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So happy, today marks one year of playing and I went from being tied for the worst player in the world with 0 points in bronze, to masters, ~rank 200 in the world (obviously not rank 200 in the world by skill, considering the difficulty of KR ladder and the fact that a LOT of players with higher skill than me don't ladder enough to spend their bonus pool). Nonetheless, it's an achievement in my mind.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/C5PwcjC.png)
It was all possible thanks to all of the amazing guides on teamliquid and the help that the users provided. Although he's banned, Belial88 was probably the most helpful person to me. He seemed to always be in the Zerg Help Me Thread answering questions and helping people out, while writing strategy guides with a level of comprehensiveness that reminds me of Orek's.
If I had to make a list of the most beneficial guides to improving as a Zerg, it'd be this:
1) [G] How to Improve Efficiently at SC2 1v1. This is more of a mindset guide, so it applies to all races. It's crucial to be in the zone to improve. Balance whining or complaining about cheese won't get you anywhere, but watching the replay and analyzing your play will. Also, you suck, so do your best to stop doing that.
2) [G] Belial’s Comprehensive Guide to Everything ZvT!. Super helpful matchup guide that covers pretty much everything. It's hard to have good mechanics when you don't have a plan, and honestly this is probably the best written guide I've ever read online.
3) [G] Stephano-Style ZvP – The 12 Minute Max-Out. This is technically an all in (it's tang right  ), but it's the perfect build for learning how to macro in ZvP. I thought my macro was good....until I learned that I had 30 less drones than I should by 8:00. Bad. The benchmark section of this is really an eye-opener for lower level players. Stephano doesn't have god-like macro...any semi-decent player can break 70 supply at 7:15 consistently (apart from extreme circumstances like cannon rushes, pylon blocks, quick gateway pressure, etc). Once you can hit 70 supply by, say, even 8:00, it doesn't matter what you do. As long as you make units and attack you'll win until your macro isn't good enough to beat your opponent. It's also a very reactive playstyle in a sense of reacting to the 20 or so Protoss all ins that you have to worry about before your aggression starts.
4) [G] Belial's Comprehensive Guide to Everything ZvP!. A more comprehensive look at the whole matchup, so it's a bit higher level than 3), but still a valuable guide. I think it's Belial88's best guide, and will really help a player make the leap into the next league. Follow what it says, macro better, scout better, and react better and you'll play better! Sounds simple, right?
So yeah, that's pretty much it. As one moves up the ladder, one realizes that there is no huge skill jump to the next level. Just focus on improving, play better, and any goal is achievable. When I was in bronze league I did not expect to be at the top of the NA masters ladder in a year. I didn't dream of even diamond or platinum. I don't want to repeat the first guide, but you need to set achievable goals and keep setting them. If you're on bronze, go for silver. If you're in silver, go for gold. If you're diamond, try hard to get to masters! If you're <800pts in masters, try to improve and hit 1000 next season. If you ended last season at 1000, go for 1300! While certainly not "baby steps", it's more realistic than being in bronze and setting a goal of rank 1 GM. It's better to set multiple, easier goals and achieve them than to set one unreachable goal and consistently fail to reach it.
On a closing note...please stop balance whining. I promise not to. You didn't lose that ladder game because fungal needs to be nerfed or the medivac healing is too high. You didn't lose because mutas are unbeatable on that map, and you didn't lose because protoss is easy. You lost because you made more significant mistakes than your opponent. While this isn't always true, you should believe it is true if you want to improve. Getting hung up about cheese or balance is NOT going to make you a better player, just a worse one.
I saw it summed up very nicely: "The bigger the whiner, the worse the player". The real trick to improving is having the right mindset. Get in the right mindset, work hard, and you can reach any league.
That's the end of my annual rant, thanks to everyone who read it! I'd like to hear about any cool improvement stories any of you have related to anything  I personally think that working hard and improving at something is what life is about, and am always inspired when I hear success stories!
Ok, I'm off to watch GSL! Go symbol ^^
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Nice! How much did you play in the last year?
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nice. Took me about a year to go from bronze to masters. 300 games iirc.
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I'm at just under 1000 games as zerg, and about 1100 total if you include a bit of dicking around with other races. I think I got masters after 400 or so games. But masters is such a big league, and reaching GM seems pretty tricky.
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I can't beat a "very hard" computer 1v1, though I like to make 50 zerglings at a time and rally them into the enemy tanks one by one. Congrats on masters!
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
On March 09 2013 18:04 Mavvie wrote:
I'm at just under 1000 games as zerg, and about 1100 total if you include a bit of dicking around with other races. I think I got masters after 400 or so games. But masters is such a big league, and reaching GM seems pretty tricky.
That's really good. You're pretty talented to improve so much with only a thousand games.
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Italy12246 Posts
That's really good congratulations :O
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Canada1096 Posts
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On March 09 2013 18:04 Mavvie wrote:
I'm at just under 1000 games as zerg, and about 1100 total if you include a bit of dicking around with other races. I think I got masters after 400 or so games. But masters is such a big league, and reaching GM seems pretty tricky.
