Let me preface this post by saying that I've been an avid Starcraft fan since I was 11 years-old (20 now). My friend introduced me to the game in the 4th grade and a group of us would get online, load up the most basic map, and run 2v2 over and over. A few years later, I would discover the wonders of Fastest Map Possible and BGH, which ruined any chance I had to play the game competitively. I was aware of the competitive scene in Korea, but I was too busy with my FMP and UMS games to take too much notice. For that, I am a sad panda.
Fast-forward a few years to the announcement of SC2 and its beta phase. Being the huge nerd that I am, I snatch up one of the first beta keys and reintroduced myself to the world of Starcraft. I played as much as school and work would allow, and on the night of July 26, 2010, I set out for my local Gamestop to attend the midnight release of Starcraft 2 to be first in line to get my copy. Since release, I've been having a blast with the game. I worked hard at improving, soaking up all available content and my play showed it. I was promoted quickly through the leagues, eventually reaching Diamond (this was before Masters was released). But I slowly started to realize, that something wasn't quite right.
A few months ago, I started to grow somewhat bored with Starcraft 2. Instead of tuning into the latest GosuCup, or Day9 Daily, I started going straight for the current SPL/MSL/OSL match. My first OSL experience was watching Fantasy, as the underdog, tear his way through the brackets to defeat Stork in the finals. I shared in SKT/Khan fans' happiness and sadness. I tried to catch every Oz Proleague match just to root for my all-time favorite player, a struggling Jaedong.
Now I'm not going to go into it much here, but I suppose I was slowly realizing what made Brood War great, and at the same time, what Starcraft 2 was lacking. It finally dawned on me that it was time that I revisited an old friend.
Now, months later, I've set off on my journey to reach an iCCup rank of C-, a daunting task to say the least. I've been struggling with Brood War's clunky mechanics, but that has only made me more determined to improve. With every passing game, I can feel myself getting a better grasp of how to control my units, and how to execute strategies I've seen performed by Bisu, Stork, and Kal countless times in VODs. My PvT is (relatively) decent, and my PvZ is lacking, so I dropped down to D-, but clawed my way back into the D range just tonight and I've been loving every minute of it.
A replay from today that, although I see many, many, many (can't emphasize this enough) mistakes, I'm somewhat proud of. http://www.iccup.com/replays/287975.html (Check it out and give critiques/criticism if you have time! ^^)
I didn't create this blog to bash SC2, or imply anything without meaning to. I'm just letting the netizens of TL know that there's now one more avid Brood War fan struggling to work his way out of D rank, and tuning into every SPL/SWL/MSL/OSL match to cheer alongside you grizzled vets.
Thank you for reading and sorry for the length. ![](/mirror/smilies/smile.gif)
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I feel the same way. Brood War just feels more satisfying to me for some reason. Also, I skimmed your replay, and you just need to work on gaining two basic habits:
First, get in the habit of thinking about production every time you're controlling units. After a while, you'll start to feel compelled to leave a battle as soon as possible to make stuff. This results in not over-microing, and having very good production.
Second, you need to be in the habit of thinking about your supply and increasing your expenses every time you make units. So, you just clicked some Gateways and made some Dragoons and Zealots. If you're in the habit of considering the stuff at the top right of your screen every time you build units, then you'll also notice that building those Dragoons and Zealots put you at say 76/80 Supply. Time for a Pylon! Also, you notice that even though you're making full use of your production buildings, you still manage to have 500 minerals and 200 gas. That means your worker production has caused your income to exceed your expenses. Get them back in balance by building another Gateway or throwing down a Forge. If you don't have this habit, then you end up getting supply capped often, and end each match (win or lose) with thousands of resources. It's not harder to build from 7 Gateways than from 3, it's just that you need to actually think of building the extra 4. This habit does that for you.
With those two habits, you can easily cruise to C- with only Gateway units and some Observers. Just look at your replay there (I just threw it on x16 and watched your production), you had like 4k minerals and 2k gas or something, and yet you still stomped that Terran flat. With better worker production and a few more expansions, that could have been 8k minerals and 4k gas left over! Or even better, a 200/200 Dragoon/Zealot army with some Observers. You don't need any strategy as Protoss to destroy your way to C-, and even C. Just get those two habits, because seriously while laddering up I only start to feel that my wins are from strategy when I get to around C+. Every win up to then is just out producing my opponent.
It goes like this:
1. Get good macro habits (important ones mentioned above), so that you produce a lot.
2. Get better macro mechanics so that you spend less time macroing, even though you're macroing just as well.
3. Those better macro mechanics leave you with more time to micro so you get practice with that, and learn how to micro your units effectively.
4. Once you know how it should be done, practice your micro mechanics so that you can better execute the micro you learned.
5. With better micro mechanics, you will actually find yourself with tiny little gaps of free time between micro commands. You can use this to practice macroing while microing. For example, if I want to expand during a battle, I'll hit a base view key (F2, F3, F4) and click a Probe that is about to return minerals, hotkey it to one of my "wildcard" hotkeys (6, 7, 8), and go back to microing the battle. A moment later, I'll hit that Probe hotkey and tell it to move to the new expansion location by right clicking it on the mini-map, and go back to microing the battle. When I see on the mini-map that the Probe is about to arrive at the expand area, I'll double tap it's hotkey and hit B N to build the Nexus, and go back to microing. I'll do the same for a Pylon at the new expo, or a wall of Pylons maybe Photon Cannons. This kind of thing is very natural if you pace your learning through these steps, and don't rush.
6. Strategy. As you get better at 1 to 5, more complex strategies open up to you, because you can actually execute them effectively. You don't learn much strategically when you aren't even consistent in your execution, because every lose has you questioning if it was due to strategical or control related issues. Sure, you may have won a certain match if you attacked his 3rd sooner, you could have also won by having a ton more units used far more effectively due to better control.
So, for example, Shuttle/Reaver harassment may be a good strategy in a certain situation, but only if you can actually execute it well. If you have good macro (step one), then your Shuttle and Reaver will finish building at the more optimal time, and you'll have a decent ground army to back it up or at least defend a counter-attack. If your macro mechanics are good enough (step two), then you'll have more time between macro to micro the Shuttle/Reaver, and the strategy becomes so much more powerful. If you have good micro, then you won't do something silly like drop your Reaver right under tank fire and lose it (step three). If you have good micro mechanics (step four), then you'll be able to harass so efficiently that you take less time to drop the Reaver, let it shoot, build another Scarab, and pick it back up, and that leaves little bits of time to make use of your efficient macro mechanics (step two again) to macro and quickly get back to the harassment (together that makes step 5). Finally, you will be so in control of your game that you can actually execute your strategies effectively, and this allows you to really learn so much more strategically from each match (step 6). Otherwise, you're just randomly making macro/micro errors and the lose comes from poor control even though the strategy was good, and you learn nothing.
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