• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 12:17
CEST 18:17
KST 01:17
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Rough Waters10[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call8[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 244
Community News
Weekly Cups (Aug 30-Sep 7): herO thrives amid growing schism10Official StarCraft website teases new content ahead of BlizzCon?133Stellar Fest TWO the Moon (Dec 16-20)9Weekly Cups (August 24-30): Patches' balance mod takes over3New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!46
StarCraft 2
General
Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners Weekly Cups (Aug 30-Sep 7): herO thrives amid growing schism SC4ALL: II Winner will earn a spot at HSC 30! SC4ALL II: StarCraft 2 Player Announcement 7/8
Tourneys
RSL goes to London! 2026 Offline Finals Nov 21-22 KSL Week #92 IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly 2026 GSTL Announcement Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 542 The Ascended Mutation # 541 Binary Choice The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 540 Dodge This
Brood War
General
Official StarCraft website teases new content ahead of BlizzCon? BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Practice Partners (Official) Broodwar Prediction Market [D] Brainstorming a balance patch for Brood war
Tourneys
[ASL22] Ro16 Group A [ASL22] Ro16 Group B Escore Tournament - Season 3 Small VOD Thread 2.0
Strategy
Replay Review Process - What do you do? Simple Questions, Simple Answers Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Game Theory for Starcraft
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread EVE Corporation Diablo IV [Maplestory Hardcore] Let's Play~!! General RTS Discussion Thread
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
Trading/Investing Thread US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The Creator Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion!
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Virtual Romance, Real-Life C…
TrAiDoS
Regacy Esports:Our Goa…
regacyesports
Dreaming of BW patches (mod…
c3rberUs
LOCKPICKING NOOB
LUCKY_NOOB
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 6856 users

Slowly progressing - Welcome to Gold League

Blogs > silverhand
Post a Reply
silverhand
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States91 Posts
July 27 2011 16:42 GMT
#1
So it appears as if I am advancing a league per season. I started playing about 3 weeks before season 1 locked and once they fixed the promotion bug shortly after season 2 began I was promoted to silver. Between having a newborn and finishing up chiropractic school, consistency of practice has been spotty. I acknowledge that I probably will only ever have a good 5-6 hours per week max to dedicate to actual playing time, so lately it's just been trying to maximize that time to improve my game.

I have finally locked down 2 standard builds per matchup, and while I know that most people advise you to focus on one per matchup until you can execute the builds, I've had trouble finding one build that fits each matchup that is applicable across all maps/spawn situations. As such, I have pretty much focused on the following builds:

PvP
1) 4gate can apply to almost any map, but still seems required on maps like Taldarim

2) Tyler/Day9's anti 4-gate for maps with a narrow ramp

I find myself going 4gate mostly because my execution is not crisp as evidenced by getting roflstomped against Masters Protoss players in the Geforce ProAm in 4gate situations. I'm sure I could anti-4gate more often, but that build leaves even less margin for error and requires some solid micro which I still have some ways to go and haven't really focused on yet based on multiple sources advising to focus on mastering builds and macro before worrying about micro; that doing this can get me to diamond without trouble.

PvT
1) I have a 3 gate stalker/zealot/sentry early aggression build that hits around 6:00-6:30 that works well for me in most situations to delay the Terran expansion, or to do some initial damage to a 1-base strat, if not just flat winning the game on this push. It is not tough to transition out of and the only thing I have struggled with is fast siege tanks if I am a little late on my initial push.

2) Warp Prism 4gate - This one is just fun to use and doesn't always outright win the game, but almost always does some significant econ damage to the terran player unless I'm hit early by 2rax rush and have to delay my drop...still catches a ton of terrans off-guard and I've had more than a few responses of "WTF" when they see 4 zealots and 4 stalkers hit their main mineral line

PvZ
1) Fake 3gate sentry expand into 5gate zealot/sentry push. Kiwikaki uses this quite a bit and while I'm certain at silver/gold and even plat level not all of my zerg opponents will scout my front and react "properly to a 3 gate sentry expand" - which is what this build is designed to abuse, but because zergs at this level rarely execute their builds and timings crisply, my push is usually strong. Poor FF usage and army positioning is usually what loses this for me.

