EPTIt took me quite a while — almost exactly two months, in fact. My time in silver was tumultuous. I would do well overall, beating golds and silvers with only occasional losses, and then I would hit these horrible losing streaks, losing like five to ten games in a row, after which I would be placed against only silvers and bronzes. Luckily, I never lost to any bronze players, but then I would move up to playing against golds again, do okay for a little bit, and then hit another rut.
Finally over the past two days I had done well and was pitted against “slightly favored” and “favored” players for about six games in a row. I actually won all of these, so I had a feeling I was getting closer to gold, and sure enough, after the sixth of these games I made it. What makes it even more rewarding is that the match that got me gold was a ZvP (I was Zerg), which can be the most frustrating match-up of them all. I’ve since played only two games, one of which I won.
I will say that there was one major realization that I believe was invaluable in helping me move up. I heard about Destiny’s attempt to get to platinum by making only queens, his goal being to prove that mechanics, at the lower levels, outweigh build orders, micro, and strategy. I watched a few of these matches and realized just how important it is to focus on simple things like constant unit/probe production and solid macro. This helped immensely. I still hit big ruts while in this mindset, but almost all of my losses were due to dumb mistakes, like not applying pressure, allowing Protoss players to hit me with maxed out armies, and expanding at ridiculous times. If you produce units constantly and keep pressure going, there is very little that lower level players (and I would probably define “lower” here as below platinum) will be able to do to beat you. Of course, to many this will be an obvious statement. But if you’re in a position like I was, check out Destiny’s mass queen videos to see just how important mechanics are (one caveat, though: He seems to have quit this strategy, so I don’t know if that means it didn’t work quite as well as he thought or if he simply got tired of doing it).
And thanks for any commenters who have left advice as well. It really has been helpful.
I hope to post another video early-ish next week. I know they’ve been slow coming lately. Maybe I’ll post a win this time. I think I’m on to an interesting TvT strat. We’ll see…
