Celebrating a birthday on the ladder

PhillyWild

United States59 Posts

September 11 2012 21:42 GMT

Today is my birthday and I turned 26 years old. Being that I had the day off from work the plan was for me to attend a Philadelphia Phillies home game tonight because my favorite team was playing them, the Miami Marlins. However, I wasn't able to secure a ride to get there so I couldn't go. So now I am stuck at home on my birthday off from work with my regular days off the next two. So I figured that this would be a perfect opportunity to get past my ladder anxiety and dive head first into multiplayer on Wings of Liberty. Part of my Twitch channel was that I would chronicle my improvements in the game once I was able to stream it. But that would require an upgrade to my PC which wasn't financially viable at the moment. So I just said "Screw it" and jumped right into ladder and get the placement matches out of the way at least.

+ Show Spoiler +

Went 1-4 in my placement matches, ended up in Bronze league rank #98.

I wanted to give it my best shot even after starting out rough and contemplating just insta-quiting out of my remaining matches after I started 0-2. Won the next game, then lost the last two.

My biggest issue is that I haven't had the time to commit to the game up until now, having only played on ladder sporadically over the last two years.. I've owned Wings of Liberty ever since it first came out and I highly enjoy the game. I want to get better and I know I can get better. That is the main reason why I want to stream the games, as a form of motivation to get off my ass and work towards improving at this game. I understand a lot of the concepts but my execution is sorely lacking, and I lose track of a few things during the course of a game.

Replays if interested:

Placement match #1 (versus Zerg) - LOSS
- Cloud Kingdom
- Sucessful denial of 3rd but kept getting caught by hydras and burrowed blings.

Placement match #2 (vs Terran) - LOSS
- Ohana LE
- Successful (albeit LATE) Banshee harass but terrible follow-up and got rolled by Marauders.

Placement match #3 (vs Protoss) - WIN
- Tal'darim Altar
- Focused strictly on macro, unit composition included Ravens after Toss went for DTs.

Placement match #4 (vs Zerg) - LOSS
- Condemned
- Lost to mass ling trying to fast expo

Placement match #5 (vs Protoss) - LOSS
- Emtombed Valley
- Too slow on executing build, was on 4 bases but not enough units to defend against Stalkers and Colossi.

Couple quick observations:

- I KNOW I need to scout more, but I am more worried about improving my economy, build order, macro, and such. I know that the "turtling" tactic is frowned upon, but I want to get better across the board in the game instead of just 3Rax all-in every game until I get to high Plat.

- I have a running theory that "gl hf" determines whether someone is cheesing you or not.

- I should consider incorporating drops more.

- Need to work on timings, keep losing track of the timer and end of being VERY late on builds.

mynameisgreat11

599 Posts

September 11 2012 22:02 GMT

Not sure if you're looking for any advice, but I'll throw this out there anyway. I would pick 1 build, period, for all three MU's, and just play it day in and day out. I found it very helpful myself, and I found my macro, decision making, and win-rate start to improve a whole lot after about 20-30 games.

I'd say either a 1 rax FE or 1/1/1, every game, will have you overcoming a lot of the macro problems, timings, and general build familiarity problems that you mention.

gl hf!

PhillyWild

United States59 Posts

September 11 2012 22:47 GMT

On September 12 2012 07:02 mynameisgreat11 wrote:
Not sure if you're looking for any advice, but I'll throw this out there anyway. I would pick 1 build, period, for all three MU's, and just play it day in and day out. I found it very helpful myself, and I found my macro, decision making, and win-rate start to improve a whole lot after about 20-30 games.

I'd say either a 1 rax FE or 1/1/1, every game, will have you overcoming a lot of the macro problems, timings, and general build familiarity problems that you mention.

gl hf!

Thanks, I'm always down for advice. I obviously need all the help I can get lol. I'm leaning towards using 1 rax FE as my standard build as much as I can.

Maxd11

United States680 Posts

September 12 2012 02:20 GMT

Well happy birthday!
My best general tip for improvement is do it the right way, not the easy way. You should play whatever race you prefer nor just toss since it will get you ranked up faster. Also mix in a timing attack every other game or so instead of just macro every game. This will force you to execute seamless build orders and constant unit production while moving you up quickly so you can play better players.

Also screw ladder anxiety. Hit the damn button whenever you have time to play out a full match and play the best game you can. You have nothing to lose.

PhillyWild

United States59 Posts

September 12 2012 18:44 GMT

On September 12 2012 11:20 Maxd11 wrote:
Well happy birthday!
My best general tip for improvement is do it the right way, not the easy way. You should play whatever race you prefer nor just toss since it will get you ranked up faster. Also mix in a timing attack every other game or so instead of just macro every game. This will force you to execute seamless build orders and constant unit production while moving you up quickly so you can play better players.

Also screw ladder anxiety. Hit the damn button whenever you have time to play out a full match and play the best game you can. You have nothing to lose.

That's what I'm definitely gonna try to do. I don't want to be predictable. I've even been watching these replays that I posted more throughly and I'm noticing that in one of the games I go a full 4 game minutes without building a single Rax unit (while proceeding to build 3 more)

Working on always keeping my money and gas count low is another focal point. Being in the lower leagues I know that if I keep my bank low, and focus more on denying the 3rd that I can starve out my opponent and win more games. I KNOW it, now I just have to remember it and execute it.

Gofarman

Canada648 Posts

September 13 2012 04:50 GMT

Being predicable on the ladder is the least of your worries. Learn 1 build and master it,

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