EPTProgaming and you and how hard it really is.
My journey of progaming started about this time last year.
Just like you I had started off in bronze. 1v1.
Though I spent about 2 months prior working on APM and just general build orders in team games, but a team game can never prepare you fully for the 1v1 world.
I had originally played the game because I was bored one night in my vacation in Vienna and I could not play world of warcraft because it was not on my brothers laptop so I tried some starcraft.
Then I found out about teamliquid and noticed there are tournaments, MONEY, and fame you could get out of this.
I have spent a ludicrous amount of time on this game.
When Im not playing starcraft, im watching starcraft, literally.
I havent played an obcene amount of games(easily 3000+ though) because I believe watching and decrypting strategies on how and why they work are more benificial to me than mass herpderping games.
Little did I know what I was getting into...
My Pokemon Trading Card Game Career
Anywho before I start my rants and everything about this game I'm going to give a quick background of my past.
For about 11 years of my life now I have played Pokemon Trading Card game competively. The last 3 years have been my retirement years where I only play at 1-2 major tournaments a year with little to no practise. I play just now because I dont mind stomping some nerd dreams of winning a tournament.
For a long time I was regarded as one of the top players in Canada and decently ranked world wide(Top 40?)
It was nice I won alot of money, scholarships, and full paid trips around the world(meaning mostly USA, since nintendo is cheap and only holds stuff in america) But hawaii, san diego etc is really nice to see.
It was a really amazing game to play if you never got a chance to and I had met some amazing people over the year and I feel it has contributed so much to my starcraft 2 Career.
StarCraft 2 and Pokemon are more similar than you think.
Both have metagames, build orders(decklists), and things you have to memorize otherwise it can cost you games. The only difference between pokemon and starcraft 2 is that it is turn based strategy vs real time.
In Pokemon was a player who would play rouge deck, stratagies that have never been heard of making me a very feared player because I would be the person setting the metagame for the next tournament, it took hundreds(400+) of hours of dedication from me and my teammates to create decks(build orders) to fight against the metagame.
Like in any strategy/war game, surprise is youre #1 tool.
My World of Warcraft era
Like most gamers I tried out and got "hooked" onto WoW.
Being competitive in natural loved being number one so this game was not any different
Eventually I had found myself in a Top25 North American WoW guild for about 3 years(Hellborn/Relentless/Downtime Shattered Hand-US). Doesn't add much to being good at starcraft 2 other than being dedicated and learning to deal with failure multiple multiple times.
I also was a top gladiator for many season of the PvP which actually have helped me in my journey in LoL.
My Poker Career
I started playing Poker when I was 16. My friend in highschool introduced it to me one day in class and I was hooked.
Since I was already an avid card player with Pokemon I dont think this game would be any different. I picked up all the books, watched all the shows, I hustled all the kids during lunch time it was great. By the time I was 18 I had already stacked up $12000 in my bankroll and almost qualified for a EPT(I was 1 spot away from getting in, lost because I made a bad play and I accept that) But when university hit I slowed down my Poker and focused more on school only playing to make enough to hangout and stuff. And after the USA FBI targeted and shutdown Pokersites it has become increasingly harder to play(even though I live in Canada) alot of Canadian Banks will not allow their Credit Cards to be used on Pokersites.(IE TD Bank)
Remember starcraft 2 is my very first RTS game ever. actually I hated Starcraft BW before because I could not appreciate non high action games(like BF COD etc)
Starcraft Career
From Bronze to gold was a fun time.
I personally invented my own 8 roach rush build, slightly stronger than a 7 roach rush.
I was so happy that I actually invented a build that no one had ever thought of, and still hasnt to this date. I figuired that the +16 damage could be game changing which it really is.
(the build order is 14p 14g drone to 16 queen and roach warren when SP finishes. Drone to 18/18 then make 2 overlords and continiously produce roaches till you hit 8) The timing is at 530 which is really nice.
I figuired if I cant handle 1 base what is the chance I could handle 2.
This is where I worked on micro, hotkeys, all that jazz.
I was able to have some rediculous win rate of about 70% at the time with this build which helped me jump from Bronze to gold in about 100 wins. I never was in silver yay!
Gold to Plat. Macro begins.
I knew if I ever wanted to go pro I would have to become a macro kings like my Idols Ret,Sheth,Idra.
No matter how many loses(i dont remember) everygame I would 15h. Here I would master the 2 base sometimes exploring 3. I got to platinum in another 50-60 wins with about a 65% win ratio. My multitasking from the roach rush had transffered over to helping me inject and macro so it wasnt really that difficult.
Plat to diamond.
Here I am decently confident in my macro. I continue to play macro and I will forever from this point.
Dat Masters
From what I remember I get to diamond in 200 wins in about 4 months? Something like that.
But for 2 months I get onto the 2 Rax herp derp bandwagon. While practising my zerg on a side account i practise my marine splits(which have helped me immensley today it helps for every race) and 2 rax really really well. And the map pool at the time favouring 2 rax it was time to get masters.
I had bummed my mmr to lowish diamond at the time with my zerg because I was getting frusturated so I decided to try out my terran.
57 wins in a row later and 1 loss. I was finally masters.(6 months later)
I faced diamond till about 44 wins I believe. Its amazing what 2 rax and bunker rushes can do.Now some of them were "macro games" but they all ended before 14 mins becuase my late game terran is pretty aweful.
At this point I join a new E-Sports Team Organization(Icons Of Vanity) which seemed to be promising at first with sponsors and everything but they eventually turned out to be full of fake promises. But that doesnt matter since they are in the past!
