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Ladder Report 2.4

Blogs > Dromar
Post a Reply
Dromar
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States2145 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-07-26 19:06:07
July 26 2011 18:56 GMT
#1
Personal stuff in spoilers, ladder stuff below.
+ Show Spoiler +

It's been a while. Quite a bit has happened. I injured my right knee drunken dancing a couple months back (Sam's 21'st birthday), and had to keep off it for a while, which really sucked, because I was just starting to get into running as part of my new, more healthy lifestyle. Could that have had something to do with it? I dunno. So I took it easy with the leg, and it was starting to feel better, until 3 weeks later, I was being drunk and stupid and injured it again.
At this point I had moved out of my parent's house to live with a friend of mine, and things were going pretty okay. Unfortunately that fell through, and I'm back living with my parents until I can find a job. I've been looking, but not much luck. I need to be more proactive in searching. But it sounds like I'll be able to get some adjunct work at a nearby community college in a couple months, and that'll at least be enough to pay rent, food, etc. to live in town while I look for something better.
A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine had a pool party. The party was pretty tame compared to normal because of the insane heat wave that was going through, but it picked up (IMO) once I got drunk and got in the pool. In my drunken stupidity, I put too much pressure on my knee again, but it wasn't so bad this time because I was in the pool. I think I'm good to run again, but I don't want to push my luck. In the meantime, I've pretty much mastered the art of dancing without moving my right knee.
Finally, I've lost 13 lbs since I decided to take better care of my health and nutrition about 3 months ago, and I definitely feel stronger. I've also been browsing the TLHF thread regularly, and asking any questions I've had in there. I'm not doing olympic lifts or anything yet, but I am eating much more healthy food. Cutting out the unhealthy food has actually been easier than I thought, until recently, I've been craving soda, pizza, BBQ, etc. Not sure why. I think I just need to diversify my food a bit, as I've been eating pretty much the same foods for the past 3 months (primarily lean chicken, vegetables, and fruit).



1v1:

Zerg(40 games)
(12)ZvZ: 5-7 41.6%
(17)ZvP: 9- 8 52.9%
(11)ZvT: 3- 8 27.2%

17-23 42.5%

This Season:
Zerg(111 games)
(40)ZvZ: 21-19 52.5%
(47)ZvP: 27-20 57.4%
(24)ZvT: 11- 13 45.8%

59-52 53.1%

At this point I've noticed something that I used to notice on ICCup occasionally: my games aren't as satisfying because right after the games I'm usually thinking one of the following:
"That guy was legitimately better than me, and I got stomped."
"That guy was pretty much a noob. Of course I won."
I'm not really getting much satisfaction from winning because the people I beat make such obvious mistakes, where it really just would have been embarrassing to lose to them. OTOH, when I lose it's actually to someone who I think "if we played again, he would probably beat me again, because he's better." It's much less likely to be some bullshit strat that only works once, which is good I guess.
In order to improve from here (and once again gain satisfaction from winning), I'm going to have to put in a lot more effort to refine my play, just as the people who beat me have. I'm not sure if I'm willing to put in that much effort.

ZvZ:
So, I gave up my old build, and I've been practicing 14/14 or hatch first, map dependent. My 14/14 games have gone pretty mediocre, mostly because everyone I play against has much more experience in 14/14 vs 14/14 than I do. My banelings get caught morphing, and I'm much more likely to lose several lings to a baneling while I'm not paying attention. The couple games where I opened hatch first went okay though, but at this time I'm just in a "try some stuff out" mode to learn more about the matchup. Right now, my heart is leaning toward hatch first.

Q:When do you guys scout (or do you even scout) in ZvZ when you open 14/14? How about if you open hatch first?

ZvT:
Even though I don't run into many Terran players on ladder, I've definitely played this matchup the most against my practice partner. The thing is, he has a style that is much different to that of the ladder Terrans that I run into. Ladder Terrans do a lot of 2rax openings, and my practice partner used to as well, and I got comfortable with them to the point where he just stopped because it wasn't worth it. But I got a bit rusty against 2rax since then, cutting a few too many corners in favor of macro.
Ladder Terrans also love cloaked banshees, which always mess me up.

