Strategy guides will sometimes get a bad wrap from some gamers. When I worked in a video game retail store we had a lot of midnight releases and tournaments. During this time the staff would bring out the game to be released and the strategy guide for it. The general consensus was that guides were for "newbs". Then one of two things happened after the crowd claimed they were for "newbs" and swore they would never buy one:
1) One person in the crowd would speak out that they love strategy guides because they are fun to read when you are not playing the game or say that they actually help you. Then everyone would slowly agree they are helpful and buy one.
2) I would see the same gamers from the night before come into the store the very next day after the crowd was gone and they would buy the guide then so that the crowd didn't tell them they were a "newb".
Whether or not you believe you are a hardcore gamer or not, a StarCraft 2 strategy guide is going to be useful to you. They can help you find new techniques to take down your enemies with ease.
Most StarCraft 2 guides give a breakdown of each race and give the strong points and also what weaknesses they may have to the other races. These guides are also full of all of the maps and can show you some of the best spots to wage war with your enemy and which places might be a bad idea depending on who gets the jump on the other person.