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I'm Wolfie and I'm trying to get over my ladder fright. So here's more of the games I played, for you guys. Read the first blog post for info on what I'm doing here. I'm a silver protoss on EU: Wolfie.756.
Today's post will be a twofer again. But since I'm realizing a pattern in my games, I'll leave the analysis part a bit thinner this time, and do a little of a mixing-up. Scroll down, beneath the analysis parts, to read more on my epiphany. Also, I screwed up the recording game #6, so I won't be having it here. Otoh, there was not much to watch in that one.
![[image loading]](http://a.images.blip.tv/Isuck-7PvPEXcellenCeShakurasPlateau285-520.jpg)
Replay
VOD at Blip
Watching and analyzing this game is infurating. Feelings like this is what actually keeps me away from the ladder. The feeling of helplessness. Almost unfairness.
What Happened? [Loss]
I started out with three gates and a robo. I scouted him taking two gases, but nothing else out of the ordinary: Three gateways, some units. This game reminded me much of the two previous PvPs I played, which queued me to push out with my initial small force. I caught a small patrol of zealots going off to a weird direction and killed them. At the time, I thought they'd just take a scenic route, scouting for suspect hidden tech.
Speaking of which, a few seconds later, I had 4 DT:s in my base. After some futile micro, I had no economy left, no units left, so I just GG'd. The "scenic route" was where the DT shrine was hidden.
What Were My Greatest and Worst Things In the Game?
The things that I found myself doing well was constant probe production, excepting about two short pauses, and never getting supply blocked. On the flip side, I had a useless robo almost 1.5 minutes just standing there. Resources floating above 700/300 again...
What Could've Made Things Go The Other Way?
Had I been able to spend all that extra money into army units, I probably would've held that off much more easily. One immortal, for example, would've made a huge difference.
![[image loading]](http://a.images.blip.tv/Isuck-38633637.png)
Replay
VOD at Blip
What Happened? [Win]
Being scared of cloaked banshees and considering the long push distance in Scrap Station, I took a conscious chance by going 1-gate robo, and adding two gates after that. I wanted to make certain no banshees would get to my base with a super early observer. Fiddling around too much with my observer, getting supply blocked once and not using my gateways made my macro awful.
In the end, I had my natural and the gold up and running, resources skyhigh - all that familiar jazz. Having uncontested map control, I just pumped out colossi and the occasional stalker/sentry and managed to kill him.
What Were My Greatest and Worst Things In the Game?
Other than breaking my three-game loss streak, I didn't like this game at all. I didn't like this win at all. Supply blocks, floating minerals, unused gateways... But I'm happy about the observer I had, so I could see what he was up to, giving me the leeway to arse around.
What Could've Made Things Go The Other Way?
Foodwise, we were pretty close, but the terran did have more food than me pretty much all the time. He allowed me to engage only half of his army, which made things very easy for me. So, with better positioning or just simply applying more early pressure with his early barracks would probably made my life a lot more miserable.
EPIPHANY TIME!
Any reads regarding the future of my opponent's play that I might do at silver level are totally worthless. Day[9]'s "Either A, or a very bad B"-way of thinking is detrimental to my game, since my current level of response is in the lines of "something that might handle A, or just paranoid the rest of the game about what else it could be", after which I tend to transition into losing my whole fucking game (in more ways than one).
So I'm thinking, much thanks to the feedback I've got: For the next few (or more) games, I'll never leave my base before I'm well equipped for it. I might have an observer or two around his base to look out for some weirdness, but otherwise I won't concentrate on the game itself, just making sure I never supply block myself, keep my resoruces low and getting all the upgrades I should get. I'll just turtle up on 2-3 bases, and attack once I'm 200/200.
The point of this exercise isn't to get me more wins; I probably will still lose against sneaky stuff. I hope that with this play style, I'll eventually get my mechanics better. Once I have the attention and carefulness to keep my resources low, I'll try to start bleeding APM towards playing the strategy side of the game.
Any thoughts are much appreciated.
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Ok I saw a lot of big errors in your first game. First, your robo sat idle for a very long time (until around 7minutes). Second, you never produced anything out of your robo except for a very delayed observer. These mistakes alone would not have lost you the game, but your macro out of your warpgates was horrid. You were floating around 6 stalkers worth of resources, or 2 immortals and 2 stalkers, which definitely would have saved you the game.
