EPTIn my last blog, I rejoiced at having made it to masters. I'd been out of the game for a year, with my stint in the beta my only real experience, and getting promoted was a real achievement for me.
So how have things been since then?
One of my first moves was to try a partial upgrade of my computer. I bought a Noctua NH-D14 cooler, a case from my housemate (Coolermaster 912+) and a new power supply; I figured it was time to ditch my older iCute unit.
Ready to overclock, I then forgot one thing: I don't know shit about overclocking. I'm sure my chip will get a decent overclock when I eventually get around to it - it's an i7-930 running between 28-32 degrees - but I'll have to contract the services of someone who knows what they're doing, which could take a few weeks.
The second step for me was to start trying to absorb as much information as I possibly could. I made my way into Masters by using a 2 rax FE for every matchup. (I had a 44% win record with what I thought the build was. Once I'd corrected that, my win-rate went up to 61% although I had a good record against Zerg regardless.)
It's worth mentioning that SC2gears might actually be the best program ever invented for a budding player. Rather than individually look at each replay in exhaustive detail, I can quickly assess whether particular builds might be deficient.
I've played 124 games since the start of the month, broken down into 115 1v1 games and 9 on team craft. My record stands at 48% or 55-59-1 (w-l-d).
Just in the last few days, I've changed my TvT style to focus on using hellions a lot more and I've been having much more success - unfortunately, that hasn't translated over to the other matchups.
TvZ - 22-27-1 (44%)
TvT - 20-15-0 (57%)
TvP - 13-17-0 (43%)
The breakdown for the maps are helpful too. I've vetoed Scrap Station, Backwater Gulch and Delta Quadrant.
Metalopolis: 4-12
Shakuras: 8-8
Tal'darim Altar: 5-11
Shattered Temple: 10-5
Typhon Peaks: 9-3
XNC: 4-8
Slag Pits: 5-2
My record on MLG Metalopolis (4-3) and MLG Shakurus (3-0) but that's probably due to the quality of the opponents I inhouse with and my attitude when I play those games.
Two raxing is still my favourite build, but it's starting to wear thin. (I also don't go for bunker rushes vs Zerg when I two-rax, although I try to pressure sometimes. Maybe it's something I should work on more.)
http://oi55.tinypic.com/263bklz.jpg (so you can view the stats)
In case you're wondering about the double depot-first build, that's actually just one depot that I cancelled and rebuilt. SC2gears doesn't include the conversion of one building into another from my experience. By my logic, that should extend to the morphing of a Greater Spire as well, although that would never show up in the build order anyway.
Straight away, I can see that I'm having difficulties with my new Protoss build (the 1 rax marauder FE poke). I've lost 5 out of 6 games when getting the command centre after the tech lab on the barracks.
It's a build I copied from watching DeMusliM's show on ESL, although it's basically something I used to do in the beta anyway. Back then, I'd briefly cut one scv to squeeze out a second barracks so that the push had two marines, two maruaders and one SCV. It only had one more marine, but the barracks was up faster.
With DeMusliM's version, I feel like I'm getting supply blocked all too often. His variant adds on two extra barracks and a reactor while the expansion is going up. The two barracks are built before the supply depot, but I'm starting to wonder if this is a mistake. In any case, I must have been copying the build to a decent degree since I had one less supply at 8:30.
http://tv.esl.eu/de/vod/22982 - in the reply, DeMusliM gets attacked at 8 minutes 30 sec by a 5-gate push; he has 59 supply, two bunkers in construction and what appears to be around 29-30 workers. I have 31, two bunkers already finished and full with marauders. Unfortunately, I don't have combat shield
But now I'm at the point where I can clearly see - sometimes stats do lie, and my weaknesses might not be connected to my build order at all, since I was able to survive a solid amount of pressure from (whom I would consider) a decent player.
VTWhiplash vs dippa on MLG Xel'Naga Caverns
So yeah, I got drawn against a VT Gaming member in the first round of an ESL cup.
:<
I lost the game, but I wasn't completely upset with how I played. I managed to survive Whiplash's 5 gate pressure (3 gate expand into 5 gate) and get into, well, a fairly scrumptious position.
![[image loading]](http://i52.tinypic.com/n1chfc.jpg)
Where's your third? Oh that's right, you don't have one.
(His third's only just started building.)
My downfall here was that I'd essentially stopped building SCVs ... why, I don't know ... and a complete lack of upgrades. The final battle had 3-3 colossi, stalkers and chargelots ripping into 1-1 bio with 0-0 tanks.
And Whiplash ran his colossi into my 3rd to pick off SCVs at the gold. What an asshole.
Another thing about the stats is that my record isn't quite as shitty with the opening, if you include ones with slight variations. In the two games where I got a third supply depot before a tech lab (which came before a CC) I won both.
In another tournament for SEA, I was (un)lucky enough to run into moonGlaDe on Shakuras Plateau.
Earlier, I'd played an inhouse match against a Zerg where I just built massive amounts of marines + medivacs and just dropped his base repeatedly.
Why not try that against Glade? Surely it can't fail.
![[image loading]](http://i56.tinypic.com/21ott0j.jpg)
Fuck.
I actually managed to kill off all the (80!) lings in that fight, but the 19 mutalisks ... not so much. Same for the 5000 lings that Glade flooded into my base afterwards, which he was able to produce after droning non-stop for nine minutes.
dippa vs FXOmOOnGLaDe on ESL_Shakuras_Plateau
I've made it to the second or third round in some cups (usually thanks to a bye + easy opponent) but if I could get one decent placing by the end of the month ... hell, even making to the fifth round or the top 8 of a 64-player event would do nicely for me. I've got LAN qualifiers for WCG later this month, which should be interesting although I'm not expecting to make any great waves there.
So where do I go from here? I think I'll continue with my current TvP build, but I've got to work on a better transition from the mid-game to either get more vikings or find some way to thin the late-game Protoss army down. (Blue flame hellions? Ghosts before medivacs - or straight after?)
TvZ is still causing me all kinds of nightmares. Despite winning some games with the reactor hellion build - again, a build from another matchup - I'm still really uneasy about it all. I think that's probably the case for a lot of Terrans, but the reactor hellions at least gives me enough spare hellions that I can siphon off one or two to pick off drones trying to go for a fast 3rd.
Lately I've been really bad with my upgrades - something that never used to be the case. I'm also paranoid that I'm not producing SCVs constantly (you can probably see this from the replays, especially the game against Whiplash, although that was an unusually bad game from me).
This blog post is long enough, so I'll wrap things up now. If you read to the end, you are my hero and a true champion of the internet. Respect.
If you didn't, love you for reading all the same. <3
(sc2ranks profile - http://sc2ranks.com/us/2126687/dippa)
