EPTThe list goes on and on.
Whenever I was a kid, since my time was limited on the computer, I grew up watching him play these games. It wasn’t to fun to watch, but it beat reading a book. It all started from Warcraft vanilla. I watched my brother play that for days on end, then Warcraft 2 and so forth. I have been a Blizzard baby since I can remember. No matter which stage of my life I am at, Blizzard has always been there. As a kid it was the SC:BW, the Warcrafts. As a teenager it was Diablo and World of Warcraft. As an adult, well I’m only 21, but I guess I’m an adult, I have Starcraft 2.
I always wanted to watch him play action/shooter games, since they were the most enjoyable to watch, but I did play the most minimum amount of Starcraft Broodwar way back in the day because my brother played it with all his friends and obviously every kid wants to be as cool as his older brother.
I was maybe 6-7 years old at the time, but I would only play with cheats like, “poweroverwhelming” or “foodforthought.” It’s funny I can remember that, but I can’t remember my economics equations during exams.
I remember one day in Grade 3, I was trying to learn what I could about Starcraft because of all the RTS games, Starcraft just seemed to be the better one. My brother had bought the Starcraft:BW strategy guide, or maybe it was just the instruction manual, but I remember it was quite thick. It had all the information about the Zerg Units and so forth, but I don’t think it had any other races in the booklet.
Anyway so the teacher had asked us to bring in a book for read and tell, pretty much you bring in a book and you read some to the class.
Obviously being the cool kid that I was I brought the Zerg Strategy guide booklet to class and let me tell you that thing was difficult as hell to read as a 3rd grader, I just remember reading about the “drone” to my class and everyone seemed so interested about it. Little did I know this little event in my childhood would spark up something indescribable in 14 years.
That’s as far as I went in Starcraft when I was a child. Most of my childhood/teenage years I was focused on whatever the popular game was, whether it was Diablo, Max Payne, Battlefield Vietnam(which I still think is the best game I ever played) Guildwars, or World of Warcraft. Though the most impactful game I ever played was World of Warcraft. If you have never played World of Warcraft before cataclysm, you really did miss something special. I got “hooked” on the game after my friends gave me a free trial to test out. You can complain about that its $20 a month, but it’s really worth it at the end of the day. I believe I put in just a little bit under 4000 hours into that game, but I don’t regret any minute of it. Some of the people I met in the game I still talk to, there was even one person that I met that I dated for a while(she lived like 15 mins away from me, don’t worry SHE was real and amazing!), the social aspect that Blizzard created is something really unreal. I believe I read somewhere that you have a better chance to meet someone through World of Warcraft then you do on a dating site like Match.com. The game becomes ultimately better when you become a someone on the server, it took me a while to get to that status, but when it happens it’s pretty amazing. You get people messaging you on what you think is the best way to make a talent tree and whatever.
But what made World of Warcraft really special is how it made it feel like it was a job, but the most amazing job in the world that you looked forward to everyday. If you missed a raid(a raid is when 25 people come together and work together to take down a dungeon. It usually runs for about 5-7 hours 3-5 times a week) you would get shit from everyone else because they depended on you showing up, just like a real job.
When I played in a hardcore guild I played 7-12pm 5x a week, plus the after raid of the 10 man versions of the dungeons, so that there is already about 40 hours a week. It’s a full time job really. Since I was in highschool you hang out with your friends during the day, do homework 4-7 play the rest of the time. Don’t worry I passed and I continued into university! And ontop of that I had to train for my Pokemon Trading Card Tournaments, If you’ve read my past blog you probably know about that already. I quit world of warcraft after I finished my 1st year at university, that’s when Cataclysm came out, I got to level 85 the week or two after, but a lot of my friends from Lich King were quitting the game, so I think it was time for me to call it quits also. I achieved what I needed to in that game, I became one of the top4 Restoration Shamans on my server, I eventually was part of the best guild on the server, top 34 in North America. So in my eyes I beat world of warcraft. Mission complete.
When I was on vacation in Europe, like all gamers I had an itch to play after about 3 weeks of detox from videogames. Recently in Starcraft 2 had come out, just before cataclysm, but I really didn’t care about it at the time since I didn’t like RTS games and well I had my time invested into World of Warcraft. But since it was the ONLY game on my brother laptop and it was 2am in Vienna after we had come back from a night out I decided to give it a go.