2) FFE into Stargate - MC style - Of course I'm no where near as good at executing this, but on some maps this is more favorable than the fake 3gate sentry expand due to longer rush distances, ease of taking a 3rd as zerg, and it's ability to hold roach/ling all-ins quite nicely. My biggest issue with this build is incorporating phoenix play into this as my micro with them sucks to be honest and it is a pretty big part of MC's execution of this strategy. When I am able to prevent the 3rd from getting up, I can usually time my tech switch to colossi nicely, but it's when I lose all my voids and fail to take down the 3rd that I find that switch very hard to get before hydras reach critical mass.

So I logged in last night to play my placement match and see which league I landed in. Season 2, I thought I would possibly skip silver league and go to gold because I was playing mostly gold leaguers at the time and I was crushed when I lost my placement match against a gold zerg to be placed into silver league. I wonder to this day if I had won that match if it would have still placed me in silver or not.

So I click Find Match last night and realize I have not downvoted any maps, nor have I played any of the new maps at all....CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL!!!...whew, made it in time and was able to select my 3 downvotes which ended up being Typhon Peaks (never liked this map, never gave it a chance), and two of the new maps...Searing Crater and Nerazim Crypts. Was really hoping my placement match was on something I knew, but as the loading screen pops up I see Abyssal Caverns.

It's PvT and I go with my aggressive push...show up with 3 zealots, 3 sentries, and 6 stalkers a little later than planned and he went marine/tank mixture. I did some army damage but took more losses than I wanted to - retreated and took my expansion and stupidly went Stargate thinking voids to take out the tanks not realizing that the mass marines would cut them down easily. This is what happens when you play unprepared and tired. After attempting to take the south expansion as my 3rd (again stupid as I should have gone for the gold instead based on spawn positions and my need for minerals at the time) and attempting to switch to templar for storms (more because I'm trying to get better at using them than because it was the best tech path) since I already had a council up for chargelots, he hits me with a crapload of siege tanks and marines with medivacs. Even though my chargelots are 1-2 upgraded and his marines are 0-0, the tanks in addition to medivac support ripped them up in no time. The chokes in the attack path put my army in such bad position and I lost not only my 3rd, but was pretty much losing my natural when I GG'd thinking "Great another season of silver."

Game finished and I get my nice shiny GOLD badge promotion! One step closer. This season I plan on getting to the point where my builds are crisp in hitting their timings and I have mastered the builds to the point where I no longer need my cheat sheets handy. In addition to this, my goals include:

1) incorporating more templar into my game
2) keeping my money low after my first push - I tend to focus on the battle without properly continuing to macro
3) Improving FF use and engaging the enemy in more favorable terrain

Things I recognize have really helped me improve over Season 2:

1) Finding builds that fit my playstyle and skill level
2) Playing fewer but longer sessions instead of 2-3 games here and there
3) Playing against Masters/Diamond league players in the Geforce Tournament - mostly helped me see where my 4gate needed work
4) Messing around with worker splits at beginning of game - realized some of my builds hit their timings easier when I had my workers mining 2 to a close mineral patch before sending one to the far mineral patches - seems to help getting that first pylon out 3-4 seconds sooner that I was which is a huge timeframe in a 4-gate scenario. Once the gateway goes down I stop paying attention to microing my workers as it is counterproductive to my scouting and build execution.
5) Finally made the correlation to number of gateways/production facilities and how often a new pylon would be needed with constant unit production. Still get supply blocked occasionally, but far less often than before.

So, here's to hoping I can reach platinum before Season 4. For now...it's time to dominate the gold league

/me ponders
Cycle
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States300 Posts
July 27 2011 17:00 GMT
#2
Super congratulations! Looks like you'll have to rename yourself goldhand

I remember when I was in gold league, I had to have a piece of paper from that sc2 notebook that came with the game where I wrote down the build order and referenced it many many times during the first 5 minutes of the game. If you ever want to practice against me at any time hit me up, info in the sig. <3
| chKCycle.551 | NA | Master League Random | Checkmate Gaming |
silverhand
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States91 Posts
July 27 2011 18:05 GMT
#3
Sounds great! I'll definitely add you to my friends list and hit you up for a game if you're available.

I also use that sc2 notebook for my build orders
/me ponders
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25562 Posts
July 27 2011 19:24 GMT
#4
That's great to hear! Since I like your name so much, I invite you to stop by my practice group whenever you want to get in some games or watch some games. We're mostly master and diamond league, but there's still a lot you can learn even if there's a skill difference. You can find us in chat channel PEJ on the NA/LA server. I'm blazinghand.736
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
SpearWrit
Profile Joined February 2011
United States300 Posts
July 27 2011 21:09 GMT
#5
Hey! I'm basically the same way, I was Silver Season 1, Gold Season 2, Plat Season 3!

