EPTI think it’s safe to say the average TL.netter that has been around since brood war experienced SC2 laddering the same way. Keeping in mind I’m assuming average is high D low D+ (I was about C-) Brood War skill. I’m sure all the really talented players had a completely different experience, but this is what happened to me.
I hear about it
“Oh here’s this new game, of course it won’t match up to brood war, but I think it’s important that I’m better than all of my friends at it.”
I see it
“Sure those graphics are fancy, but technology has nothing to do with depth and gameplay.”
I try it
“Wow now that I don’t have to split my probes or hotkey all of my production facilities separately the noobs are going to catch up to me much faster, I’d better not let this effect my brood war play”
I give in and buy it
“Hot diggity! With many Warcraft 3, WoW and FPS players, I should be at the top in no time!”
Climbing the ladder
“This isn’t too bad. Between Day[9] dailies, SC2reps.net and Liquipedia2 I should be a straight shooter to the top, not to mention all the weak Warcraft 3, WoW and FPS players trying their hand at SC2”
By this point I had begun the transition to becoming a complete Starcraft 2 player. I was so proud of the success I never experienced in brood war (success to me is being in diamond whereas in brood war I was one of a million D/C level players) that I gave up brood war altogether and concentrated on this newer, flashier version of the blizzard game I had wasted so many hours upon.
One day, I saw myself hit diamond. It was a very exciting day for me. I knew that most of Teamliquid was already at diamond, but I thought since I got there in under 15 games I must be some sort of prodigy, the next great unknown player. It took me a few weeks to work my way up to around 1000, points. And this whole time I was losing games, but it was never more than 1-2 games in a row and I would always be able to realize why I lost and learn from it.
Then this happened:
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![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/fzFnR.jpg)
I minor setback I suppose. But it was my first losing streak. Losing streaks tend to have a strong negative psychological influence on me. Instead of doing the smart thing and finding out why I lost, I came to the quick conclusion that void ray rushes are overpowered and that I need to just keep playing so I can get back to where I used to be.
This is an example of me approaching the ladder like some people do a casino.
“Hey, the ladder took 50 of my points! I’m staying here and playing more games for sure until I get them back”
Of course this is not at all the correct way to approach such a thing. Any veteran poker player will tell you if you let your emotions get the best of you, you can end up losing a lot of money. Which (on the ladder) is what happened to me right after this.
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![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/MGB0G.jpg)
As an accounting major all that red really made my knees weak.You’d think maybe I was just above my level, and that players around 1000 points were too much for me to handle. But when the games you’re losing go from this:
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![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/rKk4J.jpg)
To this:
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![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/XLVuj.jpg)
It’s not them, its you.
My solution:
Step 0: STOP PLAYING.
I was digging myself into a hole that would only get deeper if I didn’t take a step back
Step 1: Find the errors.
I went about this by reviewing my replays and finding all the points where the games went south, and why.
Was it my mechanics? No. I was keeping my money consistently under 1000
Was it my unit composition? No. I never lost because my unit composition was countered
Was it my underlying fundamental strategy? Yes.
What was wrong with it? I didn’t have any.
I realized what I had done to get so high on this ladder is copy the openings of big players, do what I saw them doing and win the same way they win. What major weakness does this strategy have? It’s not certain that I will realize why they chose those builds, and what those builds were working towards. Day[9] cited the importance of having and end-game plan. And I really didn’t have anything like that for any of the three matchups I was playing, all I had were tricks and openings that could be stopped or countered.
Step 2: correct the errors.
I realized by this point that I could never be a QXC or a TLO, but you might think I wanted to be with all the strange openings I was playing. As much as I love those two players I deleted all their replays from my database so I could focus on players with simpler (but for someone like me more effective) gameplay.
I had to stop thinking of myself as a –good- player and accept that I had some very basic errors with my gameplay that could be corrected. At this time I found these threads a huge help
Self-Improvement by Chill
Basic advice for people asking for help
Ver's guide to self-improvement, which is the only one of these three which I hadn't seen before. And I'm worried a lot of others missed it as well
Sure I was familiar with most of these concepts. But was I applying them? Not at all.
Not worrying about 250 apm and unit counters anymore, I began playing in a whole different way. No more 5 rax reaper, no more all-in pushes. I was determined to become a better overall player. And it is starting to work
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![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/gikUO.jpg)
Sure I just lost a game, but it wasn’t because my all-in push failed, it wasn’t because I was way behind in money or units. I mismicroed, and as frustrating as that is that will happen, and I just have to accept it. It's much better than knowing I had no chance at all to win that game.
Many people above my level will find this information irrelevant, but I want those who are maybe new and never slumped before to save themselves a lot of pain by stepping away from the game and reorganizing their play.
This mini slump resulted in me missing a day of class, getting sick and getting a black eye. All three of those things being unrelated. Don't let it happen to you.
