EPT
Today, I played 40 ladder games. I woke up around 9, got on battlenet, started playing, said goodbye to Temporal as he went off to work, and finished my 40th game just as he got back. 29 wins, 11 losses.
It was worth it, though, because now I'm platinum ^^. I'm division rank 2, 1870 points.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/FoOvN.jpg)
I guess I know what it feels like to be "in the zone," now. I was calm, and confident, and my fingers flew across the keys and moved the mouse like it was something I was born to do. It felt like flying. Game after game, opponent after opponent (especially zerg after zerg), there was a flow and a harmony to the unfolding drama on each battlefield that felt natural. I eliminated possibilities, calculated the merits of expanding versus building production facilities, turned on a dime as new information presented itself - all in the blink of an eye. Even when I was 6pooled, cannon rushed, bunker rushed, or proxy gated, I felt at peace (although, by and large, I didn't win in those situations).
At the beginning of the day, I was ranked 13th in my division. I started the day off with a loss to an 8pool, struggling a bit against mass banshees shortly after, but then things began to pick up. I hovered around rank 9-10-11 for about 10 games, then leaped up to rank 5 after a trying TvT on Lost Temple. I kept climbing for about 9 more games, dropping one after my mouse started spazzing out, and then I hit rank 1 in the division. I felt like I was on the verge of rebirth - like I was on the edge of enlightenment. Platinum, I knew, was just around the corner.
Then I played 20 more games.
After my mouse spazzed, I went on a 14-game win streak where I grew more and more impatient after every "gg" (or lack thereof).
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/zehui.jpg)
Kaiz and another friend told me that I had to lose a game in order for the system to properly place me. Well, all right, I said, and kept going. I lost a game, and then another ... and noticed after the games that my opponents had been 1500+ diamond ... and wondered what was going on. My confusion subtly amplified my feeling in those games of the situation slipping away from me - a sinking feeling where I was clawing tooth and nail for any kind of advantage, but ultimately could not compete with the skill of my opponents.
I won two more games, and also noticed that they were against diamond level players. Kaiz was just as puzzled as I was, but we figured it was at least a cool story - how many gold leaguers get to play diamonds on ladder?
I lost three more and was ready to call it a night after the score screen of the final game brought me no epiphanies. I counted up the day's games on my scratch paper: 39. 39 seemed like such a unsatisfying number to end on. "One more," I told Kaiz, "and then I'm calling it a day."
The map was Steppes of War, and my opponent a Zerg named Vinco. He made the mistake of taking an early expo. I heard the apartment door open (irl) and Temporal came in. I danced through the poetry of polygons and programming and brought the hammer down with a marine-marauder timing attack. My opponent gg'd, and I took off my headset, ready to throw in the towel. The screen went dark, and I saw the light of my new league.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/L9Yih.jpg)
I think I'll take a couple days off (for work and real life stuff) before I start training seriously again. With a little more work, I know I'll get into diamond - even if it takes me another 20 games at rank 1 to do it.
Thanks very much to everyone who's supported me and offered me advice, practice partnering, build ideas, and more. We're almost there! Special thanks, as always, to Kaiz.
Shoutout to Temporal and his serendipitous entrance in my moment of triumph.
you're diamond in all but name now! peanut hwaiting.