At this point I think im some starcraft god. Ive ever played RTS in my life Im starting to average almost 200 apm(not just button mashing) So i decide to make the trip to the korean server.
Here in Canada I get really good connection to the KR server almost no lag, its pretty awesome. There I play zerg because after long and hard thinking I decide that I love zerg the most. The speed, the larva, the creep everything about it is just awesome. I place into platinum league losing to a few cheeses. After a couple weeks I get into diamond and eventually placed into low masters with my zerg. Not much to say just macro zerg games, practising my what all pro-gamers practise inject creep and timings. I didnt play any games on the NA server at this time.
I get a new account in my 7th month about where I try out my toss. I had been secretly playing on another account(I have many) where I was practising my 3 gate and 1 gate expos and 4 gates. Amazingly with some luck I was able to place into Masters with protoss after about 30 games. Really people, protoss is not that difficult I dont care what anyone says. But my knowledge of protoss is really high since it is my worst matchup for Zerg. I studied toss hardcore I know all the timings, everything about them. I have a notebook dedicated to toss timings and what I should look for etc. So even before playing protoss I knew so much about it. Luckily it was the time of 4 gate when I play and my micro and timings were impeccible so I usually won. But i only played 5 protoss out of 30 games so i was happy.
After leaving Icons of Vanity because of putting up with their BS for a long long time. I decided it was to find a new team.
Around this time there was a LAN in toronto which i decided to take part of.
Players such as coLRyze, coLSUGGY(at the time), SlayerSBaekho(ex-slayers) had decided to show up.
I ended up taking 2nd place and winning myself a cool mousepad but I lost to SlayersBaehko because he was way out of my league at the time.
And I have finally found a new home with Give-It-All E-SPORTS a European based SC2 team with some of the best up and coming players i have seen in a while.(www.give-it-all.de) But I had taken the role of something else, the Head Coach of the team.
After coming back to the NA server I am averging a 72% win ratio in high masters, on the verge of GrandMaster. KR is MUCH harder than you think.
With my stategic background and their skill level I am helping them and me get better at this game. I have so many stratagies that I have yet to be debuted that its insane how much pro gamers are actually missing in this game. I feel alot of them are stagnating the metagame because everyone(almost) plays the "follow the leader game."
Sure you will lose when you try to develop a new strategy this is nothing new to me I did this for 11 years in Pokemon, but once you get good at finding holes in metagames(assuming you know the metagame inside out) new statagies are easy to find.
Why are koreans better than foreigners? Is it because they move faster?
No, its because they take the time to find those little holes and expose them.
I find that alot of the Starcraft community is hung up on something I like to call "cost efficeciency"
While this is importnat this is not true.
Starcraft is a game of investment and your biggest commodity you use is time.
Which makes Starcraft a game of time not minerals and gas.(which are very important dont get me wrong)
When I invest 100 minerals into 4 lings at the beggining I am investing into TIME
not an attacking unit.
How am I investing into time?(Shak's Plat lets assume)
Well assume 2 lings go on towers 1 ling infront of the main 1 ling at the 3rd.
Assume ling infront of base dies.
I know that the time it takes from the moment I see units on the map from the vision of the tower I have ~45 second to gather myself(the amount of time it takes to cross the map in cross position and place a pylon
My Rant about the Spore Crawler
When I make a spore crawler(most underused object in the game btw) Im investing into the time it can buy me which is about 3-5 seconds from a drop.
Alot of people I talk with are like
"well herp derp, you just lose 150 minerals because the drop is going to kill it"
Excuse me?
You know a spore crawler is more than an attacking unit.
Not only will it damage the drop ship, but it buys you time get your units over there to stop the drop.
If you do not put any detterant what is stopping your opponent from just running in?
It makes no sense for any zerg player not to put spores(and spines) and PDL's(possible drop loations)
Otherwise if im the terran players(or the good warp prism protoss player" I feel like you are giving me a redcarpet into your base. If you have nothing to stop me im just going to walts in.
spore crawlers and spine not only have a time cost efficency on them,
they also act as a detterant.
Is it so out of the world that if your opponent see's a spore he might not drop?
This is a mind game spore, a time saving spore, a possible kill the drop ship spore.
How many times have you seen that drop ship just run away with 20 hp. If you had a spore that would be dead deeming the drop UN-costeffective.
Anyway. In 8-9 months I have achieved so much and I feel if I continue at this rate I'll be a true progamer in no time, right now I consider myself a semi-pro.
But its not that easy people.
I have yet to miss a day of starcraft. I spend endless hours everyday watching streaming playing games, training my micro(I create my own personal micro maps to train my skill that are not as strong as others)
and ontop of that I have girlfriend, and school to take care of.
If youre low ranked player(anyone in diamond and under)
and are thinking about going pro.
You really have to be dedicated to this game.
When you watch a steam dont watch it for the relaxation
Have a notebook write down timings, etc.
Its hard, but possible.
Remember dont go onto 2 base before you have mastered 1 base.
Why would you?
GL HF
and continue gaming people.
When I reach a top cut at an MLG ill make my next post
Some notes:
-I got masters in 6 months.
-8 months to get high masters(1000+ points, 72% win)
-A proffesional(according to IdrA/other pros) is someone that can make a living of gaming.
-A semi-pro would indicate that they still need a job on the side to make a living.
-I do this part time, I know my post makes it seem like i play/study starcraft 15 hours a day but in reality its like 4-6(depending on the day and my schedule)
-like I said I have school, girlfriend and I have to play Poker to make my income.
