• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 04:12
CEST 10:12
KST 17:12
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call7[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 244ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3
Community News
New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!17Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week0Weekly Cups (August 10-16): SHIN doubles2GSTL Returns in 2026!45Weekly Cups (Aug 3-9): Protoss get shut out7
StarCraft 2
General
SC4ALL II: SC2 Player Announcement 6/8 - Maru PhD study /w SC2 - help with a survey! How would you feel about frequent/monthly balance patches for SC2? Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week Geoff 'iNcontroL' Robinson has passed away
Tourneys
IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament WORTEX 2026 - Hungarian SC2 Finals Budapest SC2 AI Tournament 2026 Fall
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 540 Dodge This The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 539 Thunder Dome Mutation # 538 Media Blackout
Brood War
General
New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery! BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ [ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call BW General Discussion Pros React To: First 'Fastest' Map in ASL History
Tourneys
[ASL22] Ro24 Group D [ASL22] Ro24 Group B [ASL22] Ro24 Group C [ASL22] Ro24 Group E
Strategy
Replay Review Process - What do you do? Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Fighting Spirit mining rates Any training maps people recommend?
Other Games
General Games
General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Anyone here play Quakeworld back in the day? Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread EVE Corporation
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread US Politics Mega-thread Dating: How's your luck? Canadian Politics Mega-thread Artificial Intelligence Thread
Fan Clubs
The Creator Fan Club MarineLorD Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Young Players Exit Esports E…
TrAiDoS
LOCKPICKING NOOB
LUCKY_NOOB
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
Hello guys!
LIN1s
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 4234 users

Moving forward by taking a step back

Blogs > Headshot
Post a Reply
Headshot
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1656 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-24 01:21:48
April 24 2011 01:06 GMT
#1
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.

-
infinitestory
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States4053 Posts
April 24 2011 01:08 GMT
#2
On April 24 2011 10:06 Headshot wrote:
grizzled vets

heh

BW really is a timeless game, isn't it?
Translator:3
ReketSomething
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States6012 Posts
April 24 2011 01:13 GMT
#3
Best thing about BW...it feels fuckin good to win ^^
Jaedong :3
G_G
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Canada178 Posts
April 24 2011 02:50 GMT
#4
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.
Mabilis
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States162 Posts
April 24 2011 03:03 GMT
#5
Best of luck to you!
"Nice guys finish last, but we get to sleep in." -- Evan Davis
Headshot
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1656 Posts
April 24 2011 06:26 GMT
#6
Thanks for the tips, G_G. ^^
-
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 1h 48m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft: Brood War
Shuttle 1962
Bisu 191
Killer 78
Mind 54
Larva 53
scan(afreeca) 38
Hm[arnc] 31
Bale 23
yabsab 19
ajuk12(nOOB) 14
[ Show more ]
NotJumperer 13
Sharp 5
League of Legends
JimRising 0
Counter-Strike
shoxiejesuss669
edward64
olofmeister14
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King108
Other Games
singsing1245
ceh9620
WinterStarcraft496
Happy198
Sick143
Organizations
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 20
[ Show 15 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH359
• StrangeGG 35
• LUISG 9
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• Azhi_Dahaki22
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota2210
League of Legends
• Rush1431
• Stunt556
Upcoming Events
Afreeca Starleague
1h 48m
Soulkey vs PianO
JyJ vs sSak
GSL
2h 48m
PiGosaur Cup
15h 48m
Afreeca Starleague
1d 1h
Mini vs Calm
Queen vs EffOrt
Replay Cast
1d 15h
The PondCast
2 days
Replay Cast
2 days
Escore
3 days
IntoTheTV X SOOP
3 days
Korean StarCraft League
3 days
[ Show More ]
GSL
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
5 days
WardiTV Weekly
5 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-08-24
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
META DYMY #4

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
CSL Season 22: Qualifier 1
CSL Season 22: Qualifier 2
RSL Revival: Season 6
Light Tournament 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026

Upcoming

BSL 2026 LAN: Kraków
CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Acropolis #5
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
Acropolis #5 - GSB
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
SCTL 2026 Fall
Calamity Invitational
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
BLAST Open Fall 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.