I know that you pointed out that you saw your macro had slipped, but do you know why? It was probably your scouting probe that you spent so much time moving around! and the worst part of all is that you could have known he was doing somethnig fishy! Think about it, why would your opponent get his second gas before his first gateway ever finished? He could try to get a fast robo, but you never saw the robo go down. You know what that means? Hidden tech: either a stargate or dark templars. That and you macro where why you lost your game and hopefully you won't take my advice as an insult since I'm trying to help you 
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OK. My thoughts, high-ranked Diamond protoss. Watched the VOD for game 1 and the replays for both. Such a wellstructured thread deserves a response.
Game 1
For a silver-level player you scout very well and your thoughts are mostly spot on. Well done. What you need is basically mechanics, and that comes with time. Keep playing and you will become better, no doubt about it.
For the game itself you should become very suspicious upon seeing: a late 3rd pylon - which you did note - combined with absolutely no gas used, except for warpgate research. The late 3rd pylon can just mean a pylon hidden for a warp-gate rush, but with 2 gasses that is somewhat unlikely.
Now what can you proxy?
a) More gates
- unlikely, already three in his base, and with such narrow ramps it won't accomplish much
b) robo tech
- A weird thing to proxy in my eyes, as it is so standard.
c) stargate
- very seldom seen in PvP: stalkers are essential throughout the matchup and deal nicely with both voidrays and phoenix.
d) DT tech
- no gas used? 3 gates make sense for DT usage? I guess that's the way we're going.
You point out that you have a robo for 1½ minute and do nothing with it. In 99% of all games I always chrono out an observer, just to be on the safe side. If you are certain that DTs are not coming, keep it in your base: if you scout what you did, keep it in your nat with your army and expand behind that. You'll be tons ahead, as DT really is a 'boy-this-better-work-else-I'm-screwed' kinda thing, unlike BW. Go collossus at take it home from there, by denying him his natural.
DTs are a significant investment so if you can fend it off with few losses you are ahead: better one observer too many than too few.
Mechanics will come, but overall your defense was somewhat poor. If you push out, keep a sentry at your ramp to buy time and keep your observer on your ramp.
2nd match
Not gonna write as much, but there's no need to rush for a robo to protect against banshees - 2 or 3 gate into robo will get you an obs in time; T's got no chrono-boost. Also you scouted a 2rax and no fast 2nd gas - no need for that early an obs, though it can be comfortable to play with.
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I know that you pointed out that you saw your macro had slipped, but do you know why? It was probably your scouting probe that you spent so much time moving around!
I can only wholeheartedly agree with this. I have even noticed this in the team games I've played: Whenever I try to do something sneaky, I float a ton of resources, but when I decide to just ignore whatever the other people do, and just do my own stuff, I usually get a ton of stuff done, and at the end of the game wind up with the top score of everyone.
...hopefully you won't take my advice as an insult since I'm trying to help you
Absolutely not. Posts like yours is the very reason I do this bloggy thingy! Thanks for your awesome post, bro!
Lots of awesome words from the land of the Danes
Your utterly brilliantly explained post is what I need to be inside my brain. I'd like to be able to look at something, and rule out all kinds of stuff. And, for pete's sake, he was a Protoss, and still I didn't connect the dots. So I don't know.. Dot-connecting-skills is something I lack. And this is partly what I addressed in my epiphany-section. I try to connect dots, and then I just get jammed up with that thought process. *shrug*
Also, the robo was something very embarrassing when I saw the replay. Without trying to sound defensive, but here's what happens very often: I've read some random tips on what are good openings against the different races.
So, for example, I'll build two gateways and a robotics, and then I have this mental checklist, tick off "The Proper opening against Terran: DONE!" and I do a little mental checkmark and feel like MC himself! ... and then it just sits there. At some point i think "oh, the robo is done, umm... yeah, let's build an observer!" but in fact it has been sitting there for a minute and a half :/. So, I guess, the root of the evil is the fact that I don't have a fleshed-out strategy, or even a proper idea of what I'll do other than "I'll do a Protoss deathball, herp derp"...
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EPT
