EPT
Back at October 2010....I bought the game "Starcraft II".
A RTS game, I thought. A game my older cousins played, because it took "skill". To me, Starcraft just looked like Age of Empires 3, which was what I was playing back then. Of course, you guys would agree, both are RTSes...
My cousin got all psyched up for Starcraft II so I figure, since I wanted to be "in the group" with my cousin and his friends, I got Starcraft II and thought I would own in it. Just because, you know, I played Age of Empires 2 and 3 "well" (you know, the occasional cheat codes) and things. So I bought Starcraft 2, all psyched to own everybody with "macro" (One town center the entire game ftw, amiright?)
I "pirated" an offline version of the game to try it before I bought it, and I beat a medium AI with my gosu protoss rush to 3 colossus off one base "rush" that hit at around 20 minutes. Felt good. I played Protoss because it looked cool, the swords (I was a Star Wars fan too, still am I actually) and the Colossus that killed everything on the ground...
Anyways, I bought the game and just rushed for my 5 placement matches. Whoopdoop. Anyways, I beat a Terran player with my gosu 4-gate "rush" that hit at 10 minutes. 1-0 placements, looks good. Cannon rushed and 6-pooled away my other 4 T_T so my placements were 1-4....
You have been qualified for the Bronze league!
WHOOPDOOPDERPSCREWME
I expected silver with at least one win, turns out I didn't get it
My cousin was in diamond (he got invited to beta) and now he's owning me...that night at church he laughed at me saying "BRONZE NOOB HAHAHAHHAHA" (something like that) and talked about how I got zerg-rushed on Blistering Sands....Fast forward a bit, a month later of playing I find myself dealing with mutalisks and finding out that if I just made stuff, I could win. I remember my cousin said to "watch HuK play" and sent me a VOD of Day9 casting a HuK game....but I thought HuK was Day9 so I got confused a bit T_T
So this month I manage to get into Silver and I remember I was playing on a laptop (only gave me 15 FPS when I start a game) and when I won downstairs on the kitchen table and gave me a promotion, I jumped up and screamed a bit and my mom, at the kitchen sink, thought I was having a heart attack. Woop doop.
Then the next month I hit Gold. I'm like "I'm improving so fast! I'll hit diamond in no time!". I was still playing Protoss, this was still season 1....I was "tearing it up" with gosu macro and learning how to expand...yeah. You know, typical Season 1 play...gold players now are so much better T_T
My dad gets a GT210 for his super old eMachines 2001(?) computer, and I can now play Starcraft II on an amazing low graphics with an amazing 30 FPS! So I switched onto this "gaming rig"...
Then I finish off the season with a Plat finish. "Not bad" I thought, knowing that next season I could be in diamond, probably.
It did happen, a PvP on Tal'darim vs another Protoss, 4-gate vs 4-gate and I won, then I screamed at the guy after the game and was like "I JUST GOT PROMOTED HAHAHAHHA THANKS SO MUCH" and he's like "LOL CONGRATS MAN", you know, the typical "excited-for-bros-that-you-don't-know" comments...
Now I caught up to my cousin. He's in university, I'm in high school. I'm asian, so as a general stereotype I finish all my homework in class, and spend all my time playing Starcraft. He doesn't have that luxury to play all day like me, but he still manages to beat me. But it's PvP.
During season 3, my goal was to hit Masters. I was like "Eh, gotta get ahead of my cousin". Midway through season 3, my OTHER cousin quit (he was in Gold) so I took his account and smurfed on it. I played Terran. I discovered it's more fun to stim and kite and have medivacs heal, and I found out I had the APM to drop at multiple locations.
After spending a week debating with my Minecraft buddies whether or not I should switch to Terran (to this day, I still have no idea if they knew what I was talking about) and I did it. I switched to Terran, when my 500 wins as Protoss just hit (Colossus portrait!) Yippeeeeeee!
The rest of Season 3. Season 4. Season 5. Season 6. All of the above seasons, I played Terran on my main. I almost got demoted a couple times. My goto build for TvZ was 2rax bunker rush into 4rax bunker rush into 6rax bunker rush. Totally viable at diamond level, isn't it? My TvP was probably my best back then, as I played Protoss before...and yeah.
Then 1/1/1 all-ins became popularized. I think it was in the middle of Season 4 when Vancouver Cybergaming Tournament #5 was being hosted, and I lived in the city, so I went. I didn't expect to play but my new-found friend (604Starcraft!) convinced me to play.
Lost my first BO3 against a Zerg (TvZ was my worst), but then at the losers bracket I played 3 consecutive TvZs and happened to win all three, then lost to a Protoss. I remember one of my games was casted on the livestream with ~100 people watching so that was my "'moment of fame".