And so it begins.
I remember watching my brother play terran, so I gave Terran a go. I thought I was a genius at the time and I was like “hey I can wall off my ramp if I use barracks, 2x supply depot, lol that is so IMBA!!” I played without a mouse on the trackpad so my APM was about 20, but even then I felt like there was so much to do on my first time playing it.
But I didn’t like terran, those Stupid SCV’s kept annoying me with all the garbage they were saying.
So which race did I want to play, then a flash back came back to 3rd grade when I was interested for a short while in SC:BW and that is when I chose my race.
Zerg.
Who would’ve thought that I’d be zerg for life.
But that’s all I played of Starcraft 2 just a few campaign games and vs the AI.
I was still “dating” World of Warcraft at the time, but we were on rocky patches so doesn’t hurt to look at other games right?
After about 2 weeks into my 2nd year of university, I was getting bored of WoW so I installed Starcraft 2 onto my laptop. My brother had told me that they had tournaments for this game and people were winning and making thousands of dollars. Me being competitive in nature and being good a strategy games like the Pokemon Trading Card game I played for about 10 years I went straight to google and typed in “Starcraft 2 tournaments.”
And behold the great www.teamliquid.net came up. Ever since then it has been my homepage.
I started to read about the tournaments, then I started looking into stratagies, watching Huskies videos, and ofcourse being Zerg I had to watch all the IdrA videos. In my eyes IdrA was my ambassador into Starcraft 2. He is what I wanted to be a player that was paid, looked up to, on a big name team, travelled around the world for tournaments which I already had my experience with in Pokemon. I thought if I could do it in Pokemon I could do with Starcraft 2, because at heart I am a champion. Call me cocky, but from the great words of Ricky Bobby “If you’re not first then you’re last.” If I wanted to become a 1v1 champion I knew I had to learn the game. I virtually did not know anything about it. I knew that macro and micro were important but I really didn’t know what they were. In WoW macro was a quick way to hotkey a spell by writing a little bit of code.
Yeah I way way off.
I had to youtube everything, how to hotkey, how to everything. So from September-ish to October I tried 1v1 but my record was 13-40 or something, so I played 3v3 a lot.
I had developed my own rush strategy that I didn’t know existed. I thought I was a genius.
It was the 8 roach rush and to this day I still believe it is the only 8 roach rush build, I know there is a 7 roach rush now, but my 8 roach rush has the 16 extra damage that I believe is clutch.
I remember I was testing things, 12 pool 13 pool 14 pool which was better, 14 seemed better because when it finished I had 300 minerals for my queen and roach warren. Ill post the build below.
9 ov
14 pool
14 gas
-drone till 17
17 queen
17 roach warren
-drone till 18
-build 2 overlord in a row
now build up money and make roaches till you hit 34 supply, you will have 8 roaches at 5:30.
I did this build for about 100 games. I knew I had to master 1 base before I could move onto more bases. If you read my previous blog on how to get better in 1v1 I made it clear on how I went to go about it. + Show Spoiler +
My win record with it was about 80% from what I remember. I thought I had invented a strategy that could work forever. I had jumped from Bronze to Gold, skipping silver. This was one of my most memorable moments of Starcraft 2. I had finally gotten out of Bronze! Heck I was in Gold, but it wasn’t diamond(which was the highest league at the time). It took me about 3 weeks to get out of bronze.
I knew at this point I had to learn macro, and I felt like I had learned a lot about control from my 1 base play that I could move onto macro. And ever since Gold League I have just solely focused on macro for about 90% of my games. I knew if I could even have a shot at pro I had to play like a pro.
A lot of people who start playing a game, and I have seen this in Pokemon, Poker, WoW and SC2, that they sorta follow how pro’s play but then they think they’re smart so they give their little twist on it.
Don’t.
There is a reason why they are pro and you are not. Until you can truly understand why they do what they do, try to mimic them exactly. If you’re there to play for fun do what you like I have nothing against you, but if you’re looking to get good, do what good players do. Easy tip that will take you far.
So for a while I would watch IdrA’s replays and try to go as far as I could mimicking his strategies. I believe I was in Gold for about 2 months at the time. I also started doing this thing I call Shadowing.
