EPTI drew a deep breath and recited a quick Hail Mary. My eyes by habit went to the custom match section and for a moment I considered finding a nice custom game to join, but I was determined. The moment my courage arrived, I clicked on that glaring yellow reminder of my ladder fear, and I clicked it fucking HARD. My heart was pounding as BattleNet found me a match. When the cancel button appeared I hovered my cursor over it and fingered my left mouse button, thinking "I'll watch one more VOD, then play" but before I could act the words 'match found' appeared on screen. My heart leapt, then a huge grin crept on my face as the timer counted down. 3...2...1...
I was facing a Zerg on shattered temple. Okay, I thought, I'll forge FE, get a few gates and go for a mainly Chargelot composition, then see what happens. My opponent loaded first. Shit, I thought, he has the better rig, now I have to beat him to redeem my honor. As my loading bar slowly filled up my mind was surprisingly calm. I was in the zone. I was ready to execute.
My nexus appeared on screen and I sent my Probes to mine the nearest mineral patch. I queued up a Probe, set my rally point, and hotkeyed my Nexus as 3. My APM fell to zero. I'd never done a FFE in my life, but I've seen enough to know the basic build order. At 9 food I sent a probe down the ramp to warp in my first pylon, then returned my attention to probe production. When I amassed 12 food I knew it was about time to throw down my forge, so I sent my probe back down, threw down a forge, and sent it to scout. The instant my probe threw down the forge, I had a mini heart attack. I didn't know how to wall off. 'Shit!' I thought, 'do I just throw down the nexus, do I wall off completely with cannons? Fuck it, I'll wing it.' I noticed it was raining on Shattered Temple. "Has that always been there?"
What happened next some would undoubtedly call 'going on tilt'. I disagree. I call it improvisation. I added a cannon and a pylon to my wall off cause, yanno, I've heard cannons are OP. As I planned my Sim City, I glanced at my scouting probe just in time to see a Zergling's tail running toward my base. "Shit, I didn't want to wall off, but a Zergling run-by is something I've heard of. Fuck it, I'm not doing a full wall off." I haphazardly plopped down a Gateway, then added another cannon to my pseudo wall off. "That ought to do, cannons are OP!" That ended up working. One ling got by, but I couldn't be bothered to care.
"Okay, I'm alive, what's next? ZEALOTS! And charge! And upgrades!" I started +1attack, threw down a few gates, a few assimilators, and put a twilight council in my main. It was all quite haphazard. Realizing I had zero-ish units, I started chronoing out Zealots. At this point all my upgrades were on their way, my infrastructure was in place, all that was left was more zealots and an A-move for the ages. I pushed out into the middle of the map and started warping zealots near the watchtower. The creep spread was getting close to the watchtower. "Wow, that guy spreads creep like a boss." As if that really fucking matters.
After a few more warp-ins, I had a decent zealot army, and was ready to push into the shiny purple abyss. I looked dead into the eyes of the biggest zealot and, hands shaking with excitement and nervous confusion, told him "Godspeed". The A-move happened. My zealots marched toward his base, but were met by four spine crawlers and some roaches. "Shit, roaches are OP" My zealots took out the spines. They took out the Queens. The roaches were surrounded and exploded gloriously. My zealots were attacking his hatchery uncontested. I kept the reinforcements up, and soon I knew I had victory.
I could taste my opponents anger. There was a vague feeling of palpable frustration in the air. Also he called my build noob bull#@!% and told me to stay off the ladder. His tears were sweet. A message appeared informing me of my victory. You are victorious! "Oh, I know."
The experience was incredible. Much fist pumping was done. I'm sure the nerd I roflstomped cried himself to sleep that night. I hope he did; he called me a newbie. I'm no newbie. I'm a fucking ladder pro.
TL;DR: I won a game of sc2.
Replay: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/17600
I'm definitely going to keep laddering. That felt gooooooood.
