EPTSeason 3 had just started up and I was placed into diamond league as I had been in the past season. Now in Season 2 I was a top 8 diamond protoss. I was getting matched up against masters players occasionally (not regularly) so I was getting close to my ultimate SC2 goal of making it into masters league. However in the start of season 3 I started to slump. I figured this is just a bad day for me it'll pass. However, it continued. For a good week or two. I was struggling to get above 0 points. I was sitting around 70th in my league and I was frustrated. I know ladder doesn't really matter for anything but it's like my way of competing in SC2 since I have planned not to enter into any tournaments until I am in masters league. So I take the 1v1 ladder somewhat seriously.
Now I continued to play and for the life of me couldnt' figure out why my play quality had gotten so bad. I was losing to stupid things and making dumb mistakes I knew what I was doing wrong but for some reason I couldn't fix it. It got to the point where I was not playing platinum players and losing and this made me mad. I want to get to masters not fall back to platinum, I was drifting farther away from my goal. Then came the one day that changed it all. I played a guy on ladder. He was a zerg player and the game was on shattered temple and we spawned in close positions. I did a 5 gate rush because of the spawn positions and I ended up winning that game. My opponents closing words were
"Nice 5 Gate.
gg"
I messaged the player after and asked him if he was being serious or just being a sore loser. His explanation to me was that he was serious and that it was his own fault that he lost. Whatever build that can beat him is only helping him to iron out the weaknesses in his own play. I thought to myself at that point. This guy is just enjoying playing the game and not so much playing to win and only to win. He was having fun with it and perhaps that's what I should do too.
I went directly into another ladder game and it was against a different zerg player on Tal' Darim. I absolutly demolished him. I was playing at a level that I hadn't played at since season 2. Since that day I have gotten up to 270 points and am currently in 21st place in my division, am on a 5 game winning streak, and i'm improving daily. I'm still playing a couple of platinum players here and there but I slumped really bad so i'm picking myself up now. However, I learned that having a possitive attitude while playing starcraft is crucial (atleast for me). This player changed my experience in Starcraft 2 and reminded me to have fun with it. I still play to win and am competitive with this game but I enjoy it and have fun doing what i'm doing.
Anyways the point of this blog is just to share with all of you the great change just someone being nice made for me. Some of you might not care but I feel like niceness that helps someone like that in a world of angry video gamers should not go unnoticed.
