EPTStarCraft II and the Practice Matches:
The day I heard about StarCraft II I was incredibly excited. I thought this was my chance. I felt that if I was ever going to achieve anything in the RTS world that this would be it. I made it my mission to go to BlizzCon and get myself a beta key so I could get started as soon as possible. I saw alot of familiar faces at BlizzCon that year from my guild in World of Warcraft. I rented a big room nearby and invited everybody back for a huge BlizzCon party after the closing ceremony. It was a blast to say the least. I don't drink however, but I still managed to keep everybody entertained with my music and goofy antics, such as convincing all my drunkard buddies that I was Solid Snake, hiding in somebodies massive suitcase that I had written "BOX" on it in duct-tape several minutes before.
Once people started passing out however, and the music just started getting drab to listen to, I went into the bathroom and started plotting and scheduling my days around how many hours I would be putting in to getting good at StarCraft II. It was so simple in my mind; Spend at least 4 hours a day practicing, memorize every hotkey my race of choice had, learn all there was to learn about that race. Everything seemed like it would work out in my favor. I was psyched and pumped and ready to actually and finally become good at something once in my life that didn't have the word, "Auto" prefixing it. My games went as well as could be expected, being a beta and me personally being new to the RTS scene. I would say I won about 35-58% of all of the games I played. Nothing too huge compared to the professionals, but still it was a huge improvement for me over Brood War.
Once the game actually went live I found myself with a delema. Was I going to play my 50 practice games or skip them and get right to laddering? I decided I would do the practice games just to warm myself up a bit, but I was not prepared for how painfully slow the settings were in them. I think not until about my 30th game did I stop blaming my opponents for having such bad computers and realize that it was just how the practice league was set up. I was so embarrassed, but at the same time I figured, "Why should I care, not like I'll ever see these people again. Most of them probably did have crappy computers. Serves them right." Turns out I faced alot of them early on. As people moved up the ladders though I ran into them alot less and it became more comfortable.
I got furious for a long while once I made it into Bronze League. Everybody seemed to do builds that I found out later were called cheese, such as 6 pool rushes, 4 gate rushes, cannon rushes ect., and it seemed that 90% of my games in those early days consisted mainly of just those types of players. I contemplated cheesing my way into the higher leagues as well, but forced myself against the thought because I actually wanted to learn the builds, not just simply get to Diamond then not be able to do anything because I didn't know any other way of playing.
Eventually, I started making friends. Some of these friends were high up on the ladder, in Diamond league. I would constantly run into problems with my builds, with other opponents strategies. Bless their hearts, they took a liking to me and spent hours teaching me the ins and outs of the game, of the builds I could and would encounter. More importantly, they taught me the importance of showing respect to your fellow players, and that even though they are your opponents, you wouldn't get anywhere without them. It was very humbling, but it was a necessary lesson that needed to be learned. I am eternally grateful to all the friends I've made. Not just the ones that showed me the ropes, but the ones that when I would have a bad day, I could crack jokes with and everything would turn out okay.
StarCraft II and Silver League
I had stopped for several months prior to getting into Silver League because I was getting frustrated with my ability to defend against cheese plays. I was also going through some time of depression I think that made me angry at absolutely nothing. I had decided to cut everything that aroused my anger and just let my mind reset. In the process, I forgot everything I had been taught by my friends, and going back into StarCraft II was like I was back where I was in Brood War. It was disheartening to no end. Thankfully, my friends we're still the good natured people they are, and they offered to help me once again and show me what I should be doing after all the changes and everything that goes along with coming back after a four to five month break.
The losses were staggering at first, yes. After I found my grove again, however I started feeling more confident in my timing pushes, my skill, and my over-all playstyle. I played maybe five games into the new ladder season after re-learning everything and was promoted to Silver. I was so excited I ran into my brothers room and yelled to him that I had been promoted. I looked at his screen and he too had just been promoted. We shared a cheesy high-five and had a couple victory cigarettes. I found out the next morning though how much the skill level does change just simply being bumped into Silver. I was facing high Bronze players still alot of the time, but they were harder than I had remembered. I started entering low populated clan tournaments such as the once to twice a week tournaments the clan LXG holds. I still lost most of them, not even good enough to fight my way out of the losers bracket, but it was a style of play that didn't seem apparent on the ladder, and I found that even losing in a tournament setting was funner than laddering and winning.
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My goal is nearing my grasp. I can feel the coolness of the Gold emblem against the skin on my hands. I am facing very high Gold and Platinum players left and right and I am winning. It is only a matter of time before I am promoted to gold, and when I do I will update this with my journey to platinum. Gold is only half way though and there is still much to learn. I relish the fun that comes with learning new things and I look forward to all the challenges that will be laid before me. As I continue my journey to gold, I am partaking in the GeForce Pro/Am Tournament. I have made it past the preliminaries, and I hope to make it to at least top 100. I will be extremely proud of myself if I can achieve a goal like that, even if it is minor.
Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read this. I hope you found it somewhat humorous. One thing I don't understand though is why people keep comparing my brother and I to day[9] and tasteless? Is it because my brother is Protoss and I am Zerg, or because I can teach better than I can do? Or is it because he can do better than he can teach, and he can make good observations better than I could. I don't rightly know. However, I will never stop playing this game as it is fantastic and I love playing a game that actually requires skill and thought.