Q:How do you deal with cloaked banshees? I'm fine with queens, I just need a good way to detect. Do you get a quick enough lair? Do you get spores? Because spores only protect themselves. I've been getting a late gas in favor of pumping drones hard, and spores just aren't working for me. Am I supposed to build 3 spores each at my main and nat just to detect and keep the banshees away? That seems like a win for the Terran already.

ZvP:
So I've been trying new things in this matchup, and it's been going okay-ish. First, I've given up on getting mutas before roach, because it's just too easy to lose to a timing attack, or at least get deflected without doing very much damage against better players. Second, I've been going hatch first and just pulling a drone or two if I have to to keep cannon rushes from working. The overpool build I was doing just wasn't strong enough against macro tosses who didn't suck. So it's either hatch first or speedling expand. I'm still having trouble against FE tosses who take a quick third though. I'm not sure how to deny it short of having a sizable army already in the making when I scout it. There's a very small timing window for me to get an attack force across the map before there are cannons/ff/a couple warp-in rounds off of 6 gates to hold it off. At that time I'm usually saturating my own third. But again, I think that's because of my weak opening I was using at the time.
That said, at this time, a good percentage of my ZvP wins are still coming from players who do some sort of one-base shenanigans (dt, vr-phoenix, 4gate with late [or no] expo, one base blink stalker, etc.), which pretty much never worked on me and never will.

Questions, comments, and constructive criticism welcome.

edit: how cool is it that ZeNEX is streaming their ladder games now? I watched a bunch of Puzzle and Coca yesterday, and wow Korean's are aggressive!

*
imPERSONater
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States1324 Posts
July 26 2011 19:12 GMT
#2
I'm a hatch first dude, when you get your scout into their base, look to see if they are still mining gas after the initial 100. If they do, that means they are planning aggression. If they are, IMMEDIATELY after your pool finishes make a roach warren. If you do this, the first roaches should pop as he is moving in with banelings. Or with scouting you can find out if he is going roach all in. Then it is up to micro to mitigate the damage. If he isn't getting gas it is either all lings, or a FE. If you don't see him put down a fast expo, then make banes because you are probably getting +1ling attacked or just mass lings!

I also love the fast hatch in ZvP, but I do a 13pool --> 15 hatch. Even if they pylon block you get out lings pretty quick and can get down the expo. Most of the time I can just get the hatch down outright though because the toss player is generally lazy with the probe once they see the fast-ish pool. Take for granted I'm just moved into masters, so probably mid-masters at best.

Hope this helps and good luck!
Fan of: IdrA, Sen, Stephano, Snute, Axlav, Hero
ggofthejungle
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Romania392 Posts
July 26 2011 22:16 GMT
#3
i enjoyed reading this and your past ladder reports. i plan to make my own. maybe I'll try playing some more z instead of t. thx for the insights keep em coming
Dromar
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States2145 Posts
July 26 2011 22:19 GMT
#4
On July 27 2011 07:16 ggofthejungle wrote:
i enjoyed reading this and your past ladder reports. i plan to make my own. maybe I'll try playing some more z instead of t. thx for the insights keep em coming


I'm glad to hear it! I feel strongly that thinking about your play outside the game is one of the most important parts of improving as a player. That's how I started doing this.
UnitedKronos
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
139 Posts
July 26 2011 22:19 GMT
#5
Good read, especially your analysis of MUs. Well done.
Oh hai. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ggofthejungle
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Romania392 Posts
July 27 2011 17:08 GMT
#6
i started analyzing my own games but i only had time for two games yesterday. i wrote down mistakes i made. oh boy for the first game i found a full page of mistakes i could correct since it was a 28 min tvp, plenty of engagements. i watched replays before but never wrote down an analysis of my own play. i found it really helpful to see it in writing. i am semi-aware of my mistakes but never knew i made so many.

it would prolly be too boring to post the whole game analysis here as I'm not looking for any tips yet. also posting too many blog entries would clog the blog section unnecessarily. maybe a weekly or biweekly analysis would work better since i dont have time to play too many games.

i am diamond but i know i can be low masters material if i study my game and play more. thanks for the inspiration, ill post my results when i play more games

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