Pleasantries aside, lets get right to the heart of the matter. It's been a little while since I posted - there's been a lot of "drama" going on the the girls starcraft scene - but that aside, I've been playing like crazy, and trying to avoid it.
The other day, I found myself wishing that I was playing as well as I did when I got the game. Before, when I first got the game, I was always on top of scouting information, and playing a very re-actionary game, where I'd figure out what they were going, and then use a combination of units that hard and soft countered it.
After I had the game for a while, I fell into this rutt where I seemed to think that getting a specific set of units would be the greatest OP combo, and be able to rule the ladder, and when those units got nerfed or whatever, I started working on getting them faster, and making more of them. That required riskier builds that needed more econ and so on and so on...
What's my point? I've been practicing build orders for the last few days, over and over and over... i can type "-r" faster than the speed of light :p lol - anyways - while i was practicing with a friend, that knew I had watched some MMA replays and was trying to mimic a build he did, after the 5th or 6th time I lost, he was like,
"Hey! You know; If ur doing a pressure build, use it for pressure. Each build has its own purpose and not exploiting its purpose can put u behind economically."
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
Sure, Laugh it up :o) Why for the life of me I didnt figure out that I needed to use a build order for it's intended purpose. Instead I would blindly follow these build orders without understanding really why I was doing them, which my opponent would scout, and do the pure counters to... and lets face it - since I was not changing my build order after scouting- is it any wonder I lost so many practice matches?
The reason I did well when I first got the game, was because I studied that card that they gave us with the game, that had the tech trees, and units, and listed what units they effectively countered. At the time, it proved that a person with 30-40 average APM could get to Platinum as long as they simply countered what their opponent was doing.
See you on the ladder, and watch it this time. I'll be countering what I scout instead of just blindly doing a build!
Karen
PS. I know this has been covered in the forums and strategy sections and even by casters, but you know... sometimes a person just had to stick their hand in the pot to find out that the water was hot :p