EPTOne of my biggest gripes in bw was how incredibly imba storm was, but I didn't quite appreciate how difficult it was to play PvZ until I got stomped by D- zergs with mass hydra 10 times in a row. I've always dodged ZvZ on iccup, and I similarly dodged PvP, opting to play ZvP instead. My main goto PvZ build was +1 sair/speedlot after forge FE into 3rd expo, 6gates, and robo. I used to rage really hard about how storms melted hydras instantly but playing from the toss perspective i can only say that storm is totally fucking impossible ._________.
I could not figure out how to fight mass hydra or hydra/lurk in the midgame at all. I tried to go for a goon/zeal/ht composition, but I would consistently get contained, try to form a hanbang, be up 50 supply, storm my own obs, and attack into lurkers so badly that I would instantly get rolled. The few PvZs I won the zerg was passive in the midgame and allowed me to take my third relatively unmolested, where I followed up with mass reaver archon and defended until zerg was starved out.
PvT by comparison was a complete joke. I 10/15 gated, and when that didn't outright kill Terran, I expanded, and transitioned into DTs into 2 base arbs. I'm pretty sure there isn't really a gayer way to play PvT , except perhaps bulldogging every game on destination.
I managed to end my first iccup season as protoss with an 22-24 record, D+. 2-1 ZvP, 11-19 PvZ, and 7-1 PvT. I stopped playing iccup because I went back home for Christmas break, and I was far too lazy to reset the router (no one remembered the password) and forward ports to host games. Playing iccup simply reaffirmed how terrible starcraft 2 is. Every game was rewarding, win or loss, and I didn't feel the extreme rage I had for SC2 since I felt like every error I made was extremely obvious, whereas losing in SC2 feels far more nebulous and coinfipping; ie out of my control. However, I like playing in CSL far too much, so until I graduate at least I don't see myself switching back permanently to broodwar.
So I find myself back at playing SC2. It's more than a little masochistic, but hey. I finally got a new keyboard; a Leopold fullsize with cherry blue switches. I prefer the feel of my old Acer keyboard with buckling spring switches, but the v, s, l and i keys weren't functioning properly. The F keys are about an inch and a half closer to the number keys on the Leopold, which makes using my location hotkeys much easier, but the Ctrl key is much shorter, due to the addition of the windows key which the Acer keyboard lacked. This forced me to alter the way I hotkey 8-0 such that I'm using my pinky on Ctrl and my thumb on the number keys. However, I think it's a pretty worthwhile tradeoff for stretching less to use F2-4.
I've averaged about 6.7 games per day including all my accounts, but 90% of my games are in December. Now that school's started up again I'm sitting around 4.5 games a day, but I don't really see that increasing as the amount of work ramps up.
My stats thus for season 5 come out to:
760 points: 35-33
16-9 TvP
7-15 TvZ
12-9 TvT
660 points + lots of bonus: 41-45
15-12 TvP
19-15 TvZ
7-18 TvT
The disparity between the matchup winrates across two accounts puzzles me. I'm playing approximately the same strength players on both accounts, but my TvZ record on one account is terrible, whereas on the other it's my TvT that's terrible. I actually think TvZ is by far my most stable and strong matchup, but I feel like I've beaten more "good" players in TvT. My positive TvP winrate I attribute to 90% of Ps being completely unable to defend 2rax; it's the only matchup where my average game length is sub 10 minutes (9:30).
I've been able to greatly increase the quality of my play this season compared to . I've gotten matched up with several GMs on ladder now, including vilekang, clashmercy, and nrgmihai (and managed to lose every game TTwTT). The closest I've gotten to beating a current GM was a TvR(P) on Arid Sands vs Lenchik. I opened 2rax vs gate robo gate gate and made 2 bunkers on ramp, then a CC. He scouted my bunkers, backed off, and made a nexus after only one immortal. Even though my CC was late due to two bunkers first, I think we were fairly even going into the midgame. I then had a pretty disastrous drop in his main, feel behind in upgrades to his double forge, and my ghosts were far too late. He also repeatedly denied my third in top right with a proxy pylon I didn't find for a while. Late ghosts and upgrades combined with fairly atrocious army control in the deciding battle lost me the game. However, it was a (relatively?) straight up macro game which I feel I could have won by playing slightly more conservatively with drops, clearing out that proxy pylon, and getting ghosts in a much more timely manner.
The best player I've managed to beat (luck?) this season so far is TL's very own QxGZelniq. We spawned 12 to 3 on shattered. I opened with a reactor hellion, bunker rush before second supply depot. He let my bunker finish, but in actuality only lost 2 drones and 4 lings, since I didn't rally more marines to his natural and only had 2 marines in the bunker. My 4 hellions found several roaches popping, but he microed poorly and let my hellions slip into his main. I scouted a baneling nest and made 3 bunkers as well as siege mode asap at my natural. If he hadn't let my hellions slip into his main, I feel like he could have powered drones and gone into the midgame with only a slighy disadvantage. However, my hellions netted a few more drone kills and he decided to allin, but forced to gg out to several tanks/bunkers/marauders.
I think I could probably become a more consistent "high" masters player to maybe low GM level by summer if I managed to grind games as consistently as I did during December (about 170 games in the space of a little more than 3 weeks). However, at a rate of 4 games a day it's more likely I'll stagnate or even regress. As always, finding motivation to play SC2 is incredibly difficult. Blizzard's completely asinine decisions do not help (i think arid sands and entombed valley are probably blizzard's worst maps since jungle basin).
On a more positive note, I AM SUPER MEGA EXCITED FOR MASS EFFECT THREE HOLY SHIT. Just two more months. that is all
I think I got a couple hundred during the winter break myself. Unfortunately I'm a lowly diamond and people use it to insult me 
