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Hey Guys,
lately I've been very demotivated to ladder, I play Zerg since the Beta of Starcraft 2 and really don't feel like playing a lot anymore.
Playing Random seemed interesting to me from the start, but I never had the guts to really make the step.
So now I'm hoping to gain some motivation by switching to Random. Anybody got some advice on how I should go about it? I have acces to two Accounts on the EU Ladder right now, both in Masters.
I have played all the races to an extend against lower league friends and in Team Games, but I am not confident that it is enough to just start playing 1on1 on the same level as before.
Should I bomb the MMR on one of them and just start playing? Should I focus on playing the non-Zerg races first? Any help ist appreciated!
I'll let you know how it goes.
Greetings,
Gnizz
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I've been thinking about going random too (from Zerg).
I'm not sure what advice to give except just start playing and see how it goes. I guess I'd suggest playing all terran for a few days, then all protoss for a few days, to focus your practice a bit more. Once you feel semi-competent in all matchups, go random.
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Norway28600 Posts
just start playing. you'll lose a bunch at first with your less used races, but your mmr adjusts eventually. no need to bomb anything, fact is, either way you go about it, you'll find your opponents too hard with less used races or too easy with more used race.
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On February 25 2012 14:16 Liquid`Drone wrote:
just start playing. you'll lose a bunch at first with your less used races, but your mmr adjusts eventually. no need to bomb anything, fact is, either way you go about it, you'll find your opponents too hard with less used races or too easy with more used race.
I agree with this. I wanted to go random as well recently. Thought my MMR would reset if I didn't play for a full season, didn't happen, started playing games with random. If I was winning, and knew I would win, I'd just leave (only happened when I was zerg) to lower my MMR. Kept doing this, then I actually played some games out with my offraces and started winning still in masters. Chances are your off races are pretty good actually, so just play and you'll hit the right MMR.
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United States24633 Posts
When this happened to me I tried handicapping myself whenever I got my strongest race... the trick is finding the handicap that brings your winning percentage down to match your other races :p
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imo play R on the account you have the highest mmr with. Sure you'll tank it but I find it's better to figure out just how bad your timings are against the best players you can find on ladder. When your mmr goes down and people try to hit the same timing and come with less units... it's not as scary lol
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I agree with Drone, as a player who started Random. You'll learn how to play all the races better if you play better opponents, because your mechanics should at least keep you competitive vs people using their main race in your league.
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my friend just plays random on my account (because i dont play 1v1 anymore) and he saves his account for his main race. if he ever wants a challenge with his main, he just plays his own account. he lost like 10 straight on ym account. lol. im going to be in diamond soon if he keeps playing on my account...
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if you can play customs I would do that. I am masters on Z and on my second accout I placed plat w/ Terran. I would imagine you would fair the same or maybe better so just look for Diamond players to practice your builds with the other 2 races. That or take one of your accounts and practice T/P and just 6 pool to get to the other mu's quicker.
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I tend to find that playing random increases the amount of BM you receive tenfold. I've been called a noob in PvP for expanding and winning. People get irrational. It can be funny :D
It also is pretty cool to play the other races. For example, I don't understand or do well in ZvP because I'm terrible as soon as a colossus gets on the field (assuming I survive a 2 base allin, which is rare). Playing toss gives me a good idea of what protoss can do, and more importantly, when. It just helps so much in understanding. My ZvP still sucks balls because hey, it's my weakest matchup by far, but at least it's better.
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I did that and it definitely was good times.
these are some of the strategies i employ when playing random for the laughs and good times to give you a head start when switching.
for protoss for fun i rush mothership then mass recall into my opponents base.
for terran i like nuking... everywhere... defensive nukes, offensive nukes, nukes whose only purpose is to freak out my opponent.
for zerg you probably already some "cheeze" but i have actually found that i have more tricks for them (likely because i have ,as well, played them the most as well). Any-who against terran i like building a hatchery in their base, then canceling it and building a evolution chamber in the dying ashes then when that dies.. broodlings attack!!!!!!! that just one but i like it alot.
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I started by getting all my ranks to diamond in 4v4, then 3v3, then 2v2, and finally 1v1. This was just to get a reasonable idea of basic mechanics of constant worker production without getting supply blocked and learning how many structures will support each base worth of income. From there I've started to hammer out timings specifically for each race, but I kind of/sort of dont have as much time as I'd like, so I pretty much run off of raw mechanics and vague metgame knowledge to get by. I'm still scraping mid-diamond playing only ladder and straight-up random 3-5 games per week.
Personally, I find that zerg relies far more on excellent macro (injects, creep, larvae control)), terran on timing (stim, siege, drops) after timing (combat shield, +1, ghosts), and protoss on general strategy because the other two races counter in drastically different ways.
For toss esp, I find zealot micro to be incredibly rewarding against everything except when you're facing sentry+archons+whatever else shows up from warpgates that game
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Otherwise, find a generic "safe" opener for each race and just play.I might even say play terran for a week and then toss, just so you dont have to worry that a zerg streak will net you a bunch of wins you dont really want (yet)
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Well after reading this thread, I have to say that I personally would suggest literally rolling a dice or something equivalent (random number generator?) and assigning values to races you pick. Not because it's unfair to your opponent (it is, but that's completely beside the point) but because that way you play games as that race the same way everyone else plays them. As in, when you play Zerg people will still FFE, when you play Protoss people will still 6 pool, that sort of stuff. If you don't play against this sort of stuff, you're losing a whole dimension of those races so if you choose to play any individual one at any given time, you'll have holes in your experience.
But yeah, dude, go for it :D Sounds fun for me, too.
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Like a lot of the posters in this thread, I also thought that random players were baller, so I tried my hand at it too.
I found it really fun and always fresh, since I'd rarely get the same matchup multiple times (for me, as T I always ran into TvP, and when I mained Z months ago, it was always ZvZ LOL).
I suggest just playing games through until you demote, so instead of just wasting time F10-n'ing, you get to practice the race mechanics.
Also grab some practice buddies if you want to improve as random, to practice individual matchups in custom games.
And on the point of when you play your main vs people in the lower league, what I did was play EXTREMELY greedy to see if I could pull off by-the-skin-of-my-teeth defenses. I got really good practice on when to pull all my workers and defend. 
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thanks for the advice so far, I'm just going to click Random in my Ladder Screen from now on and see how it goes. I guess practice partners for specific matchups would be good as well...
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I'm not saying you will, but from my experience 90% of the people I play on ladder who choose random end up doing some wonky cheesy or all in builds. Not saying you will, but that just seems extremely boring. If you can play all three races at a high level without cheesing every game then mad respect.
I can play Zerg and Terran at a diamond level but my protoss is Gold at best.
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I prefer rolling dice to determine which race I'm going to play ~~
Easier to figure out opening strat, and avoids the random hate :3
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I've played Master Z for the past two seasons, and decided I wanted to try to learn the other two...
Unfortunately it seems being random makes you a target for some of the most random BM out there.
I've had people respond "Fuck you" to my "glhf", which is normally when I just click the mute button. Regardless, I usually tell the person what race I am when the game starts.. I am all for having it show an actual race when the game starts even if I selected random..
It sounds like you are like me, and actually want to learn how to play all three. After a few weeks or so my Zerg mechanics got me up to a diamond MMR as random. When I roll Z I absolutely destroy people, but when I roll T or P its usually about a 50/50, unless I get a TvT (ugh).
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EPT