What is Shadowing you ask?
Back when I played DDR Whenever someone good was on I would go on the other game mat and try to play along with him. It was the cheaper easier version of getting better.
Shadowing in Starcraft 2 is when you turn someone’s stream on, unplug your mouse and imagine you are playing the Starcraft 2 game that the pro is playing.
What this does it makes you train like a pro and learn his timings.
I feel every player who is trying to do this should try.
So if he sends out a drone at 200 minerals to his natural and in your mind you don’t remember, that’s a signal for you to remember.
Its actually really, really good training if you get into it and you believe you are playing. It takes a little imagination and the screen movements are not the same, but it works.
So for a while I was stuck in Platinum. I don’t remember why but it was difficult for me. I think it was because I took a week or two off to play Cataclysm so I could say that I got the level 85. That’s as far as it went, once I got to level 85 I never turned on the game again. After achieving Diamond it took me 2 months to get masters. But I had been training my terran on a separate account because I was getting tired of Zerg. The state of the game at that point did not favour zerg well and 2 rax was the hottest shit. So on one of my many SC2 accounts I practiced marine micro challenge and 2 rax for countless hours. I was able to get into masters with a very nice win record, 2 raxing like a herp derp champion.
I am happy I practiced marine micro challenge because it has helped me with my Zerg control so much.
After achieving masters status in 6 months, from scratch not knowing anything about the game I thought I was hot shit. I decided to get a KR account. If I want to be the best I have to play with the best right?
If you think Korean levels are better only at masters.
You’re dead wrong the level of play is so high on that server its ridiculous.
I got placed into Gold league because I messed up my placement matches, I wasn’t expecting them to be that good. It only took 3 weeks to get into Diamond so I was happy, because I played more carefully because I knew that messing up even once would bring back repercussions.
At this point I was looking to join a team. Any team really as long as it had dedicated decently ranked players. Just like in WoW if you want to get somewhere you have to put yourself out there. No one is going to come by you and be like hey you’re good join my team, because those teams are THE worst teams 99% of the time. I came by this team called Icons of Vanity. They were(are) a multi-platform team with sponsors, they needed a try out so I tried out. I wasn’t at their high master level of play but they enjoyed my creative play(unrooting spines and running them at tanks before engaging so that spines take pot shots before zergling, feel free to use this).
Holy snap I just joined a sponsored team! I played with them with a while but their organization was shady they wouldn’t give us any of the gear that was promised, even to one of our players that sent himself to MLG 2x they wouldn’t even give him a headset or a team jersey.
I won’t go into it alot, but there was a lot of bull crap that happened. After they acquired Team MG for SC2 I was kicked off because I wasn’t at their skill level(I had mono and I could not play at all). When I was on the team 7 months ago they said the website would be up soon. It still has to come up. I just wish people would stop trying to rip off eSports.
After a little bit of searching I found a new team again, Give it all Gaming. It was a European team, they had all their player positions filled, but I decided to sign onto the team as a head coach. Their other divisions were very good and the people on the team are just amazing. They really enjoy my insight on the game since I follow it more than anyone that I know. If I’m not playing Starcraft I’m watching starcraft really or writing these blogs at work.
Unfortunately the organization decided to call it quits after 2 years running, and they posted on April 1st that they were shutting down, not the best April fools joke, but it is what it is!
Our SC2 division manager TakeTV.Shawty found us a new home with gamed! A German based team that has been established since 2007. (www.team.gamed.de if you’re interested) And ever since then it has been good. Their other divisions seem to be amazing from what I have seen especially in Leagues so we are working hard to become the next power house European team. A lot of our players are GM on EU and we hardly have lost any clan wars in the past few months,. Just a small shameless plug for my new home team.
So I just can't wait for what Blizzard has instore for us in the future.
I will be a blizzard baby for the rest of my life without of a doubt, because just like John the translator said "Just because someone thinks what you are doing is stupiud, doesn't mean you should stop."
As much shit blizzard gives us players with servers and maintenance sometimes.
Keep it up guys, hopefully I can work at your HQ after I am done university so we can continue the blizzard legacy as long as we can! I want my children to stay starcraft 4!
~EggY