Moving a bit forward, I was still playing on my dad's super old eMachines computer and I wanted to buy a new one (I used my cousin's once in a while when I go to his house, and that thing is beastttt). After two months of convincing (asian parents T_T) I finally was allowed to build a new computer, so me and my dad did that; my dad found a ton of specials (you know asians...) and we managed to save like 200~ dollars even though it was probably the worst time to buy computer parts (but luckily, this was before the flooding in Thailand, so I got my WD1TB Caviar Blue for just 60 dollars
)I then hit a random dude on ladder, I beat him, he was part of a clan called DDx. I joined them, became DDxCyclone, we practiced a bit, then later we joined with clan xO. I followed with them in the merge and changed my name to xOKebun (I hear some people think xO are a bunch of BMers, but we're not, only some of us xD)
So after I got my computer I managed to play a lot faster (I thought my computer was holding me back from Masters)...but I was still in diamond! Then...I bought a new monitor (24" LG LED), a new mouse (CM Sentinel)...then eventually last month a Black Widow keyboard (yes Razer fanboy, laugh at me now!) It was time to get serious.
NAH JOKING
Friends told me to play League of Legends, so I had to "show them my gosu starcraft micro skills" so I made an account and played until level 27, I think. Then I switched to my cousin's level 30 account, screwed up his ranked game scores (He was 5-4, now he's 5-9
) and yeah, basically just played a ton of games of League just because all my friends did.Season 7 starts!
When it first started I was like "Well, that's cool." I was still playing League more than Starcraft (unfortunately) but something changed during season 7. I was owning.
It made no sense. I was playing less. I somehow was able to dominate my opponents. My first day of season 7 I was like, 2-1 (fair enough), then 1-0, 1-0, 6-2...all my daily scores were positive. Then I beat a masters player. I felt like a total boss.
Three days ago an 'incident' happened where my friends blamed me for the League of Legends loss. To be honest, it's not my fault, they kept getting ganked even though I call my mias (missing in action) 5 times before they actually get ganked...yeah, totally "my fault", but either way they don't wanna play with me any more (either trolling or just mad at the moment, seriously, they're weird) soooo I went on Starcraft...and laddered.
Two days ago, I went 7-4 against Masters. WOOP DOOP.
Yesterday, I was saying to myself "Masters, or never play league again."
I start off 2-0, into 6-1, into 6-3, then my final score at the end of the day was 11-6 against mid-masters (Masters 50-25). You know, not bad. I wanted to get promoted a lot though. I wanted bragging rights the sooner the better.
My friend said he'd help me by smurfing on my acc and making my MMR high enough for me to get promoted. Me, wanting to be Masters soooo much, said yes (you can hate on me, I know, T_T) 10 games later (his score was 7-3 or something like that) I was playing basically the same people (mid masters) but I wasn't getting promoted.
I was like "Hey bro, I wanna ladder now". He's like, sure. I click the Find Match button (I'm Diamond 1 btw) and it, for some reason, hits another high diamond. Yippee. I'm nowhere being promoted again for some reason.
Fast forward a bit, I win the game with my expert splitting skills and gosu macro (floating only an amazing 1.3k every engagement) and win the game.
Then I get this screen.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LP5xC.jpg)
Note: I'm not actually high masters, that was a new division, right now I'm at 150 points
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS I screamed. Note that this was 11:30 at night. My parents thought I was high or something, and I was pretty happy
After 5-6 seasons (starting at Season 2) I finally hit masters! As terran, and not with Protoss! yeahhhhhh baller face right hereYep. Now I'm a masters Terran. So when I post something on SC2 Strategy forums, I can say something like "I'm masters Terran so basically what I say means I'm gosu". I've realized that masters players aren't really that good as I thought they were. I mean, I still float a ton of money, get supply capped...to be completely honest I don't feel any different on how I play than from diamond to masters. And I have no clue why I wasn't in masters sooner, because judging from my own play it's pretty terrible.
As a tip for Terrans who want to get into masters like me, here's somethings I've thought of. Because now that I'm masters I automatically have the right to give you advice and it becomes the Bible where you memorize it and practice it non stop, right :D
1. Drop Protoss. Or even the threat of dropping. One warp-in = Protoss has no money = Protoss can't expand. Protoss players, you can solve this by floating enough money so you can do both at the same time
2. Have more than 4 ghosts. This is what changed my TvP. I need at least 10 ghosts to fully EMP the Protoss army. Having 4 is just hitting clutch ones, and if you miss a templar you die.
3. When you start getting momentum for winning in SC2, capitalize on it. Know what you did right after you win, and apply that to the next. By doing so, you can effectively keep winning even though Blizzard says you're not suppose to. That's why all my scores for the last couple of days were positive :D
So now what?
Iunno, I'm pretty satisfied with Masters. Maybe play a pro...maybe start playing in Playhems...but first I wanna fix my late-game macro issues (floating 3.5k in TvT isn't a good thing)...seriously, there are probably some gold players that can macro better than me late game. I guess I specialize mostly in the first 15 minutes because I never go before 250 minerals before 15 minutes (unless expanding) Maybe join xO's team for clan wars...
Seriously, I'm not sure how I'm in masters now, but hey, I'm pretty happy.
If you seriously read up to here, you.... <catchphrase or insult about no lifing>
<cliche>
Cyclone999, Masters Terran (wow that sounds good)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2h3DO.jpg)
