• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 03:58
CEST 09:58
KST 16:58
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2914Serral wins Maestros of the Game 243ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12
Community News
Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16)13Reynor: GSL Loss Wasn't About Preparation Format13[IPSL] Spring 2026 Grand Finals - This Weekend!5Weekly Cups (July 6 - 12): Protoss strike back12BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion8
StarCraft 2
General
Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) Reynor: GSL Loss Wasn't About Preparation Format Is the larve respawn broken? 5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start) BGE Stara Zagora to be held again in June 2025
Tourneys
Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2) WardiTV Summer Cup 2026 GSL CK #5 Race War RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event HomeStory Cup 29
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
New Map Maker - Looking for Advice - Love or Hate Work In Progress Melee Maps [D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 534 Burning Evacuation Mutation # 533 Die Together Mutation # 532 Nuclear Family
Brood War
General
Etiquete rules in Asl? Recommended FPV games (post-KeSPA) Pros Debate: Zerg Unfairly Nerfed? (ASL S22 map) BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ screpdb: new Starcraft reporting tool
Tourneys
Small VOD Thread 2.0 [IPSL] Spring 2026 Grand Finals - This Weekend! Escore Tournament - Season 3 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues
Strategy
Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers Creating a full chart of Zerg builds Relatively freeroll strategies
Other Games
General Games
Path of Exile General RTS Discussion Thread Beyond All Reason Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread UK Politics Mega-thread YouTube Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club The HerO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books Series you have seen recently...
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread MLB/Baseball 2023 McBoner: A hockey love story Tennis[sport] Formula 1 Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop How to clean a TTe Thermaltake keyboard?
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Poker (part 2)
Nebuchad
The Experiences We Want and …
TrAiDoS
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
Gauntlet SC2: A Retrospectiv…
Ctone23
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Evil Gacha Games and the…
ffswowsucks
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 9518 users

Is it ladder fear?

Blogs > Ariion
Post a Reply
Ariion
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
Poland50 Posts
April 18 2012 16:14 GMT
#1
I have a dilemma!

I have some kind of stages in my SC2 career (lol bronze->gold career) where I'm willing to play nonstop and after this enthusiasm comes a moment of "booooooring" and I stop playing for ~2 months. After that I'm watching Day9, talking with friends about SC2, watch their streams and start playing again.

But I'm 100% sure cycle will start again.

I feel it as ladder anexity, but not "OMG I DON'T WANT TO LOSE" it's much more I like to play customs versus friends/people from chat channels. I don't care about the rank, I "like" losing to diamonds (I've played mostly against plat-dia people which I really thank, it helped me so much!). So what's my problem? I don't know
Also I tend to take breaks when I feel that I've reached my maximum potential. When I come back I have "surge of skill" and rank up, but again hit my maximum.

I decided I'm going to skip current season and maybe with new MMR I will have more luck.
But is it good idea?
It won't make me a better player, but maybe I will be able to fight my placements to platinum? What if it won't change anything at all? Should I maybe just play and stop having "dreams" of better MMR after skipping a season?

I can't play SC2 everyday, that's the reason I've stopped playing in tournaments. I know I can't play at my 100% while having raids in WoW 4 days/week.

But there is one thing.

I want to be better.

Moxi
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
708 Posts
April 18 2012 16:15 GMT
#2
Maybe stop wasting time in WoW?
IAMFAPMAN
Profile Joined March 2012
60 Posts
April 18 2012 16:30 GMT
#3
i have the some problem .. i am hyped for 1-2 weeks and im playing 100+ games a week and then it starts to get rly boring .. i never had that problem with bw for expample =/
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
April 18 2012 16:40 GMT
#4
It's not ladder anxiety, it's ladder ambivalence. At least for me. I'll play a few games here and there, then not play for a couple months or more.
SOyuncastor
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Mexico40 Posts
April 18 2012 16:56 GMT
#5
yeah that's the same problem for me. I guess it has to be the way bnet is designed... it reminds me an arid, lonely place where I have to go looking for water going out from my crib. Not really a comforting place to be out there. I see anything worth playing and instead of looking an amusement park filled with childrens and cotton candy I see a desolated town fair with trash and only 1 clown holding a knife at 4 am looking directly at me and my untied shoes.
There is always someone younger and better than you.
Th1rdEye
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
United States1074 Posts
April 18 2012 17:10 GMT
#6
It's the moon cycle and astrology
from the days of: TheMarine [NC]...YellOw [H.O.T.]-Forever99 OgOgO [_MuMyung_] ChRh PlayGrrrr.... SlayerS_`BoxeR` [Oops]Reach [ReD]NaDa [DF]zergboy..!! Pusan[S.G] Nal_rA GARIMTO SSamJJang ChoJJa JinSu Silent_Control iloveoov H_PauL_WII JulyZerg [DaK]JoYo
Cycle
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States300 Posts
April 18 2012 18:12 GMT
#7
I'm vicious and coming to get you.
| chKCycle.551 | NA | Master League Random | Checkmate Gaming |
Strykemard
Profile Joined April 2012
168 Posts
April 18 2012 19:08 GMT
#8
From what I have seen, the people who actually do well are the ones who don't play with the rating in mind. They play to win. They believe they are the best. Thats what it takes. I heard this really good way of thinking which helps me.

