic:

Goo vs Human is an intense fight starting from the very moment u start the game. There is no matchup quite as sensitive as this one, where literally if you mismicro and mismacro a little the Goo will get quite a ways ahead. However it is the same vice versa, if the Goo misread you and misses an opportunity to attack, you can easily crush a Goo player.

General Build:
Its difficult to write a good "general build" against Goo, as this matchup is extremely reactive. Instead, I will be giving you goals to hit, tips for certain stages of the game, and different methods dealing with the strategies I see the most.

Early Game:

Its up to your experience to figure out whether or not you can 2 ref a map or not against Goo. I highly recommend against going 2 ref against a player who is higher ranked than you, unless you really know what you're doing. A general rule of thumb is that if the first two refs cannot be placed on the same spiggot, you cannot 2 ref that map.

Your goal early game is to get to 3 refs while staying even with the Goo. To start, find and harass the enemy mother with your scout and if lucky force a small protean. Watch replays of pros or your opponent to see what path they go on whatever map, and then try to deal as much damage as possible with your scout. You want to keep the Goo behind, and any damage with your trident will actually delay them by quite a bit.

On most openers you will go factory into 2 ref, differing amount of units depending on how far your second spiggot is. I honestly cannot tell you what to do on Coastlands however, as that distance is so freaking long you might as well concede, but I tend to go for a revolver and a trident MAX before trying to sneak in a 2nd ref. If your opponent is known for being aggressive, or his mother is near your 2nd spiggot/3rd spiggot, then you might even go up to 4-5 units before putting down 2nd ref. However, you must know that any units you have on the map MUST BE ACTIVE AND EITHER HARASSING OR DENYING ENEMY MOTHER GOO. Else you will fall behind in eco, which is really ugly trust me.

After hitting 2 ref the immediate goal is to secure your 3rd. You must judge from how many smalls the opponent has made, and the location of the mothers, how many units you need for your 3rd ref. If hes made no smalls, the units you made at the start should be enough. If hes made just enough to defend, judge by looking at how close his moms are. If hes made alot of proteans, it'd be wise to get out 4 factories with an air attachment, and use the Moniter to see how aggressive your opponent is.

GOAL: GET TO THREE REFINERIES AS FAST AS YOU CAN WHILE KEEPING GOO DOWN
Note: Alot of games I end up making one revolver out of my first factory and then going straight into 3 ref. Only do this if you know what what to avoid and you deny his scout.

3 ref is the mid game goal. Once you reach this stage, go immediately into 5 ref with a tank and an air attachment. Get out one moniter, and have one factory produce Valients, the other Gladii, and the three rest produce revolvers. Be aggressive. At this point most Goos will be at 4 mothers, and if you try to eco, they will hit 8 mothers by the time you hit 5, and then they will aggressively contain and destroy you. This is why its important to be aggressive, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR MONITER SPOTS HIS MOTHERS SPLITTING. If you see a mother split, pressure that side of the map. You will have more units than him, and Valients make skirmishes incredibly favourable to your side. Aggress him on multiple fronts, harass his mother goo down. If you do this correctly, most Goo will actually just die to this attack.

However, in the case that you end up stalling your attack (both sides end up stalemating around some choke or bush), I recommend halting producing for just a bit to squeeze in one or even two refineries. Squeeze one in if its super tight and the opponent hasn't split, and squeeze in two if your macro really messed up. Then add four factories, and 2 artillery and a stealth attachment. Get out a dagger if the stalemate is near a bush, and start Howitzer production. You will need Howizters dealing with any Goo force supported by more than 5 mothers. At this point you will need to aggress again, abusing your new edge by having artillery. If you've been attacking correctly with 3 ref, the Goo wouldn't of been able to save up for Crescents. Use your Howizter(s) to end the stalemate and be aggressive.

If somehow he still pauses your attack, I recommend stalling production of everything but the Howitzer and adding 2 more refineries, and then adding four more factories and a tank attachment. Start double Gladii production and double Howitzer production, except this time you are allowed to defend. Take up good spots with your artillery and Valients, and then add more and more refineries and production. The Goo is capped at 11 mother goo, while theres is no limit to how many refineries/factories you may have. Play defensive until you are able to completely out produce your opponent, however always scout to make sure he doesn't grow an Epic on you.

