EPTAnother part of my blog. Besides of me being busy, I thought I'd share this piece with you. Some people may, again, find some use for it. Basicaly, I decided to try to take lesson from Ryan Rushia - maybe some people know him and those who do not, well this may give you a glimpse what kind of person he is.
Me and Ryan spoke for quite a while before the actual lesson. He was quite easy to talk with, coming forward, being honest and open. This kind of helped with my typical anxiety when it comes to dealing with people over skype. (You know, my accent, and all that... lol) So, after we spoke about things like StarCraft and introduced ourselves a bit, I had a first session with him. We did close to two hours.
(the rest of the lesson links in spoilers)
+ Show Spoiler +
The session summary
Well, the main purpose of the session was for Ryan to get to see me playing, so he'd be able to pick up strenghts and weaknesses of my gameplay so we could build on these in our next sessions. So, he had me to play a Bronze Terran first. The first game, he didn't say anything and just observed; but after the game ended, we went over the replay together and he began picking stuff apart, to explain what the issues were, but also, commented on what parts of my gameplay were good. It was kind of refreshing to listen to Ryan, who could pick my game apart. Although, I bet it'd give him more flaws if I actually lost the game, I bet.
Ryan told me to focus more on keeping my money low for the next game.
He had me to play the guy once more - This time, he went for an earlier agression and this is where I kind of panicked (for no good reason, as Ryan pointed out after the game)., but held off the early push. My Terran opponent tried it again, I tried to macro up, still kinda thrown off by the fear that he'd come again. Yes, I forgot to use my observer in his base for the most part again, Ryan had to remind me few times to make use of my observer. Guess it's one of these fundamental flaws I have; not using my scout enough. Blasted bad memory, where in the middle of million things I'm doing in SC2, I forget about the small bugger in my opponent's base!
Needless to be said I managed to beat the guy again; and Ryan went through the replay with me again. I was really focusing on keeping my money low, especially when I was on more bases, as it always seemed quite hard for me - as my friend Lazy Macro aka Bitters says, that my macro divebombs once my third kicks in. The thing I often forget is to simply make more production structures or perhaps even multiple upgrades at time, which would help the problem. Should focus on that.
After that, it was PvP time. Yes, I kinda shared my dislike for the matchup. Blerghhhh, PvP. Cheese. I'm cringing. Ryan made sure the guy wouldn't cheese me. He also had some weird comments in the game afterwards, to find out he decided to 2Gate me and I died a horrible death, on the verge of nerd rage. Right, Ryan said it was a loss due to bad scouting...and of course, he was right. Damn scouting messing with my head. Still can't do it right, eh?
Ryan picked another guy for me to play, a real life friend of his, assuring me he'd play 'standard'. Well, it may sound lame, but I kinda didn't want people to cheese me during my coaching session. But, looking just far into the future, maybe I should've address the cheese problem a bit. Alas, let's not get too ahead. His real life friend was also a Protoss player and Ryan did the mistake of telling me he's a Gold player. Admittedly, I was on the verge of.. erm, sh*tting my pants and my mindset turned into 'Oh my god, I'll die a horrible death'. It's a habit... <.<
Calming down, we proceeded on the game, me trying to focus, but still having technical difficulties, where it simply wouldn't allow me to add more than one nexus into my usual control group. I blame the recording and Fraps for that, bohooo!
Ryan again kind of stayed in the background during this game, only giving me small hints hints in the back of my mind. Not intrusive at all and I liked that. I was kinda trying to use my observer more in this game, as per Ryan asked me, but it began to slip as the game progressed. Really, most players have no idea how overwhelming the game is and how easy is to forget a thing or two in the middle of this chaos.
The Protoss guy played standard 'Colossi wars' in the similar fashion as I did. Well, at least it had put me to a test, when it comes to my macro... too bad I had these technical difficulties, heh. I was in the middle of flying my observer, being unable to find my opponent's army...this is where Ryan gently pointed out to check the minimap and whoops, I saw some yellow dots ruining these Xel'Naga colours. I checked and saw the bulk of the opponent's army. Wheee, I freaked out and was like 'Will try to kill you before you kill me!' in my mind and proceeded to attack. Trying hard to not cover the eyes (lol, that's a joke, you know, I wasn't covering my eyes xD), I threw some forcefields to cut off his army and went on, trying to survive. To my surprise, his army vanished, while mine stayed. (Usually the exact opposite happens to me, I swear!) and Ryan explained that when someone kills off a whole Protoss army, this is when it's good time to counter attack. I kind of hesitated, trying to warp in more stuff. But, Ryan told me to go and not to hesitate; in a very funny way.. heh. So, moving my army I went on to take out my opponent's bases or at least try to.
This is where another panic moment ensued - His army was basically down but then, I heard the familiar, infamous DT sound. Now, I did have an observer out there, quite nearby in fact, but as I was too occupied with macroing and attacking, I completelly forget about my observer. Ryan reminded me, so soon, I had the observer with my army and taking on his DT's, with 'GG' coming from my opponent. In all honesty, I was so surprised with myself after this game...
The challenge!
After we concluded the first lesson, Ryan presented me with quite a bold challenge. Basically; 'Get to Silver by next week, untill our next session'. My facial expression was that of a o_O in all honesty. I mean, it is quite challenging. But, I said I'd do my best. Ryan had quite reasonable reasoning behind this challenge and for once, I, the stubborn foo has to listen to the voice of reason. So, my challenge is to get to Silver till Friday. Ride on!
Epilogue
Well well, tried to play ladder last night a bit, with my US account. What did I get?
First game, there was a Terran and when I saw that weird portrait which you get for 1000 wins with each race, I was almost sure something weird would be coming, like worker rush or something like that. I was right. The guy tried to bunker rush me. Now, I did manage to beat that, although, I was so thrown off and unable to react fast enough, so he rolled me over, insulting me across the game, how big of a noob I am. When I checked his profile?
![[image loading]](http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/hs056.snc6/168668_10150131051141419_722731418_7805326_7118136_n.jpg)
His recent match history was obvious as well. I faced a Diamond, possible a Master guy, who just dropped his account into Bronze to stomp on people like me. And, BM'ing as well. Of course, I felt like crap afterwards. Regardless, I took small break to cool down and hit the 'Find Match' Button again.
PvP on Shakuras. Well, shakuras is normally a macro map, so I hoped it'd be nice game. It wasn't. I scouted a Forge in his base, my 'Cheese alert' went immediatelly high and I went to check my base for Probes and opponent's pylons. He was in the middle of having one going up, so I tried to kill it. And another... send more probes to kill it. But, it wasn't ending and I panicked. I had no idea what to do. Lost me the game.
You see.. what is an irony is, out of 8 losses I have on my US account, 7 were to cheese. I see an issue here and I really have to learn to deal with this crap, or I'm not moving anywhere. Felt like crap, went to bed...in hopes there would be better day. But really, I should probably learn how to fend off the various cheese tactics, so next time I know what to do, without me necessarily panicking and that losing me the games...something I'll have to address more directly.
Right now, my only fear I have from laddering is frankly, people cheesing me. It kills me down, I get frustrated when losing to this. Hence why, the root of the problem - namely me need to learn how to react so I know and don't panic - needs to be addressed. Oh well... guess it'll be anti-cheese session next time, eh?
