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I'm Wolfie and I'm trying to get over my ladder fright.Read the first blog post to see what started all this. I'm a silver protoss on EU: Wolfie.756.
A while back, there was a thought: "This is dumb. Playing a game shouldn't be intimidating; it should be fun."
I decided to do something about it. I wrote a few blog posts about my games, analyzing them, putting myself and my games public. I got tons of viewers. I played games more frequently than ever before. I played every day. It worked.
Then came MLG Columbus. "Bleh, everyone's watching MLG. This isn't a good time to do blog posts." So, I watched MLG instead, and decided to wait for over the weekend. Then a week passed. And another. A third one... I haven't played a ladder game since MLG Columbus. Team games, sure. But they're casual. And fun. Now I'm anxious again.
This is dumb. Playing a game shouldn't be intimidating. It should be fun, goddamnit.
So, what to do?
Tomorrow, I'll play my first ladder game in weeks. Yes, for some of us, this needs to be a conscious decision. But this time around, I'll have my games structured in a way that should make me a better player. In addition to trying to commentate through my games with my trusty Finnish accented English, I'll add a splash of Funday Monday: Each game will have a (productive) restriction, and I will force myself to maintain it. If I fail, I'll just gg out and reset.
I still believe that once I get into the habit of playing games without (negative) emotions, I'll start laddering like it's nothing. But before that, I will - nay, must - dedicate all my games to you, the awesome community called teamliquid.net.
In the mean time, here's a random photo of an Italian Greyhound:
 
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I get the same way a lot of the time. Not having laddered suddenly becomes a great reason not to ladder in your head and before you know it your playing the sims or something.
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awwww puppiessss
go ladder.
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lol gl man, don't let yourself look at your profile and just watch the replay after every loss!
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GL on the laddering. I win 3 to 4 games one day and then I quit laddering for a couple weeks worried about losing. I like your idea to make funday monday restrictions to make it seem less serious and commentating can take your mind away from the rage mode when you lose. Good luck on the anxiety, I wish I could get over mine.
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Don't let yourself obsess over losing-- it's not worth it. Especially at your league, you just need to mass games and not care about losing OR winning! You will get better with experience.
The alternative is to buy another "smurf" account. I end up playing more on my smurf now; testing builds, trying other races, etc. Generally just having fun.
If you can spare the $ for another account I would highly recommend it. Alternatively you can make new battle.net accounts with your trial keys and smurf with that.
Good luck getting over your anxiety!
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dstryr:
I saw this liquipedia article on ladder anxiety (very interesting read!) on what the causes could be and some tips on how to possibly overcome it. I gave all of them a lot of thought, and one of the conclusions I came to is that a smurf account wouldn't make a difference for me, since I'm not trying to impress anyone. I can show my record to anyone, and let anyone see my win record (heck, my id is on top of the post), and it doesn't make me feel one way or the other.
I think it's more about either a) feeling of helplessness: I think (this being the operative word) I did everything right, and still the guy comes at me with double the army, and I have no clue whatsoever how I could've done stuff better b) frustration over my own stupid mistakes I notice during gameplay (for example, being supply blocked when I really would need reinforcements), and knowing those cost me the game.
A concrete example of a combination of both mentioned cases are losing to cheese. I hate the feeling. I've come to the conclusion that it's mainly because I don't get cheesed enough, so I don't have the chance to practice against it, to become good at it. It's something I know I could fend off, but I just haven't had the practice. I might say I feel it as being "unfair", but in a weird kind way.
But I heartily thank you all for your kind and encouraging words, and really really hope that everyone else find out their method of getting over, or just dodging (as I am doing), their ladder anxiety!
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go fucking ladder, suck it up and just play. and then when you fuck it all up and throw a game, just LAUGH. Laugh and say, "well shit...I'm not gonna do THAT again!"
The game is fun when you don't take it seriously.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/2502922363_34e9f46cab_m.jpg)
