EPTAugust 8th, 2012
So as someone who used to be pretty involved in Starcraft I've decided that I want to play again. I love the game, and I love the competitive atmosphere that surrounds the multiplayer community.
To start, I used to play a lot of Brood War. I played a lot of WGT and PGT for a while, and was fairly successful. Moving into SCII I was a bit rusty as I hadn't played in a few years, but I picked it up fairly quickly playing Diamond league in 2v2 and Platinum in 1v1. However, after a while I think because of other obligations I just didn't have time to play.
Now I'm back and ready to start climbing the ladder again. I seem to have lost almost every ounce of my ability to play this game well, so I feel like I'm almost starting from scratch. I was a Protoss player to start BW, and then eventually became a Zerg player and I seem to have done the same thing with SCII in much less time. As such, I will be maining Zerg.
The Beginning...Bronze league...and stuff
I've finished my placement matches, and after having been destroyed multiple times by players of all different levels I now sit at Bronze league in 1v1 with 3 wins, 73 points and a bonus pool of 696.
Oddly enough, as I've always done doubles with my cousin, I'm in platinum league in 2v2.
I'm hoping to get in a couple more games tonight before softball, whether they're 1v1 or 2v2. My character code is 762 if anyone is interested in helping me get back to an 'elite' level.
You must mark your progress if you want to improve the efficiency of your practice.
It's coming back a bit...
So I went on and played 3 games today after work. Things went pretty well, actually much better than I expected. I spent some of today looking up Zerg strategy, general match-ups and build orders and theory. It helped a lot.
I think my biggest problem right now is not really knowing which units are effective in which match-ups (and general lack of concentration.)
I went 3 - 0. The first two games that I played were against fellow Bronze level players and the matches were, to my surprise, fairly easy. I just overwhelmed them. I feel despite not finding much resistance those games got my confidence up a little bit and helped me to fine tune my BO and macroing. However, game 3 was against a "top ranked" silver. They were heavily favored, and I expected to lose. I scouted right away and rather than jumping straight to an expo as I normally do I 13 pooled and built up a few lings (ZvP) for some scouting and harassment. It worked out wonderfully, and I expanded soon after. My minerals were almost always kept below 300 which is great for me. I was outproducing him pretty quickly after the 5 minute mark and he wanted to try and push. I snuck a small group of lings around his forces because I knew I could hold my base with roaches + lings + queen and mass production of units. Speedlings made quick work of his worker line and I pushed his forces back through sheer numbers...he quit when he realized what state his base was in. Easily my most satisfying victory to date -- I feel like I was actually pretty effective in that game.
August 9th, 2012
...it continues...
So I decided that I'd throw down one more game tonight before heading to bed. Got another "top level silver" (in the top 10 in his league) and once again he was favored. I was a bit more aggressive this game, 13 pool into an expansion while harassing a bit to keep him on his toes and allowing me to expand to a third location. I kept scouts out and when I noticed that he was trying to expand I increased my pressure a bit. I was able to easily out-produce with two queens running 3 hatcheries and my roach/ling combo was wreaking havoc and not really allowing him to get comfortable. After one particular battle in which I only sent a quarter of my troops and I moved the rest around to look weak he tried to counter attack and it gave me the perfect opportunity to take out his expansion. "WP GG" and he left.
Another satisfying victory that leaves me feeling, finally, that I am not a bronze level player. Now it's just a matter of playing my way out of Bronze league.
August 13th, 2012
...suffering some setbacks...
So my confidence was high after those games that I won, and I found that I went into my next few matches maybe a bit overconfident. I hadn't played in a couple of days and I decided to switch to Random instead of one particular race until I figured out what I liked.
Four losses later where I was simply outmacroed and outplayed (my minerals were disgusting, and my unit composition was embarrassing) I had to sit down and give my head a shake a bit.
Why was I really losing? I don't feel like at this level I am losing because of my micro -- that has to come later -- obviously the main issue is that I'm not focused enough. I have to pay attention not only to my build order and expenditures, but also my unit composition and tech. Unit composition has become a bit of a sore point for me because I find, beyond the early stages of the game, I am completely lost when it comes to mid-late game armies. It often feels like the other player is much better prepared and that has to stop.
Research has ensued and although I've clawed back a bit to win 2 of my last 3 matches that's not good enough for me (both of them involved either DT rushing, or DT harassment to expand and overwhelm with economic advantage.)
Today I'm going to have a significant amount of time to invest in playing a bit more, and I have some time to research as well to plan out how I want to advance. I know that research can only take you so far, but it will help when I am practising later.
Oh, and yes the switch is official -- I now main Protoss. I did this often in BW...swtching between Zerg and Toss. I don't have the micro ability to play Terran and I recognize that. That's not to say that my micro is absolutely horrible -- I just don't think it's on a level where I'll be able to be an elite Terran player and ultimately it would be nice to be able to be a high level player at some point.
August 14th, 2012
SperoMeliora
CC - 762
I've decided to sign up at z33k for some tournaments (bronze, silver, gold) so hopefully there aren't too many sandbaggers there. The prize is 1h of training with a master level player so that should be cool.
