EPTThe purpose of this blog is essentially going to be a benchmark/progress guide (and hopefully entertainment for you viewers) for me on my trek to get over the hump of high Diamond into Masters (And once i get there, to whatever goal i set for myself next ^_^)
Who Am I?
My name is Jeff (first name basis, what?!) aka Inquisitor (in game), and happen to be the CSL coordinator for Ryerson University. My game tag essentially came from my love for Warhammer 40k and the fact that Inquisitors are bloody awesome in it :D
Onto some more SC2 related notes
I'm a Canadian Protoss player who's been playing Starcraft2 since it was released and has since taken over the majority of my gaming time. Before that, i had never really played an RTS to any sort of competitive-ish level, with the majority of my time going into playing Custom games or just playing Campaign in Warcraft3/FT or Broodwar. The reasoning behind it was that I'm typically very terrible at the MP aspect of games, so playing 1s or on ladder always annoyed me greatly as i would always lose and rarely ever win. But with the change of Blizzards ladder to being what it is now in term of match making, my level of enjoyment in playing sky rocketed (Since i was playing people my skill level) When the game first came out, i (or i guess i should say my brother, who i let play on the account at the time) was placed in Bronze league, never used hot keys, had little to no understanding of what micro or macro was and was overall just terrible at the game. Since then i have obviously climbed the ranks of the ladder up to Diamond (somehow by the end of the first season) and learned the ropes of playing RTS's properly (I have no idea how i ever played without hotkeys in the past) With all this said... i have however been unable to break into masters after all this time, which has been my goal for well over a year now. As a result i wanted to try something new to see how it works and to see if i can gather advise (which in turn can help others too) to get over this bump.
My goals/ Areas of improvement
So what sort of progressive blog would this be if i didn't have any goals or areas i could improve upon? That's right. it wouldn't be. Cause i would be in Grand Masters tearing up GSL if i was perfect at the game :D
Goal;
1. Get to masters (duh xD) - Easy to reach?, debatable, Obtainable? Hell to the yea.
Areas to Improve To (Hopefully) Reach Said Goals
1. Improve my PvZ (Hands down my Worst MU) - For this match up i currently go one of two opening. The first is FFE into a Stalkerless Deathball comprising of HTs, VRs, Immortals, Zealots and a Mothership sometimes ( Stalkerless PvZ Thread on the maps i feel comfortable FFEing on. And the other is 3gate FE while applying pressure with my first 6 Sentries, Zealot and 5-6 Stalkers on the maps i don't like to FFE on, and then typically work into the stalkerless deathball as it seems to be one of the few PvZ builds i can win with.
2. Improving my overall game sense/ timings - there have been many games i play where my timings are just slightly off and i have been killed by my opponents pushes, and other games where everything lines up perfectly.
3. Pylons. - The other death of me. The amount of games i have lost due to having been supply blocked at a critical time is absurd.. with that said, i have gotten x1000 times better at not being supply blocked in the past few months, but it still happens
4. Being more aggressive/ scout more often. - I'm currently a very passive player, who waits for either a big advantage to arise from a failed attack or till i'm maxed. The reason behind it being, i just tend to not feel safe moving about on the map as i always seem to be attacked when i'm not looking at my army, and lose all HTs or Sentries or whatever other important units i have before i have time to react.
Replays!
Here are a few of my recent ones that i felt like i played well in. (I shall add to them as time goes on, along with brief analysis)
PvT
1. http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(T)misc_vs_(P)Inquisitor/18882 - This game. I should not have won from how i played the first half of it. I lost my entire army and my third bringing me to a total of ~65food.... we had a 'nice' discussion after the game too xD (i was happy with my win and he commented on how he thought it was BS i won, so i told him after he could have won multiple times but failed. And it spiraled from there, with his main argument being had he been able to negate the storms or dodge them he would have won... cause you know... Ts don't have Ghosts with EMP right?) What made this game awesome for me, was that i was this --> | | close to gging out when i lost my third, but didn't. --> Upon watching the replay i had no idea he had taken those other expansions. i thought he lost cause he 2based for so long :S
PvZ
1. http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(P)Inquisitor_vs_(P)Genesis/18883 - FFE into Stalkerless PvZ. With the Z not being all that happy i won. He paused to tell me he deserved to win right before did.
2. http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(P)Inquisitor_vs_(Z)DaCheF/18912 - This is the other strat i tend to go in PvZ, the 3gate FE with Aggression. When the zerg doesnt make anything to defend before i get there its typically a near instant win situation for me (like in this game, but that is a rare occurance
) PvP (Will post some later)
1. http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/(P)Inquisitor_vs_(P)OkCoCaCoLa/18910 - Not my best PvP, but it was played yesterday so it shows roughly my current skill in the MU. Also what is it with Master level players being all BM
*Note* I Know my macros terrible at times
Statistics
So I decided to add this in today, because i have always been curious as to my W-L ratio since Blizzard got rid of it in the lower leagues
As a result, i only took my last 30 games played out of the probably 160ish ive played this season) Overall Win-Loss Rate : 16-14 --> 53.33%
PvP : 7-6 --> 53.83%
PvZ : 6-7 --> 46.15%
PvT : 3-1 --> 75%
(I plan to update this after i play every night
) End Notes
So yea
My plan is to keep posting my progress. Any help/ advice from others is greatly appreciated.And I guess i can shamelessly plug my stream, if people ever wish to watch me play (Typically after 9pm EST due to my school schedule) When i play, I'll usually go until my internet decides to shut down on me (happens a lot sadly.... *shakes fist at the heavens* DAMMMMNNN YYOOUUUU BEEEEELLLLLLLLL *ends fist shake*) or until i get tired
Stream; http://www.twitch.tv/inquisitorj
(If i shouldn't be plugging my stream mods, please let me know and i'll remove it
<3)Thanks everyone for reading <3
Edit; Added More Content