By the way, did you use to play Warcraft? Your name could be a reference to the Knights of the Silver Hand, a.k.a. Paladins.
"Special Tactics is...make surprise for your enemy, and also...eh, still work." -White-Ra
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25562 Posts
July 27 2011 21:30 GMT
#6
Dude spearwrit you should stop by as well. Sorry about not really updating re: civ V, btw, it seems that our succession game fell apart after that initial one at least we got one through with a victory, though
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
silverhand
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States91 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-07-27 22:41:58
July 27 2011 22:38 GMT
#7
@blazinghand...thanks for the invite, as I have the time to play I will take you up on the offer. That is how I got good at war2 initially - by playing the top 100 on Katan's Lair repeatedly and just soaking up everything I could learn from them. Before long I was in the top 100.

@spearwrit...I did play warcraft, but this name came from before I discovered warcraft. It's the main charac ter in the Song of Albion trilogy by Stephen Lawhead. But as soon as I discovered the Knights of the Silver Hand, the name became even cooler.
/me ponders
SaLaYa
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States363 Posts
July 28 2011 04:56 GMT
#8
Congrats on getting to gold! One step closer.
While I never had problems with getting promotions etc (extensive competitive rts background) it doesn't mean I have some of the same problems as you!

I have build order cheat sheets everywhere, as I just switched to Terran for season 3, I am always forgetting my building timings!

Knowing how many production structures you need per base is really important! I was mid-masters Protoss last season (didn't play much) but I would always under produce the number of unit producing structures I needed.

University makes it really hard for my to play consistently, so I try and learn 2-3 solid builds per match-up, always one that is really cheesy.

I would suggest a big macro style against your opponents in lower leagues (obvious you have heard this advice before). Just always be checking their expo timing and try and stay ahead with better upgrades and tech. That's a pretty solid general gameplan.

That being said, scouting is everything! Towers, probe outside his ramp, extra obs, everything! With good enough scouting, you should be able to win every match (in theory).

Good luck this season!!
Cornell 2014 // eYe_am_SaSsY
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 44m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
SpeCial 116
SHIN 104
MindelVK 21
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 35362
Calm 5660
Shuttle 962
firebathero 560
Soma 396
Rush 299
910 110
Dewaltoss 80
Bonyth 74
Mong 57
[ Show more ]
Liquid`Ret 53
Rock 23
Pusan 19
Hm[arnc] 14
SilentControl 12
Noble 4
Dota 2
qojqva3059
Dendi1554
syndereN601
420jenkins334
LuMiX1
Counter-Strike
fl0m250
Other Games
singsing1774
mouzStarbuck328
B2W.Neo144
XaKoH 111
QueenE57
Organizations
Other Games
EGCTV1220
[ Show 17 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• poizon28 77
• 3DClanTV 75
• StrangeGG 38
• LUISG 28
• Migwel
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
StarCraft: Brood War
• Airneanach14
• FirePhoenix11
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• C_a_k_e 3802
League of Legends
• Jankos1866
Other Games
• Shiphtur182
Upcoming Events
AI Arena Tournament
44m
OSC
4h 14m
Sparkling Tuna Cup
17h 44m
WardiTV Invitational
18h 44m
ByuN vs Percival
Cure vs Classic
Shopify Rebellion Sundays
22h 44m
Spirit vs Mixu
Clem vs TBD
RSL Revival
23h 44m
Serral vs Rogue
BlizzCon
1d 2h
IdrA vs MC
Replay Cast
1d 7h
Afreeca Starleague
1d 17h
Light vs JyJ
Soulkey vs hero
WardiTV Weekly
1d 18h
[ Show More ]
Monday Night Weeklies
1d 23h
Afreeca Starleague
2 days
Snow vs Shinee
Shine vs EffOrt
GSL
2 days
PiGosaur Cup
3 days
The PondCast
3 days
Kung Fu Cup
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
KCM Race Survival
4 days
IntoTheTV X SOOP
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
IntoTheTV X SOOP
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
GSL
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Acropolis #5 - TRS
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Acropolis #5
RSL Revival: Season 6
Calamity Invitational
FISSURE Playground #3
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026

Upcoming

Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
Acropolis #5 - GSB
Acropolis #5 - GSC
SC4ALL II: Brood War
HSC XXX
Stellar Fest 2: Lunar Cup
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
PGL Major Singapore 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 6
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.