...another streak emerging?
So I went back to the grind yesterday. Despite winning 2 out of 3 as Protoss I just wasn't feeling comfortable. I switched back to Zerg and played for a while with a friend in 2v2 (oddly enough we're platinum 2v2 but I'm Bronze 1v1.)
I ended up playing against 1 top 10 Bronze in 1v1 and 1 top 10 Silver in 1v1. The first match was actually fairly easy -- I just outmacroed him, he tried to push which I easily crushed and then continued to macro and when I saw him to go expand I pounced.
Second game was a little different. He tried to stop me from expanding early which I fought off and then went to push myself but he was going from 1 base. I took my third and teched to mutas while building a bunch of lings and roaches. After pumping out 8 mutas I went and attacked his base from the side and drew his troops away from the front of his base so I snuck my lings in and mashed his mineral line. GG
Two solid wins and I feel like my mechanics are coming along better as Zerg again. I didn't find that I was really stockpiling a lot of minerals until very late in the game where I was in the middle of beating my opponent. Obviously this is low level stuff but I'm happy with the progress. My goal is to reach Gold before the ladder resets.
August 16th, 2012
...bleh...
Had a chance to play a couple of games last night. I accidentally chose random for the first one and lost with a bad TvP attempt (Banshees lol.) My second match was very short...ended up getting proxy gate rushed by a Toss who claims to be diamond level. I really just reacted wrong to it because I knew it was coming -- I had a pool down at 13, two queens and went for a hatch expand at 16...I should have been pumping out lings with a couple of spikes.
Of course after he rushes me he goes 'gg noob' then proceeds to say how he's actually a diamond level player and is just quick leveling the account he's using. Gratz.
August 17th, 2012
Still bad, but getting there.
So yeah I played a few more games after being trodden on by the 'diamond' player two days ago.
First game went well for me. It was a silver P and I opened with 13 pool to 16 hatch and made some lings for expo harass and some queens. I went to check on him and he had walled off his base with some Lots, but I could tell by running up his ramp he was preparing for a push. I already had my roach warren down and ling speed upgraded so I threw down a couple of spines and moved a group of about 10 lings off to the far left of the map. As soon as my scouty ling caught him leaving his base they snuck in and destroyed his mineral line while I fought off his army at my base. Most of my units were destroyed and he had a bit of an army left, but I was easily able to outproduce him at my main and his economy was destroyed. GG.
Second game wasn't as easy. I can't remember what rank he was in his league, or what league he was in, but it turned into a 30 minute ZvP battle. I had a huge economic advantage that I just didn't use properly. I forgot to upgrade, I wasn't macroing efficiently and even though I had a ton of larvae and was keeping up my queen puke, but I just didn't have the tech. I really should have had corruptors and brood lords, but I didn't do that until after my first army was suicided against his Colossi. I still made it competitive, but ultimately lost due to my inexperience. Seeing the graph afterwards, and the economics, I really wanted to kick myself for losing that one.
Third game went a little better. It was a ZvT. It was again a longer game, upwards of 30 minutes, but this time my macro management, teching and overall play was a bit better. I managed to harass him enough to prevent him from expoing more than once, and each time he did expo I destroyed it. I moved up to Corruptors and Brood Lords pretty quickly once I had a huge economic advantage, and I was able to fend off his attempts at harassment with well placed spores and Mutas. Ultimately once I destroyed his BCs I moved in and there was nothing he could do to stop the army. I was pretty happy with keeping my mins/gas down near 500 late game as usually I'm piling up multiple Ks in each.
2 - 1, but with noticeable improvements in areas I need improvement in (ie. mid-late game is TERRIBLE)
August 21st, 2012
...it gets better...
Oops. Been a while since my last update. I won't go into too much detail, but I'm starting to become more consistent. I'm becoming more comfortable with my builds, timings and my scouting.
So from the 19th through the 20th I played 5 1v1 ladder matches and I won 4 of them (the one I lost, I really should have won as I had a huge economic advantage but maybe I had been staring at the screen for too long because I was sitting on something like 4k mins and 2k gas but not building anything.)
Aside from that minor blip I've been more effectively fending off early rush attempts now that I open 13 pool, 15 queen and 18 hatch. It has also allowed me to harass and prevent expansion on multiple occasions (aside from canon FE, which just allows me to spread out take map control and mass an army with upgrades generally faster than my opponent.)
But yeah, I'm 9 - 6 in my last 15 matches, but being 4/5 in my last 5 while playing against only Gold and Silver makes me feel pretty confident that there is progress.
I'm getting more of a flavour for what kind of compositions to use against each race which has helped a lot, although I know that I'm going to have to start deviating and adjusting more as I move up. I'm not willing to let my goal of becoming a Gold before the ladder locks next week, but it's not looking likely right now.
Oh yeah...
Current Status
6th in Bronze league, 17 wins, 619 points and a bonus pool of 576.
I'll try to keep doing weekly updates.
