EPTI went through a lot. I probably had some of the worse mindsets a player could have on their way to Masters, obviously not bad enough to not get a promotion at all, but you get the point. Basically my pent up feelings of being a Diamond player since Season 1, receiving condescending comments from existing Master players, really ate at my heart and soul. I knew how to analyze a replay, I knew how to improve my mechanics, I even understood where my play was lacking. But it seemed to me like no matter how hard I tried, there was always a mountain of curveballs on the ladder that were thrown my way to prevent me from executing what I had focused on in practice and theory.
I was frustrated. Like many people I sought comfort on the forums. I didn't want to be grouped up into that crowd of players who mindlessly allowed themselves to rage and complain. I would view threads about rage and try to insert my own opinions on what is reasonable and what is not, but honestly in the back of my mind I knew I had a huge amount of pent up emotions, held back by sheer will power. It just a large fat chunk of unreasonable anger and frustration stored up inside of me because I had no way to release it, or to even deal with it. I am such a hypocrite. I used to workout during a fit of emotions but even that didn't work anymore. Eventually I was simply just sad, I would ball up my fist after a disappointing loss and hold back the urge to slam my desk. If I was successful then there wouldn't be any physical damage, but there was always some lingering mental damaged. I was really sad, even a bit depressed after making mistakes I thought I had already covered.
So the struggle continued. My worst fits of emotions was during the time I had just reentered the game around June '11. Eventually I started to try to relieve myself by just directing really terrible thoughts and feelings towards my opponent and ladder. I just outright hated the ladder community. I would make sick (ync comments) personal comments about my opponent to myself during the game, regardless if I was winning or losing. Being self-conscious as I was, I knew it was horrible, but I couldn't stop myself. It was the only way I could vent the frustration without going wild and breaking things. It was sad, it really was and I still am ashamed at myself.
So moving into early fall I started to see the light of Master League. Moving up towards High diamond you start seeing Master players occasionally on their way out of the league. I got even more pissed. Low Master players are just as good or significantly worse than High diamond players, thats just how the MMR system works to balance out the league promotions. But I couldn't accept that at the time. "These people are just taking up space in Masters..." "I beat them, I should be in Master", "I was significantly better than these Low Master players" is what I would tell myself during those days, I was wrong.
I stayed in High Diamond for another 2 months. I would win and win and win, then lose terribly to the Master players I needed to compete with, and continue to win again with High Diamond and rock bottom low Masters. It was a brutal process. I was seriously at my wits end, and contemplated on quitting the game for good this time.
That was around the time I started to make a turn for the better. For the two months I kept playing, I played the same way I had always played without any thoughts of making a few adjustments to my play. Obviously from hindsight you can see my that mechanics would get better (Master level Mechanics), but without changing the mindset of "I'm better than these Low Masters, I should win" I was doomed to lose to Mid Master players forever.
That added more fuel to the fire, making me think that although my mechanics were superior, I thought that I was simply born with intellectual deficiencies that didn't allow me to fathom the reason why I could not figure out why I couldn't improve myself. That really really hurt, because I began to question my well-being, whether or not I would end up working at Wal-Mart as a career job because I just wasn't intelligent overall enough to get through the competitive job market. I thought to myself, "If I can't even hit Master league with serious and honest effort, in a video game where not everyone takes the competition seriously, then will I be successful in real life?" It was a daunting thought, people can question whether or not that thought should a valid thought for an adult to contemplate, but I find it to be a pretty legitimate question. Because in the end I realized it was because of my immaturity that held me back and made me so emotionally effected by it.
Finally, I reached out. I started asking the Master players who beat me what I had done wrong. Unfortunately many of them were condescending, but they would at least tell me why I had I lost. However the response was very candid and uninformative. In almost every case all they would say is it was because I was "Bad". It was frustrating to keep seeing that, but from my general logic about right and wrong, if the general population is saying the same thing then they're probably right about something. Some of the few non-jaded players on the ladder were able to give good sound advice. I listened but I was still very reluctant to follow through with their advice, I was stubborn because of my ill-feelings towards players on the ladder. But surely enough when I used their tips and I began to win more games.
That was it, I realized it. I was simply just terrible, not worthy of the promotion until I fixed my play, not to my own standards but to the standards of the actual game. This entire time I was working on the same mindset that my play was superior and made no effort to adapt. Stupid right? Yeah it is, I agree. But it is hard for the actual person in question to realize this himself, and unfortunately only until they themselves come to this realization, they will never change. It's like the egotistical asshole at the party, he's not going to get a clue until someone punches him in the face and comes back to his senses. In my case I was just the stubborn guy in the UFC ring getting my face plastered before finally tapping out.
Being in High Diamond means you're doing a lot of things right, but a few things wrong to not get promoted. The longer you are in High Diamond, the more stubborn you really are to adapting your play. Surely enough, I simply added the right amount of Corrupters to my ZvP, completely changed my ZvZ philosophy, and refined my ZvT build orders with more spinecrawlers. That's all I needed to do the entire time. I had my other bases covered with my macro, because all you guys ever say in the strategy forums is macro better. I could perform all sorts of things, my hands could handle it but my mind wouldn't allow it.
TL;DR - I was a stubborn fart who unconsciously had an ego, came to realize it, adapted my game, and got promoted.
I hate people with huge ego, so I couldn't fathom the possibility that I myself had an ego. But I did, it wasn't obnoxious, but it was there and it was enough to hold me back. Right now I'm losing a lot to the upper tiers of Mid-Master players, but it's fine. I'm not brushing off like before without understanding why "its fine" because now I get it.
Listen if you're not already a pro then there are HUGE LEAKS in your play, HUGE. You just don't see it because it encompasses your entire understanding of the game to the point that only a significantly superior player can recognize it. I knew that losses are a good source for learning, but I didn't understand the concept of that idea. I knew I was "Bad" but I didn't fully understand the fact that I was REALLY BAD. When you don't understand something you get frustrated, frustration turns to depression, depression turns to anger, and anger turns to hate. It's a vicious cycle you must break before anything to improve at any kind of activity in my opinion.
Here's an update on how my mindset is now. Yesterday I played a ZvZ while in skype with my friend unrelated to the game. My opponent 6pooled, I successfully block the initial rush, but because of simple mistakes I loss on the 2nd push. I didn't feel anything. In fact I felt pretty good because now I added a new tactic to my library with that loss. I was like awesome, I didn't know you could still win with 6pool even if your first push completely fails. Essentially he just saved up a massive amount of lings and made a 2nd spine (his first one failed), and I loss while I was distracted talking on Skype because I thought it was over. Back then I would have seriously raged, and shut off skype with some mean comments. This time around I chuckled and told my friend about it. Similar story to my previous blog about me conquering ladder cheese rage, but at that time I still had those feelings of rage pent up, but not this time.
All in all, I really have to say... SC2 has helped me mature a lot. I feel kind of silly to have a video game effect me so much personally seeing how its almost irresponsible to allow yourself to behave with such a mindset in the first place. But seriously, this game has changed the way I approached learning and understanding things. Maybe not the game itself, but more how I improved myself as a player with the game. I essentially had to change my personal values and logic in order to get promoted, and I think that is pretty significant.
That's it for my long blog, serious props to anyone who reads the entire thing. Thank you.
