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End of day feelings: Finally did it!
Things focused on: Step 6 of the staircase
Completion of Focus: Completed!
End of Day Placement: Silver 555 (Down 50)
Recap:
If you haven't noticed yet I completed step 6 of the Staircase. I'm kinda stoked as I was getting tired of only having marines marauders and medivacs. So I get to move to step 7 which adds hellions to the mix, which is cool cause I like hellions, so sore to that!
Continuing off of what I started talking about yesterday I was a lot more careful with what I ate today and my brain and coordination functioned quite a bit better than they had the last few days. This is good because I feel better just from having a salad! Which makes me feel better about the juice fast that I'm lookin' into doing. When I figure out the details I will probably put it up here as well to see how it goes and effects my play. If nothing else I know my body needs a reboot.
I played a bunch of games today, and figured out something that was going on. My SQ was dropping significantly as I played longer games. (Over 25 would usually ruin my SQ) This is because I wasn't building enough structures when I was maxed and most of all, I tended to have WAY too much gas for what I was building in those parts of the game. So I focused on not doing that and got my ass kicked in a few games but I managed to have a good SQ in them and that's all that matters. (I even hit my full 50 SCV mark in one of those  )
So even though I had a bunch of losses (and lost 50 points on my MMR) I had a pretty good day and I feel good that I am able to move on to step 7. There are still a lot of problems with my play, especially my micro (banelings = gg) but my macro is moving along nicely and since that's my focus that's the progress I shall focus on. 
Things being worked on:
SCVs - MUCH better than the last few days. Out of 11 games I only had 2 where I didn't have near constant SCV production. I also was a lot better at STOPPING making SCVs, no games with 120 SCVs at the end of them. I usually quit right near that 65 mark I'm aiming for.
Supply Blocks - Not as much progress as SCVs but since I work on them in order that is to be expected. So tomorrow this will be my #1 priority (while keeping SCVs and the rest of course). I failed 3/11 games today supply block wise, but I don't think there was a game where I didn't hit at least 1 hard suplly block that required a calldown to get out of. I would like to bring that down to 0.
Control Groups - I did some work with them and am getting a little more comfortable with the 9 and the 0 control groups. I've been using the o for my workers building depots for quite a while and am pretty good with that, but still not using the p,l,; or = control groups, the = is the worst I want to find somewhere else for it because there is no way that's going to be comfortable, I'll accidently be building thing - all the time instead. Will be hard to work on this one too much since this is a macro step, but I will have a different key (probably 9) for my hellions and then one for marine marauders and probably one more for the whole shebang... not sure yet.
Edit: Woops! I accidentally said "my micro is coming along nicely" when I meant to say macro, I hate that those words are so similar for opposites. 
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I don't know what to think about your progress, like at all. All I can say is stop focusing on specific things and just concentrate on building a lot more shit. There is noway you should be losing at all with that kind of SCV production in Silver League.
There is a much better improvement guide based on league and what you should be doing to improve somewhere here on TL, I'll find it.
Edit: Here it is:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330787
You should be focused on improving mechanics, not silly trivial things.
Edit 2:
I just read the Google Document on the Staircase method. To me Steps 1-8 should be macro, with 9-20 being a 50/50 mix of macro/micro.
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Indeed, I know people who are gold league with just building random shit. Spellcasters? Who cares? Add them to the mix, but no need to even use the abilities. Just make random units and attack. Don't care about micro either. Just make the damn units and make sure you macro well. Insta gold.
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Good for you dude. If this is working, and you're improving on each thing that you aim for that's great. Don't pay attention to the people saying "blah, blah, just macro and you'll win". You have a plan that helps you improve, so stick with it, and ignore wins / losses. They're not relevant to you becoming a better player.
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winning by making tons of random stuff doesn't work as easily as some might think. of course, you can win lots of games with pure macro, especially when you meet lesser skilled players, who aren't capable of macroing correctly themselves and who aren't using AoE / spellcasters enough. Most low level players have a very hard time dealing with some sort of harass / unexpected opening, which usually kills their macro and finally leads to a loss. The level in gold has also become higher, even though it's still easily possible to win with random stuff. (e.g. mass hydras in zvp)
That's why players of lower skill levels should (imho) also learn to build the correct stuff. Mindlessly massing marines will win you lots of games, but you're going to have a tough time against players, who are actually building up viable army compositions.
Another point is that many players "down there" are too scared to really use their armies. They just don't like trading units, so they'll eventually lose games, even if they had built a nice army.
@Faldinerous: Would you mind posting a replay of yours? Maybe there are errors which you don't spot correctly.
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Hey everyone, thanks for the comments they are appreciated as always. I must confess that I made a mistake when I wrote this. I really shouldn't write these things at 2am, I'm gonna work on going to sleep earlier too which hopefully will cut down on important typos. I accidently said that I was focusing on micro, which isn't the case, I was and am focusing almost entirely on macro, even on the "micro steps" like that one was the primary goal is just to be able to continue macroing while adding new things (like micro) Sorry for any confusion that caused.  Now on to specifics!
iTzSnypah -
Thanks for the link. I've read through and watched Filter's videos (his is the build I've been doing this whole time). I think it's a great guide and feel more that the Staircase is more of an extension of that. They are extremely similar in any rate (cut out extraneous things macro hard and add new elements gradually).
As to losing. I honestly don't lose that much, I know I tend to focus on the losses more in the blog than the wins but the losses are where learning comes from. Saying "I macroed better than him and won" isn't nearly as good as saying "I found out that when his scouting probe harasses me I drop SCV production and freak out."
For actual numbers: Since starting the staircase I am 31-23. Since starting step 5 I am 26-16, and on step 6 I was 10-10. Which means that almost half of my losses have come from step 6 which is the one I had the most problems with because my macro was falling apart (mostly in the way of depot building) while microing my MMM army. Without depots I can't make more units than my opponent (who almost always had a tech advantage anyway) meaning I have small MMM army up against a big tech army which doesn't work.
For your suggestion of step 1-8 being macro and the rest a mix I will think about it and maybe bring it up to Jak it was just changed recently (there were macro only all the way down before). I do like having the micro step for the lowly marines and marauders and the MMM army though (especially since MMM was my worst with micro) If nothing else just for doing things like sending marines to the watchtowers or to their 3rd etc.
virpi -
I do think that it's important to learn some composition stuff, but that is really on the back burner right now for what I'm trying to do. Not because I don't think it's important, just because I am not up to snuff of building enough of things so I am trying to simplify it. It's great to know things like "If he has colossi then it is good to have vikings" but it's not helpful to have that information if my mechanics only allow me to have a 100 food army when I'm against a 150 food Protoss army. And the way that I learn things best (and fastest) is by stripping things away to their simplest form, getting good at it that way, then adding in more difficulty.
As to the replay, sure! I'll throw one on my blog tonight from yesterday (odds are I'll spend most of today working on my build order for hellions). If you aren't an avid reader of my blog (don't know why anyone would be honestly *shrug*) and you would like to see just reply here and I can either put it in this one too or send you a pm or whatever you want. (I don't want to just put it here as I don't want to bump my own stuff much if I can help it, especially if I'll be writing a new one then as well.)
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Sounds reasonable, you can send me a pm, if you want. (I'd prefer a TvZ replay, as I am zerg.)
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EPT