Hello hello and welcome to the game of hersey where you try to kill your comrades!
Despite that dark introduction this is actually a very fun but also very swingy matchup, as most mirrors are.

General Dynamic:

This matchup will feel VERY different from your traditional games, so be prepared. This matchup can be basically summed up in the following:

Mass Eco
Teleporter + Laser Lancers
Alpha
Scythes

Yes, basically this is the matchup. The rational behind this is because human units are so slow and getting out anti air is very difficult, making it overall inefficient to aggress your opponent with a ground army. Human's natural efficiency at defence and its inefficiency at offence tends to make early aggression pretty poor.

Early Game:

The early game for this matchup is of two branches: 2 fact or eco heaven. This depends on two things: How many refs can you protect using a turret and the distance between your two bases. Close spawns on Morra would be one example where going 2 fact is viable, however I haven't played much on the new map pool so I can't give you a definite yes/no. However, general rule is that be very careful on close spawns, but most of these maps are not conductive to 2 fact.
When you are 2 facting, be aware that this is all in. You either devastate your opponent completely or you fall behind and lose. There are very few cases where both players transition into a normal game after a held two fact.

On all the other maps, you usually end up just mass ecoing. I tend to go 3 ref into 1 factory, refs while building attachments all the while. Its important to always scout so you dont get cheesed by some random push. If you get pushed, build 1 ref more than what they have, and then go up to that amount of refs (3 ref 5 fac, 4 ref 7 fac, etc.) unless your large factory is almost done. (Btw if you get to 5-6 refs without the opponent doing anything just go double large factory).

While you're ecoing, you need to make a decision. What tech shall I go? You have three real choices: Scythes, Lancers, or both.

Scythes means making 6 scythes at a time and taking control of the map. Deny your opponent expansions using a small ground army (like 3-4 revolvers to kill harvs) and use scythes to keep your opponent out of your base and stuck in his. Careful about opponent lancers, as if you dont deny the moniter, you will need ALOT OF TURRETS/GROUND to hold it. I usually recommend going scythes if your opponent isn't going lancers and you dont like the pressure of lancers yourself; if he doesnt know what hes doing and making a bunch of ground unit and attacking, or if hes massing scythes.

Lancers means making 6 lancers and a teleporter, (usually do this on 5-6 ref) rushing your opponent by teleporting them into ur opponents base and sniping the core. This strategy is decent, as it catches most people off guard and even those who know its coming its hard to hold. If your opponent is like DEFEEEENCE and has conduits/turrets up the wazzu then just mass expand and transition into scythes (switch out attachments on ur larges). When an opening appears LATER in the game, just teleport them in and win anyway. Careful with this strategy, as its vulnerable to losing to early aggression. You have almost no money/room to make units, and lancers are dead weight if they arent killing the opponents core. Make sure you scout with a moniter and ensure hes not aggressing you.

BOTH. My favourite. One large is scythes, one large is lancers. I do this against people who know what they're doing, as they tend to not die to lancer rushes and it defends from early aggro. After getting 6 lancers into the teleporter I switch out attachments and transition into scythes. Use the 3 scythes to gain vision and control. If your opponent goes 6 scythes, almost always you can find a window to land your lancers. If hes making a bunch of defences, just expand alot and get ahead in eco. If your opponent goes lancers, get out base defences and threaten him back with your own lancers. Again, if he goes lancers he should have very little base defence, and you'll be super ahead in the scythe war so play the long game if you dont find a window.

REMEMBER, ALWAYS SCOUT FOR LANCERS, ALWAYS EXPAND IF YOUR OPPONENT IS DEFENDING. Most of my games against players my level end up 20~30 minutes long, with each player going up to 10-20 refs, as its a constant scythe war with both players threatening to drop lancers if the other player makes a mistake in defence.

