D+, and it has been four years since my first blog detailing my Second Win on iCCup.

Now obviously it does not take that long to ladder to D+, but you'll notice from my history, I did not ladder that much:
+ Show Spoiler +

There are also two really early season that are missing where I lossed twice, and then did not play again.

A Look Back In Time

Back in 2010, I joined the original sGs/ Low Level Clan, and I practiced with the Storm[pt], L_master, and bunch of the older crowd, and while they said I could probably reach D+, I could never bring myself to ladder much.

But then Season 28 there's a spike to 68 games in one season- more than all my previous ladder games combined. Not many ladder games for some, but an insane number for me. What made the difference?

The difference was joining the DRTL League: Season 5, ostensibly a league for D level players (although there was always a murky area for C- players.) Suddenly losing on ladder didn't matter so much, because I wanted to win in the DRTL. Unfortunately, I had the unenviable record as the worst player in the DRTL 5: 0-11. But I got great practice with my team, led by Birdie, and slowly improved.

I continued laddering, and played in the DRIT 7& 8, and Sync's Crimson League Season 3 (And the sb skype group were treated to my ladder frustrations...) Voddy and TheMarine[Name] were both helpful in providing advice, particularly the indepth lesson I got in PvZ scouting (PvZ has long been my Achilles heal, if I didn't die to an early all-in, I'd get stuck on two bases, and if not that, my macro would just suck.)

When the DRTL Season 6 started back up, Birdie became too busy, and the captaincy of his Stealth Bunnies fell to me. I actually laddered less, as I was trying map specific strategies with my practice partners including the 10/15, the Stove, and Sair-Reaver ( the last was a little ambitious for a D ranker.) Laddering, I always did macro builds... I could never bring myself to ladder with cheese, so I definitely needed my practice partners.

The SB Stalwarts: Minscandboo, BigFan, Phamchienthang, iykguil, and Ruypture/Noah.

So although I laddered less, but for whatever reason I had a decent win rate this season (usually I plummet to D-, before clawing my way back up to end mid-range D.) My two game 'grudge' match vs BigFan certainly helped... I was still claiming to be the 'worst player in the DRTL' and he took exception to that title, and so challenged me to defend the title for ladder points, haha. Good times, BigFan

Anyways, the DRTL 6 season is almost done, and I am finishing 4-5. (At one point I was 4-2, but Qikz had his revenge, and although I beat Floladriblere once, he went on to beat me twice.

So that brings me to the present. I wanted to finally push up to D+, as I was so tantalizingly close. A replaced router caused a setback as I could not for the life of me port forward despite hours of trying. After contacting Shaw support, I finally got it sorted, and today I played the two games that pushed me into D+ territory (holding it is a different thing altogether.)

So enough talking. Battle Report Time!
In my previous game, I defended against a one Base Muta-Ling, all-in, bringing my score to 1948. So close, and yet I needed one more game.

Battle Report of the Game: PvZ

Map: Jade

I spawned in the bottom 4:30 position, and my Zerg opponent in the top 1:30 position.

I scouted him last position, but the pool seemed later than his second hatch, so I risked Nexus before first cannon.

I scouted an excessive number of lings popping, so I added a second cannon, threw down my gateway, and pulled 4 probes to block.

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12 Zerglings were built, but probes blocked the runby.
8lings lost for 3 probes, and nothing got through. (I used to die to this sort of shenanigans all the time- thanks BigFan.)

My probe stayed alive, and I noted few defences, so my first 3 zlots were sent to the zerg's 3rd.

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He mass expanded, but I traded 7 lings for 1 zlot, and got a drone kill before reinforcements cleaned up the damaged zlots.

He was mass expanding, but he had pulled back all his ovies (unfortunately, I messed up, and produced first corsair late.)

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DTS are pretty good.

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ok. really good. 10 ling kills.

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Followed by 3 drone kills.

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Sairs got 3 ovie kills, temporarily supply blocking him.
The rest huddled over two Spore Colonies.

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Defences were still scarse, so I sent out my control group of +1 speedlots.

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+1 vs no upgrades, also pretty good.

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I cleaned out the defences, and got only a couple drone kills, before hydras and lings cleaned it up. But crucially, the Spore Colony went down, and I got a dt in again to harass a bit more.

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This guy was mass expanding and droning all over the place, but still really only making lings, so I killed his 4th, and sat on his ramp to his 5th. (Didn't know about his 6th.) But I took my third.

[image loading]

One group of lings had swung by, but my zlots killed the next set, and with reinforcements, I knocked out his 5th, though it required a few more reinforcements to seal the base's fate.

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By now he had macroed a sizable hydra-lurker army and swung down to attack my natural.

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Chokes + Storms... so good.

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With +3 control groups of units, I stormed up to his natural, and keeping my zlots back, stormed the hell out of the hydras.

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MURDER!

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Not very happy. Nor would I be, Protoss is still pretty good.

