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For the past year I had only been playing random 3v3 games just for the fun of it. About a month ago I came back to the game with a competitive mindset and I've been 1v1 laddering ever since. Having two seasons of a break I decided to deliberately put myself into Bronze league. Not because I wanted easy wins and make newbies go Q_Q, but to familiarize myself with the current build orders and maps, and to get my basic mechanics back into order.
A month later I climbed myself from the bottom of Bronze league back to where I was before, top Diamond. While knocking on the doors of low Masters I started feeling a bit weird: how can I be near to top 2% of a region while my play is still utter crap? Is Diamond the 'new Platinum' and you're only good for anything if you're mid to high masters? I was way better a year ago than what I am now. Still, I'm in the same position now that where I was before I quit playing - this feels odd.
I mean, my injects are horrid, my creep spread is laughable, I get supply blocked constantly, my minimap awereness is non-existent, I get totally confused if my basic build order is being ruined due to the slightest harrassment. Terran drop play destroys me completely and I still have no idea how to counter it properly, as placing 5 spines and a bunch of banelings into every expansion feels like a lost effort. In ZvP I get steamrolled by the very basic Protoss deathball in the lategame because I'm too stupid to expand beyond my 3rd expansion most of the time and thus I run out of minerals about the same time when I'm supposed to start getting Broodlords. Funnily enough, it seems that my ZvZ is quite good with around 80% winrate. What actually makes it so funny is that I have no idea why it is like that. I'm just guessing that there's something in this match up that I 'get' ... something that I don't 'get' in other match ups. Probably just still the lack of experience in other match ups, as the ladder seems to be full of Zergs right now which results into a lot of practice.
So here I am, accusing myself being utterly bad in this game but still I've managed to get myself nearly to Masters league with standard eco play. Why is that? Has the overall skill of other players been divided somehow differently during the past year and being Mid-High masters is now comparable to what High Diamond was a year ago?
  
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Haha I know that feeling.
I'm mid Masters with Protoss but I'm kinda stuck with race.
Switched to zerg a few days ago and I'm high diamond now But I have the feeling I'm playing retardedly bad.
Yet I'm close to masters, It makes no sense.
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Too many kids are just willing to play max wars. I unfortunately suffer from that too.
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@Crit:
No...leagues are harder than they were. I know many high dia in earlier leagues who cant get out of plat now.
I'm not sure about what you're experiencing but im also a top dia (terran) with masters mmr so maybe you can play me I'd like to refine my matchups so I do better in Masters when i get my promote.
If you've been playing at all for the last year (all mechanics building) and also been trying to be competitive 1v1 again recently, I highly doubt you're worse than you were before.
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how can I be near to top 2% of a region while my play is still utter crap?
If this isn't a rhetorical question, because most people are even worse than you and we are all modest to a degree. People compare themselves to the pros and what their play should look like. there's an insane amount of people who play casually that inflate that 98% as well. It is what it is.
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On June 16 2012 19:53 Crit wrote:
. Why is that? Has the overall skill of other players been divided somehow differently during the past year and being Mid-High masters is now comparable to what High Diamond was a year ago?
Masters T in EU here. The overall skill of the players did in fact, increase, in my opinion, and I would compare high masters a year ago to low masters/high diamond now. About your feeling that you don't belong to masters, I could understand where you are coming from.
I have met many zergs on the ladder that got there only because of some decent economic play and incompetent opponents who did not know how to prevent the zerg from droning. Also, the fact that in low masters, hell, even in high masters, people sometimes make mistakes and zerg is far more forgiving to mistakes than, for example, terran. One wrong step and 4 banelings blow a 50 limit of marines, or 3 fungals melt your unsplit army. Also, zerg micro is far more easy than terran micro to be effective, so even players with unimpressive mechanics can pull off some nice fungals/storms and melt that supply and ugprade difference that came from better macro. Combine this with the eco advantage and the scouting and defending advantage zerg has, it is not surprising that ladder on masters level is full of zergs. It's just that the race is very easy to play on masters level mechanics compared to terran. But then again, on bronze level mechanics, terran is easier to play than zerg, so I guess that evens it out.
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On June 16 2012 22:08 sieksdekciw wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 19:53 Crit wrote:
. Why is that? Has the overall skill of other players been divided somehow differently during the past year and being Mid-High masters is now comparable to what High Diamond was a year ago?
