EPTBut I still felt really rusty. Filled with doubt, I almost cued up when an old practice partner messaged me. I had trained with him when I played in my first tournament. I vaguely remember telling him that he could message me at any time for practice games so I was interested in seeing what he had to say. Obviously expecting a game or question, I was asked for help ironing out a build order.
I haven’t seriously played for a month or two so it was shocking to me that someone wanted my help. I volunteered this information but he was certain that it was fine and that I could help him. My friend wanted to try a timing attack: 1 rax expo into 3 rax. Push at 10-11 minutes with +1/shield/stim. His concern was that against defensive tanks, he didn’t know how to engage. I agreed and figured that even if I couldn’t help too much, I could get some good practice games.
Match #1, I found realized I was SUPER rusty and all of my timings were off. So at 10 minutes, after opening with a 1rax expand, I didn’t even have a tank out yet. Wildly panicking, I realized that I was not going to be giving a good game at all. I was just getting steam rolled. And sure enough, my single bunker got rolled and I was sure I was dead. However, Practice Buddy (PB) neglected to breach the ramp to my main or run into my natural. I managed to hold out until my siege tank rolled out to save the day and repel the attack. Then my instinct turned on and I managed macro my way to victory.
After the match I realized that PB was going for a 1-hit KO and that he didn’t seem to have a follow-up. He told me that this build was from Thorzain which means that it is definitely is NOT an all-in. So with some of these things in mind, I started blurting out everything I thought of. Oh you need to expand, spread your units, attack my natural, scout more often….and then I took a step back and said to myself that there’s no way he’s going to retain all of this. Let’s take the Day[9] approach and focus on ONE thing at a time. I wanted PB to scout/scan past the 2 minute mark so he didn’t just try to A-move his way to victory. So first, I asked him in game #2 to do the same push but separate a few marines and stim them ahead so he could have a better understanding of where I was.
And then I had a brain blast: I was coaching. How I came into this position I have no idea but it was an incredible moment. I couldn’t believe someone wanted my advice and was willing to try what I had told him. We played a third game and I told him to try scans or scout more often before pushing out at 11 minutes. Then I told him that he should try out some of the things we talked about in his other ladder matches and that I had to sign off. I must have had the stupidest grin on my face. I coached someone…a shocking and fulfilling experience.