Anyways, gg to whoever that was, but although I have been a lazy bum by not laddering much over the years, I have finally taken a hold of D+. Now onwards to D+ sustained, and then C-!

pPingu

Switzerland2892 Posts

September 01 2014 23:35 GMT

I still had no clue how to beat zergs when I got D+...

WD, sonic tournaments next

hellokitty[hk]

United States1309 Posts

September 02 2014 00:00 GMT

Dirty dirty DTs.

BigFan

TLADT24920 Posts

September 02 2014 00:11 GMT

Congrats on the D+ Falling! Good BR though you're going to make a lot of protoss players sad with some of those comments lol. What you wrote at the beginning is also interesting because same things happens to me. I get down into the D- range then made it back close to D then back down again. It's odd though since I still face D-/D players (or some D+ players) regardless of what my rank is so maybe I just get more motivated to move back into D or something.

On September 02 2014 06:40 Falling wrote:
My two game 'grudge' match vs BigFan certainly helped... I was still claiming to be the 'worst player in the DRTL' and he took exception to that title, and so challenged me to defend the title for ladder points, haha. Good times, BigFan

Good times indeed ^^

8lings lost for 3 probes, and nothing got through. (I used to die to this sort of shenanigans all the time- thanks BigFan.)

Glad that my shenanigans helped XD

Now onwards to D+ sustained, and then C-!

To infinity and beyond!

ps your worker supply is just right

Falling

Canada11555 Posts

September 02 2014 00:14 GMT

Haha. Didn't over-probe to 80. That was not a good game.
I will also need to fix my PvP if I want to rank higher. My PvT brings me up, my PvZ is starting to level out, but my PvP can drop me into D- territory. But this time I magically managed to miss vP matchups in both iCCup laddering and the DRTL 6.

KazeHydra

Japan2788 Posts

September 02 2014 02:48 GMT

haha grats on D+, the rank I never did manage to get. Funny that PvP is your worst when it was easily my best.

Elite00fm

United States548 Posts

September 02 2014 03:37 GMT

Race: Protoss

Motlu

Australia884 Posts

September 02 2014 05:24 GMT

Those storms 0_0

Brutal

krndandaman

Mozambique16569 Posts

September 02 2014 07:37 GMT

--- Nuked ---

Sayle

United Kingdom3685 Posts

September 02 2014 08:40 GMT

#10

I thought ICCup automatically promoted you to D+ when you picked protoss...

Just kidding, good job :D

don_kyuhote

3007 Posts

September 02 2014 10:04 GMT

#11

Wow Congrats mang!!

Despite adversities, you persevered! That is something.

I remember when I finally reached D+ after some 250+ ladder games over 5 seasons...it was pretty sureal.

phamchienthang[V]

Vietnam44 Posts

September 02 2014 11:32 GMT

#12

yay!!!!!

Cant wait to see your C- At Long Last blog

thezanursic

5500 Posts

September 02 2014 13:32 GMT

#13

So we will be seeing a C- blog in, say 7-8 years?

Chef

10810 Posts

September 02 2014 13:44 GMT

#14

Hahahaha, this blog has such a nostalgic title. Thank you so much for posting this. Miss the days of ladder blogs and the wild days of fighting at the D ranks (which for me was PGT, but basically the same thing tbh).

Congrats for real, getting past the first hurdle of the people serious enough to download special software to play SC probably takes a lot of effort even in this twilight age of Brood War.

Stratos

Czech Republic6104 Posts

September 02 2014 19:34 GMT

#15

"na fck"

nice report, congratz! hope to see you in TLS finals one day ^^

Birdie

New Zealand4438 Posts

September 02 2014 20:33 GMT

#16

Falling #1! Really proud of the progress you've made in the last year, keep it up and see you in C- in a few months

X10A

Canada9837 Posts

September 03 2014 04:10 GMT

#17

Congrats! I remember you from way back when; I'm not sure if you remember trying those dumb pvp builds with me but of well.
btww I'm still in the sgs skype group after all these years, but is it still really 'around'? I'm like dead these days

Thieving Magpie

United States6752 Posts

September 03 2014 04:46 GMT

#18

On September 02 2014 09:00 hellokitty[hk] wrote:
Dirty dirty DTs.

When behind... templar archives.

Falling

Canada11555 Posts

September 03 2014 07:10 GMT

#19

On September 03 2014 13:10 X10A wrote:
Congrats! I remember you from way back when; I'm not sure if you remember trying those dumb pvp builds with me but of well.
btww I'm still in the sgs skype group after all these years, but is it still really 'around'? I'm like dead these days

Hm. I'm not sure, but it sounds vaguely familiar- I've had a few bouts trying pvp builds, and I still suck at it. (Mind you a whole bunch of my replays disappeared from the early sGs days when one of my computers went kaput.)
Did you make the transition to the second sGs skype group? The first one migrated over for some reason, but the second one is still semi-active although I've mostly been in the sb skype group these days.