EPTDay 2:
Summary:
I woke up an hour earlier today (11am ZOMG!) which started off the day much better with some cornflakes and began to practice. Had some coaching and then back into the practice whilst streaming. Just as I started losing focus and just play badly I decided "Ok 1 more game before I get ready for dinner" I hit que, it instantly finds a game and then up on my screen BAM: Anything vs oGsMC. (See more below for my recount of this matchup!) After this debacle I go to dinner at the pub with my housemates and one of their friends, most epically massive steak+ chips and salad for $10 + a beer. Also grab a slurpy on the way home because OMG they have GINGER BEER flavoured slurpies at 7/11 now! I don't know when this happened but it's AMAZING.
I get home to realise my clan (clan Alternative, or aLt) are playing a all-kill format teamleague tonight and it's 1-1 and they want me to play (info on games below). After that's done I lie down to watch Parting look dead and then somehow defeat jakji two games in a row with this thing called ENDLESS STORM. Pretty impressive the way he just never ran out of templar!
I then hopped on ladder and smacked out more ladder until 1:30am. I've actually had quite alot of long ladder games today and realise i've only played 21 games despite a looooong time on that ladder.
Excercise:
Didn't do any until right before posting this:
30 pushups (arms spread wide), 50 situps. 25 bicep curls, 20 hammer curls.
Games played, who I played, tournaments:
21 games on korean ladder 10 wins: 11 losses
Playhem Daily: 3 games: Hit a platinum, then a masters both relatively easy wins. Then hit CoLMVPTails on my first time playing metropolis. I wasn't familiar with the map so played very passively and so did he, reminiscent of slayers brown vs Losira. We both took huge base counts super quickly but I delayed my 5th and 6th a little too long when the gas from them would have meant my broods hit fast enough to probably just outright kill him. As it was I cleared most of his army when I engaged with broods despite a vortex + archons taking out a few broodlords. However the mothership survived and I stupidly forgot to morph new overseers so my remax of lingbane ultra couldn't charge in and destroy a base or two as I'd planned. By the time I did this attack he had the chance to spread his units and position very well so I only cleared about 1/3 of his army. Now he started mixing lots of archons and a few zealots into his mix and spreading his units so I had to go back to broodlords now with hydra infestor support but the fights ended up being very one sided as he had enough time to max with a ridiculous amount of tech units and make the perfect deathball while my broodlords hovered over to his side of the map. In hindsight taking that 5th base faster or making those overseers would almost definitely have swung the game in my favour.
Ladder vs MC:
Oh god, it's Taldarim altar! Such a great map for protoss especially in ZvP (STUPID ROCKS) and my refined 2 base plays are pretty much limited to roachling all-ins so I just decided to play a standard macro game. I don't position any of my overlords correctly for scouting and keep messing up simple macro tasks by mishitting the wrong keys on the keyboard. I see the timing of MC's +1 and decide off that scouting information alone that he's doing a blinkstalker timing. ABSOLUTELY NO reason to assume it but ah well. I go straight to a macro hatch and lair and upgrading my ling damage and carapace only to realise there's a pylon within throwing distance of my 3rd and theres 10 +1 zealots there, I don't even have a roach warren started and it's past 8:00 WTF AM I DOING!? He must have chrono'd the shit outa his +1 but still no excuse to be playing so badly, I don't even try to fight there. He then runs into my main with dts that do minimal damage, and my roaches actually manage to dodge most of his ff and clear out the mass of zealots in my natural. I'm like wow wtf do I still have a chance? I throw my 3rd back up, add drones and then swap back into mass units with a few infestors. Oh wait here come 40 blinkstalkers and there's a manner nexus next to my 3rd. Time to GG and go eat some food
SEA Clan Cup:
I hop on to a laggy game (20 spectators ftl) where my mouse keeps bugging up but manage to win semi-convincingly against the New Zealand Protoss Kowi who's just getting back into sc2 if i hear correctly, used to be no.1 GM on NA ladder a longgg time ago. They send another Protoss "Another" at me on Daybreak and we both just macro up passively besides some halfhearted zealot voidray pressure. I don't feel I'm playing too well (I never do on a full stomach) but then he attacks right as my 7-8 broods finish morphing into a concave of roach-hydra-infestor. I couldn't ask for a better way to trade armies with a protoss, hell, I'm even on creep! There's 2 collosi that survived or rallied in and a handful of stalkers, my bank is pretty much endless and I decide just ling-ultra with a few infestors should clean it up nicely, (I have 4 macro hatches so like 9 total). Then as my lings rally out I realise I skipped lingspeed in the earlygame and even though I've been adding some melee upgrades I neglected this. I panick and start the upgrade and start adding ultras and such, I realise I don't have bane speed yet and decide that would be a wasted investment. He ends up pushing into my natural with ling speed only 3/4 done and I'm forced to engage, but even with a perfect surround slowlings are well, SLOW-lings. Kill maybe 1/4 of his force. UGH. Gg.
Replays:
PiG v skMC (ladder): http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=727
PiG v CoLMVPTails (Playhem) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=726
Conclusion:
I moved up ~30 points: Rank 3 masters: 1075 points
Should have excercised much earlier! Pretty good day though playing 21 ladder games and a few Playhem games aswell as the Clan league! The Playhems give me a daily challenge to wake me up and test myself against some great players so I might start streaming my participation in these. FOR THE SWARM!
. Yesterday nights workout was just making sure I did something to burn some energy and keep everything tight before the day was out.