*NOTE: If you go up to 11 refs or so, add an alpha. My advice. Usually when you have 110~130 income -35 income isnt that big a deal, and its a huge insurance for the late game as your alpha is relatively early, and if you're following this guide you have either a massive cloud of scythes controlling the map or a lesser cloud of scythes defending while you threaten lancers.

This is like marathoning up a 45 degree incline for six years straight. Thats actually how it feels playing this matchup, as your opponent has better units, better eco, better early game, better mid game, better pretty much everything except super late game.

General Dynamic:

You're in trouble. You need to be way ahead in refs in order to just KEEP UP with the Shroud, as their economy is MASSIVELY faster than ours. If we're both on 5 refs the Shroud will be something like 2000~ ahead of you, which is no small deal at all. Some maps are basically instant losses (Coastlands, Shattered Vale, Withered Crossroads) and the other maps are hard at best.

You need to be greedy. Greedy as hell. As greedy as this game allows you to be. Why? Because you have zero pressure on your opponent. Revolvers simply dont work against 6 armor units, and the refineries are 6 armor for Shroud (haha yay), so you cant harass the opponents eco. Their buildings are hard as hell to kill and only cost 200, so going for production is a no as well. The only answer? Defend and eco the ♥♥♥♥ up. Our ONLY saving grace is that our 200/200 army is much stronger than their 200/200 army, as their population is relatively inefficient (5 pop on tier2/3 units).

Be prepared for a long and grueling game if your opponent knows what hes doing.

Early Game:
4 refs before anything. The only exception to this is if your opponent is going for some kind of ridiculous cheese like 1 ref advent rush or 2 ref advent rush, hen just make revolvers and then eco.

Mid Game:
Holding off the Shroud mid game hit. The Shroud possess two insane tier one units: The howler that will blow up your armies without taking damage, and the clasher that is your revolver DPS fused into a trident, now only with more health and more DPS than both for LESS COST. FIghting them tier 1 vs tier 1 is asking to lose. You want to make as little as possible to hold off his attack, since if you have anything left over, YOU CANT ATTACK WITH THEM. (or you can but they do nothing so its the same).

I recommend going 5 factories with a tank and air attachment to get out moniters valients and revolvers. Hold off the attack, and then ECONOMY THE HECK YOU CAN. Stop at around 2~3 refs ahead of ur opponent.

Holding his next attack is tricky af as well. Since you ecoed so hard, you'll need some combination of luck, bushes, pushed up turrets and your opponent playing wrong. Get out two larges, and start rolling out Howitzers out of them. Get the heal upgrade, stop making revolvers and make trident/Gladii, (add tank attachments to all your smalls), and start massing an army with Howizter/Gladii. Make less tridents and more Gladii the more Klaxons you see. If no Klaxons, dont make Gladii just tridents. Baby the heck out of your Howitzers, PROTECT THEM WITH YOUR VALIENTS AND TRIDENTS.

ALWAYS SCOUT: Zenith cheese
You need AA to prevent ur Core from dying to some random Shrieks in the mid game. I usually add two AA sentinels after im on 5-6 refs just because sometimes the Shroud player will hide a few Shrieks and then get an easy win.

Late Game:

If you have successfully amassed a ball of Howitzers, and is even/ahead in refineries, you've done a spectacular job. Good job you. Now things get .. slightly easier. Push out with your army, and expand up to 12-15 refineries. Add an Alpha. Control the middle of the map, and slowly inch towards the Shroud, removing his extractors along the way. Take it slow, killing Advents is basically a wasted effort, so almost always you end up using the Alpha to end the game.

Once the alpha is out, add/switch attachments to make Scythes. Use the alpha to clear out sirens and use the Scythes to protect the Alpha. If your opponent gets up to a Dirge, run the heck your ground units away and use the Alpha and Scythes to kill it.

Trick: Run the Alpha point blank against the Dirge, and just let the automatic pulsar beam slowly kill the dirge. Use the Alpha to kill off any Siren escorts and then bring in your Scythes.
Playing the late game is significantly easier, just be careful that the map may dry up (especially Winters Edge, Shattered Vale)