Damn you've got some talent. Many people tend to hit a mental block at some point and start stagnating, you didn't really have that issue huh? =)
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Thanks a lot for the positive comments, it's encouraging
It may have been only 1000 games, but I've spent a lot of time reading forums and watching videos about the game. Which is a good thing in my opinion, since the community is pretty awesome.
Many people tend to hit a mental block at some point and start stagnating, you didn't really have that issue huh? =)
I don't understand "plateauing"...from what I've seen, most people who plateau have a shitty attitude towards the game. For example, my friend iMarine has nearly 1000 games this season alone and only improved around 100 points from last season. And every time I'm watching his stream he's complaining about cheese, strats that take no skill, map imbalances, etc.
So I guess it's a mindset thing. Focus on yourself and you'll keep improving I guess.
I kind of wonder what I should do. Do I aim for GM? It seems like time commitments keep getting higher and higher with diminishing returns. I don't know.
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On March 10 2013 07:34 Mavvie wrote:Thanks a lot for the positive comments, it's encouraging It may have been only 1000 games, but I've spent a lot of time reading forums and watching videos about the game. Which is a good thing in my opinion, since the community is pretty awesome. Show nested quote +Many people tend to hit a mental block at some point and start stagnating, you didn't really have that issue huh? =) I don't understand "plateauing"...from what I've seen, most people who plateau have a shitty attitude towards the game. For example, my friend iMarine has nearly 1000 games this season alone and only improved around 100 points from last season. And every time I'm watching his stream he's complaining about cheese, strats that take no skill, map imbalances, etc. So I guess it's a mindset thing. Focus on yourself and you'll keep improving I guess. I kind of wonder what I should do. Do I aim for GM? It seems like time commitments keep getting higher and higher with diminishing returns. I don't know.
There's diminishing returns with any skill/fitness, the way I think of it is that more of your practice is going into maintaining what you already have.
Anyway, high masters is a great accomplishment but you'll find there's still a ton of room to improve - once you hit a GM level you'll probably look back at your masters play and see it as really naive. So, in other words, keep pushing.
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Some players are just inherently more talented or they just approach the game better. I have about 2000 games and I'm still in diamond :b I started out in bronze as well. Though I go on and off with my playing.
I think you view on whinning are very similar to mine. I let go off balance whinning around silver and thats when I really started to improve a lot. It only limits you in the long run.
Do you guys think age is a factor when it comes to improving? How old are you OP if you don't mind me asking? I personally started out at 24, now I'm 26. I don't feel like I'm slower than my younger playing peers, nor do I feel like I learn especially slow. But a part of me does feel that the high master level is way out of reach.
anyway, I loved this write up, very motivating =D
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On March 10 2013 07:55 JacobShock wrote:
Some players are just inherently more talented or they just approach the game better. I have about 2000 games and I'm still in diamond :b I started out in bronze as well. Though I go on and off with my playing.
I think you view on whinning are very similar to mine. I let go off balance whinning around silver and thats when I really started to improve a lot. It only limits you in the long run.
Do you guys think age is a factor when it comes to improving? How old are you OP if you don't mind me asking? I personally started out at 24, now I'm 26. I don't feel like I'm slower than my younger playing peers, nor do I feel like I learn especially slow. But a part of me does feel that the high master level is way out of reach.
anyway, I loved this write up, very motivating =D
I think people vastly overstate the importance of age, but of course when you put the kid who's been playing Starcraft since age 10 against the guy who started at age 30, it's obvious who's going to win. It's like learning a language later in life - you'll never have quite the same strength as a native speaker. For practical purposes, though, age is pretty much meaningless until you're actually a senior.
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Mavvie, I've found you again. Gratz on the first year, and many more to you!
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On March 10 2013 07:55 JacobShock wrote:
Some players are just inherently more talented or they just approach the game better. I have about 2000 games and I'm still in diamond :b I started out in bronze as well. Though I go on and off with my playing.
I think you view on whinning are very similar to mine. I let go off balance whinning around silver and thats when I really started to improve a lot. It only limits you in the long run.
Do you guys think age is a factor when it comes to improving? How old are you OP if you don't mind me asking? I personally started out at 24, now I'm 26. I don't feel like I'm slower than my younger playing peers, nor do I feel like I learn especially slow. But a part of me does feel that the high master level is way out of reach.
anyway, I loved this write up, very motivating =D
Yeah, number of games to get out of a league as a function of the league's number is probably something crazy like x^4 at least. Checking sc2ranks, my first season I ended as bronze with 40 games. 2nd season I ended as gold with 10 (bug?). 3rd season I finished diamond with 300 games (and nearly 1000pts, so I was masters MMR during league lock), and fourth season I don't know how many games I played because season 9 database was corrupted  So it took me a lot of games to make it out of diamond and into masters, and I think I'm at like 600-700 games in masters to make it to a respectable high masters rank. So yeah, it is definitely diminishing returns but still totally worth it.
For example...ok, you got masters. So did 30,000 other people. But getting a high rank takes so much effort, but is really rewarding. I guess I'll end up pushing for GM, that counts as a serious achievement right?
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Whoa, good job! That's great, just plateaux-hopping like crazy. I've never been able to force myself to sit down and practice/learn or anything. Still bad years later
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Congratulations! I'm actually rank #228 according to SC2 ranks so I'm not too far behind! I hope you can make it into GM!
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EPT