MMR is like a currency. If you lose, you are paying your opponent for a lesson. If you win, your opponent just paid you for a lesson.

So, in either case you gain something or the other. Just keep playing to win, and make sure you take away something from that game. Thats about it.
Ariion
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
Poland50 Posts
April 19 2012 06:05 GMT
#9
Maybe stop wasting time in WoW?

As much as I like this idea, I still like playing WoW and I will get bored with SC2 after a while so I like to have another game.

@IAMFAPMAN, JingleHell and SOuncastor
Yup, its just "lets play lets play moar" and after some games I'm like "no more please" :<

From what I have seen, the people who actually do well are the ones who don't play with the rating in mind. They play to win. They believe they are the best. Thats what it takes. I heard this really good way of thinking which helps me.

I don't care about losing, because every lose is a lesson. Sometimes those lessons are full of pain, but I can learn from it. But there is something more with my SC2 problem and it's probably that SC2 bores me, but after some time without it I come back to it.

Thanks guys for Your help
ShadowDrgn
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
United States2497 Posts
April 19 2012 07:25 GMT
#10
If you like playing customs with friends but can't bring yourself to click Find Match, that's ladder fear. A major reason is the fear of the unknown. When you play with friends, you know how good they are, what race they play, what map you're going to play on, what strategies they're probably going to use, etc. All of those things are unknowns when you search for a ladder game, and that can be unsettling, even if you aren't afraid to lose.

Skipping a season to let your MMR reset isn't going to help because unless you're master+, bnet is going to get your MMR pretty close and put you in the right league after 5 games. Your problems are that you don't play every day and you take months-long breaks. Everyone that has cured themselves of ladder fear says the same thing: just play lots of ladder games. After you've played every matchup on every map 10 times and been cheesed every way possible 10 times, your fear of the unknown will be gone.
Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that’s the end of you.
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 1h 3m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
WinterStarcraft748
StarCraft: Brood War
Hyuk 781
BeSt 384
NaDa 49
sorry 46
ZergMaN 21
Bale 19
IntoTheRainbow 5
NotJumperer 0
Dota 2
NeuroSwarm138
febbydoto18
Fuzer 0
League of Legends
JimRising 596
Other Games
summit1g4889
ceh9621
Happy241
crisheroes238
XaKoH 176
RuFF_SC259
Trikslyr15
gofns0
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick1962
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH313
• LUISG 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota297
League of Legends
• Stunt688
Upcoming Events
Replay Cast
1h 3m
CrankTV Team League
3h 3m
WardiTV Qualifier
4h 3m
Epic.LAN
5h 3m
Big Brain Bouts
8h 3m
SHIN vs Elazer
Percival vs Nicoract
Reynor vs Lambo
Replay Cast
16h 3m
RSL Revival
1d 1h
Clem vs Lambo
Scarlett vs Cure
CranKy Ducklings
1d 2h
Epic.LAN
1d 5h
IPSL
1d 8h
Dragon vs Hawk
[ Show More ]
RSL Revival
2 days
Classic vs Trap
herO vs SHIN
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
OSC
2 days
IPSL
2 days
Bonyth vs Ret
WardiTV Weekly
3 days
Monday Night Weeklies
3 days
PiGosaur Cup
4 days
The PondCast
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
CrankTV Team League
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-07-13
HSC XXIX
Eternal Conflict S2 E2

Ongoing

IPSL Spring 2026
Acropolis #4
CSL 2026 Summer (S21)
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
Escore Tournament S3: W3
RSL Revival: Season 6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
SCTL 2026 Spring
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026

Upcoming

ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 1
Escore Tournament S3: W4
ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 2
Escore Tournament S3: W5
CSLAN 4
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
Light Tournament 2026
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale
Eternal Conflict S2 E3
Logitech G Connect 2026
StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.