Masters T in EU here. The overall skill of the players did in fact, increase, in my opinion, and I would compare high masters a year ago to low masters/high diamond now. About your feeling that you don't belong to masters, I could understand where you are coming from. I have met many zergs on the ladder that got there only because of some decent economic play and incompetent opponents who did not know how to prevent the zerg from droning. Also, the fact that in low masters, hell, even in high masters, people sometimes make mistakes and zerg is far more forgiving to mistakes than, for example, terran. One wrong step and 4 banelings blow a 50 limit of marines, or 3 fungals melt your unsplit army. Also, zerg micro is far more easy than terran micro to be effective, so even players with unimpressive mechanics can pull off some nice fungals/storms and melt that supply and ugprade difference that came from better macro. Combine this with the eco advantage and the scouting and defending advantage zerg has, it is not surprising that ladder on masters level is full of zergs. It's just that the race is very easy to play on masters level mechanics compared to terran. But then again, on bronze level mechanics, terran is easier to play than zerg, so I guess that evens it out.
Lol the Terran bias in this post is outstanding.
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The skill ceiling of SC2 is ridiculously high. Even pros don't do everything perfectly... their queen energy slowly builds up over the course of a 20+minute game. Pros can't do it, don't expect a random player to have perfect macro either. Some of these people WILL claim that their macro is perfect (even in Bronze..) because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Basically, you just need to macro better than your opponent to beat him (and get placed highly).
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sieksdekciw, I am a plat random and I COMPLETELY agree with every last word you said. All of my matchups are roughly 50% winrate (although PvZ is probably 40%), but ZvT is 80-90% and TvZ is 20% or so. I get pretty utterly stomped by gold zergs (with absolutely terrible mechanics) when I play terran even when I have 30% more APM (which is saying a lot since my zerg APM is usually 30% higher than my terran APM).
To add. As was said, a lot of people playing plat/diamond players that try to out macro a zerg while not applying any pressure until they're on 60+ drones just becomes laughable. On the other hand, playing against mid league ladder players is so random that's it's hard to predict if a zerg is going to early speed ling, or 6/7 pool (which is absolutely viable up to GM from what I've seen on pro streams as I rarely see a pro actually win against a 7 pool even if they respond perfectly and don't die right away), 3 hatch before pool, and without disciplined scouting times, zerg usually have the advantage.
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Because getting masters is nothing special, and you are better than you think.
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On June 16 2012 22:08 sieksdekciw wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 19:53 Crit wrote:
. Why is that? Has the overall skill of other players been divided somehow differently during the past year and being Mid-High masters is now comparable to what High Diamond was a year ago?
Masters T in EU here. The overall skill of the players did in fact, increase, in my opinion, and I would compare high masters a year ago to low masters/high diamond now. About your feeling that you don't belong to masters, I could understand where you are coming from. I have met many zergs on the ladder that got there only because of some decent economic play and incompetent opponents who did not know how to prevent the zerg from droning. Also, the fact that in low masters, hell, even in high masters, people sometimes make mistakes and zerg is far more forgiving to mistakes than, for example, terran. One wrong step and 4 banelings blow a 50 limit of marines, or 3 fungals melt your unsplit army. Also, zerg micro is far more easy than terran micro to be effective, so even players with unimpressive mechanics can pull off some nice fungals/storms and melt that supply and ugprade difference that came from better macro. Combine this with the eco advantage and the scouting and defending advantage zerg has, it is not surprising that ladder on masters level is full of zergs. It's just that the race is very easy to play on masters level mechanics compared to terran. But then again, on bronze level mechanics, terran is easier to play than zerg, so I guess that evens it out.
I could FEEL the underlying balance whine...
Diamond Z here I honestly dhave almost all of the exact same problems and I am diamond as well. I think we compare ourselves to pros/high masters too much when in reality we are modest in skill compared to most of the SC2 population/.
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Actually, I'm pretty sure the skill levels for each league is raising. When you think about it, most of the uncommited/bad players have stopped playing. Also, since people have been playing since release it is most likely individual skill levels have gone up on the whole as well.
I know a couple guys that were diamond for the first few seasons that eventually ended up dropping out of the league, because they never improved. I would probably peg old diamond level as platinum now.
And don't start getting complacent cause you're "near masters". I've made that mistake many a time haha. I've made a run on master's league a few times now, where I got to the point where I was playing against master league players every other game for a 20-long game period. But every time I start feeling confident, I go on a big losing skid lol... The last losing skid basically made me quit for the summer..
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@Above:
Yeah, it's easy to have a lucky day and play a lot of masters.
and mhm leagues are actually more difficult by FAR. I know diamond players in first seasons who are GOLD now.
1. The game evolves, more complicated, naturally everyone becomes better for their league
2. Inactive, etc people quit as time goes by.
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Don't worry about things you can't control (other players skill levels)... just enjoy playing and improving. And I disagree that play has improved over the past year (I'm a mid-masters protoss)... I went 3 months without playing and went something like 65% win-rate over my past 100 games.
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EPT
