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Hey guys, I'm SheffiTB, TL lurker and occasional strategy forum poster when I really feel I can help. You might notice that my signature says that i'm in gold league, and that my country says Canada. Both of these are now incorrect (I still consider both true, but that's a different story) and this is why.
I moved to Israel about a month ago. It took a week to get internet at our house, another week to get an EU copy of starcraft, and another 2 weeks to find time to download and install the game (for those who don't know, installing EU sc2 on a comp that has NA sc2 is a pain). On NA, I was a gold league terran player with 7 wins, 0 losses, and about a trillion bonus pool (give or take). I knew low gold wasn't the ranking I deserved, but because of my fear of laddering, I never found out where I was supposed to be. When I got the EU copy of sc2, I decided to play 5 matches a day, at least, every day, and to start off in practice league in order to practice my builds for each matchup.
I did this for one day before I saw a friend that I met over the internet online. I had never played him before, and since he's a gold player as well, the first thing we did was play a game: a TvR (randomed zerg) on XNC. I did a 2rax pressure, which epic failed because of a number of reasons:
1. bad bunker placement
2. nonexistant marine micro
3. he pulled everything he had; his queen and all of his drones.
I pulled back, after losing 5 extra marines to a bad rally point (/facepalm), and did my practiced transition: expand, get two gas, and do a follow-up push at 9:00 with 4 tanks (off of two factories) and a bunch of marines. This push killed his creep tumors and a spine crawler before dying to I don't even know what. I was paranoid, as I had watched replays of this guy playing before (when he won a bronze-silver-gold tourney), and you will never see a more aggressive gold league player in your life. So what did I do? I turtled. I left my 4 tanks and handful of marines to die as I macroed up a huge force, and got a third. He killed my third with zerglings and banelings and killed all of the scvs at my natural with a massive force of lings and banelings, then swooped in with mutas into my main to kill my remaining scvs. I literally had no income left, so I did the only think that I could; I pushed. Stim and combat shield had just finished, and I has something along the lines of 20 tanks ready to attack. I pushed, and since he sacrificed all of his units killing my scvs, I won.
The second game, he chose P instead. His best race, and the race that he ladders with, is T, but he likes to experiment with other races. He did a 2gate contain against my 1rax gasless expand, and picked off 7 marines with gosu stalker micro (once again, for a gold league player) before I got my bunkers up. That threw me off completely, I got my upgrades late, and the timing attack that I usually do at 9:30-10:00 came at 11:15 or something. At that time he had more than enough to annihilate my push, and followed up by pushing into my base and killing me.
After that, I laddered some more, and decided to do my placement matches, since practice leaguers are EZ. My first match was against a guy who did an amazing build; triple supply depot and double refinery before barracks, into losing your whole fucking base to 4 marines off of a single barracks that casually walked to his base. I need to copy that build some time. The second guy was a P who did a flawlessly executed 4gate, arriving at 8 minutes with 10 stalkers, and reinforcing every 2 minutes. The third guy went double techlabbed starport so he could double upgrade caduceus reactor for his medivac (singular).
I fought hard, but (and I know it's hard to believe) I won those three games. My next game, though was against a protoss who actually did know how to play. He did a three gate robo, reasonably timed, without getting supply blocked for very long (always had a pylon building when he got supply blocked), and I , being influenced by the last 3 games, underestimated him and didn't build bunkers at my expo with my gasless expand. I managed to defend by pulling all scvs, building bunkers at my main (I had to float away my expo), and some stutterstep micro, then reestablished my natural, built bunkers there, salvaged the one in my main, and continued macroing. I defended his attacks time and time again, be it blink stalkers blinking behind my bunkers and kitting my mineral line, a straight up push with immortals and everything, etc. with scvs pulled. After a while, I noticed why I wasn't ahead in units even though I had had the economic advantage for ages; I was floating 2000 minerals. I spent them on 10 more barracks, pumped out two rounds of marines, and killed him.
My last placement was against a platinum protoss. The guy said he was 100 plat, but I looked at his ranking and it was actually mid plat. His macro was great, and so was his micro, but his only problem was his build. 3gate forge with 2 cannons in your main before expanding cannot really defend at 9:30 push with ~20 marines, 4-5 marauders, and 2 medivacs with stim and +1 off of 2 bases. After beating him, I got placed into diamond.
I don't consider myself a diamond player. Hell, I don't even consider myself a plat player, but I got placed into diamond. I am now going to do my first ladder game in diamond; wish me luck!
 
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Diamond is not that big of a deal, I'm playing matches where my opponents are favoured even though they're rank 1 Plat and I'm 18 Diam. But it's because I just started and I have 10 victories and they already have 100+. The placements are sometimes odd.
I think that Diamond is a level where you need a decent macro and one build per matchup that you execute flawlessly. Just work on macro macro macro and you'll be fine, don't do too many gimmicky builds that require high APM or multitasking.
Good luck.
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On September 19 2011 19:54 Kukaracha wrote:
Diamond is not that big of a deal, I'm playing matches where my opponents are favoured even though they're rank 1 Plat and I'm 18 Diam. But it's because I just started and I have 10 victories and they already have 100+. The placements are sometimes odd.
I think that Diamond is a level where you need a decent macro and one build per matchup that you execute flawlessly. Just work on macro macro macro and you'll be fine, don't do too many gimmicky builds that require high APM or multitasking.
Good luck.
(I'm not ingame right now because I chickened out with my mouse over the find match button) My builds are as follows:
TvT: double gas FE with 4 marines in total (throughout the entire game), with an early tank with siege and a viking for vision, set up a contain as early as possible and expand to a third
TvZ: 2rax expand into double factory 9:00 4tank push while expanding to a third
TvP: 1rax gasless expand into 3 rax (one techlab two naked) MMM push at 9:30 with stim, +1, ~20 marines, 4-5 marauders, and two medivacs while expanding to a third.
Would those be considered high APM builds? They are the builds that most fit my style out of the builds in the current metagame.
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So TLDR got lucky and won placement matches in EU got diamond and bragging US is better?
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On September 19 2011 20:02 Drey wrote:
So TLDR got lucky and won placement matches in EU got diamond and bragging US is better?
not at all, like i said i consider myself gold, and since I know that eu is supposed to be better than NA, I'm scared to play.
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I find it odd that you go 3 Rax with an expo in TvP. With one base you can support 3 Raxes, 2 with techlab and 1 reactor, so 2 bases should be something like 6 Rax, 3 techlab, 1 reactor, 2 naked + reactored Medivacs.
I never go bio in TvP so I don't really know if I'm really correct but you can definitely support more stuff if your goal is to push at 9.
About fear of laddering, don't worry, just do it. I used to be like this and then I just said "fuck it". I don't even warm up anymore. And if I'm pissed and find a TvT I'll just float my CC into my opponent's base and kill it myself while he watches.
You shouldn't worry about winning or losing too much, practice makes perfect.
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On September 19 2011 20:05 SheffiTB wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2011 20:02 Drey wrote:
So TLDR got lucky and won placement matches in EU got diamond and bragging US is better? not at all, like i said i consider myself gold, and since I know that eu is supposed to be better than NA, I'm scared to play.
EU is only better at the top, below masters eveyone will be almost the same. The reason EU is better its because it has much more better players.
Im certain if you played EU and US you would reach a similar rank.
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On September 19 2011 20:06 Kukaracha wrote:
I find it odd that you go 3 Rax with an expo in TvP. With one base you can support 3 Raxes, 2 with techlab and 1 reactor, so 2 bases should be something like 6 Rax, 3 techlab, 1 reactor, 2 naked + reactored Medivacs.
I never go bio in TvP so I don't really know if I'm really correct but you can definitely support more stuff if your goal is to push at 9.
Actually, my money is constantly at 0 with no queueing while doing my build. I have it refined down to the second and I can't fit any extra structures anywhere in the build until I've started my medivacs, and even then I'm saving up for a third. My problem is I don't know what to do with my money after I throw down my third. I know I want to end up with 4 gas, 6rax with addons, two engineering bays, and an armory (to enable +2 and +3), but I don't know in what order to get them.
You can only support 3 rax on one base when you're fully saturated, and it takes a long time to get fully saturated on two bases.
About fear of laddering, don't worry, just do it. I used to be like this and then I just said "fuck it". I don't even warm up anymore. And if I'm pissed and find a TvT I'll just float my CC into my opponent's base and kill it myself while he watches.
You shouldn't worry about winning or losing too much, practice makes perfect.
Yeah I know that, but whenever I try to play I'm like "ok let's do this, I'm ready... Actually, I'm a bit tired, my chair isn't comfortable, my friend will probably come on skype soon, etc. etc. etc. <insert 50 more excuses here>, I probably shouldn't play right now. I'll do it later."
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Update: I just played my first game against a diamond player. He 4gated, (a balls 4gate, 20 probe 6 stalker 1 zealot at 5:45) I scouted the 4gate, built a bunker at my front, and he eventually grinded me down over the course of 4 agonizing minutes. My main mistake, after watching the replay, was overreacting to the fact that he had run past my bunker and into my mineral line, surviving with 2 stalkers, and pulled all of my marines, including the ones in the bunker, to kill them. He warped in 4 zealots, killed my bunker, and from there it was a clear loss. I admit I'm proud I lasted 4 minutes, but I still lost, and it didn't give me a good feeling going forward.
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On September 19 2011 20:47 SheffiTB wrote:
Update: I just played my first game against a diamond player. He 4gated, (a balls 4gate, 20 probe 6 stalker 1 zealot at 5:45) I scouted the 4gate, built a bunker at my front, and he eventually grinded me down over the course of 4 agonizing minutes. My main mistake, after watching the replay, was overreacting to the fact that he had run past my bunker and into my mineral line, surviving with 2 stalkers, and pulled all of my marines, including the ones in the bunker, to kill them. He warped in 4 zealots, killed my bunker, and from there it was a clear loss. I admit I'm proud I lasted 4 minutes, but I still lost, and it didn't give me a good feeling going forward.
You take this shit way too seriously.
Ur affraid of laddering?
So u either like that Diamond icon way too much or you are super affraid too lose.
Winning placements doesn't mean that much, recently I got placed into Diamond on a new acc offracing Zerg while I had never played zerg before, I just won my placement matches :p.
What's the worst thing that can happen when u do play?
U lose a few games?
Ur the only1 that cares about ur losses, no1 else does.
So u should just man up, and practice if u wanna get better, not go on TL and tell people ur affraid of queuing  .
About ur 4gate loss, I play toss myself, if u get 4gated just go up ur ramp and defend.
In a 1 base vs 1 base scenario the Terran should allways win, don't be affraid to fall back.
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SheffiTB, don't be afraid to make more then one bunker against a fourgate, walling of is something that helps me a lot try it and if it is according to your style keep it  GL HF man!
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On September 19 2011 22:49 Jakkerr wrote:You take this shit way too seriously. Ur affraid of laddering? So u either like that Diamond icon way too much or you are super affraid too lose. Winning placements doesn't mean that much, recently I got placed into Diamond on a new acc offracing Zerg while I had never played zerg before, I just won my placement matches :p. What's the worst thing that can happen when u do play? U lose a few games? Ur the only1 that cares about ur losses, no1 else does. So u should just man up, and practice if u wanna get better, not go on TL and tell people ur affraid of queuing .
I'm trying, so hard, to press that find match button. It's difficult but I've managed it twice in one day today, and that's like a record for me.
About ur 4gate loss, I play toss myself, if u get 4gated just go up ur ramp and defend.
In a 1 base vs 1 base scenario the Terran should allways win, don't be affraid to fall back.
I was at the top of my ramp, since i scouted the 4gate. He walked past my bunkers, and when i unloaded to deal with his stalkers, he killed my bunker with an additional warpin.
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How do you then explain me offracing Z on NA and getting Plat when i am silver T on EU ?
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the way you describe your play youre not going to be in dia for long
i dont think i was that bad before i got promoted (no offense to you but...)
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Hopefully you don't get demoted
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EPT
