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I have figured out why Gold is the largest league. It is a fucking wall for people nuff said. I know I am not the first to come up with that sage wisdom, but it is true none the less. I have only been Gold for a week and I don't it to be my wall. I have want to make Masters league by May 9th - 10th, cause that is A: a years since I got HotS and B: May 9th is my birthday  . So I need to know from SC2 veterans how to avoid that wall. I don't feel I have hit it yet, but it still scares me a bit. I don't get ladder anxiety, but I know that there is a fairly large skill disparity in the league where the wall seems to lie for most people. I can post some replays if you want to see where I am at, but I am mostly asking for some general stuff that you Diamonds, Plats, and even Master and GMs. Where I need to focus most, strats to follow, how to avoid resorting to cheese, and estimated time I may get stuck in Gold, or the other leagues following. Thank you for you time, and hope to hear from you, the reader, soon =D
 
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
Well you're going to have to talk more about your race, your play style, and what most of your losses are like for us to be able to tell you anything :p
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Im a little out of the meta game loop but generally in gold and even platinum you should still be working on big macro things, like never being supply blocked/always building guys and whatnot.
but lichter's right, for best help you should answer him^^
On a side note, 1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL ? did i miss something?
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I'd say focus on your macro and scouting if you don't want to resort to cheese/allin to get "easy" wins.
And when you play macro, don't hesitate to "overdo" things :
- If you see an attack coming, throw down lots of cannons/bunkers/spines. But you got to make sure you see it coming !
- When your minerals pile up, make additionnal production buildings (racks, gates, or macro hatches). Zerg pros can macro well enough to not need macro hatches or only need one, but if you notice your money piles up a lot, get 2, or 3 (or 4!) macro hatches. P or T pros also use a set number of production buildings because they macro well and produce constantly, but that is not your case yet (no shame in that, it's not that easy), so add more production to compensate !
- Similarly, pros will handle banshees/DTs with only very few turrets/cannons. Don't hesitate to put a few additional ones around, you're not a pro yet ! This'll avoid you some very frustrating losses... :-)
- When you builds depots in the midgame, try to always have a few depots in advance to never be supply blocked as well.
While all these pieces of advice are not considered "proper play" for high level players, I'm convinced this will help you establish a good foundation for your play and have the proper reflexes. Your play is going to improve as you go, and you can work on refining everything over time as you get better (builds less depots in advance, builds the right amount of prod buildings, the minimal amount of turrets, etc).
So yeah, most importants points are (IMHO): realise you're not a pro, far from it (like most people on TL, no shame there :-)), so don't try to get to play like they do right now. They cut so many corners because they know more about the game than us. Don't hesitate to overdo things, and you'll refine your game as you gain experience and your mechanics develop ! And most of all: have fun while playing ! :-)
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United Kingdom36160 Posts
I agree wholeheartedly with the adding production thing. It really helps.
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Thanks lone for the advice that is what I was looking for, and for the others asking, I am still trying to figure out whether or not I want to do early aggresion, but for now it is reaper expand and I build up an army around 9ish and 3rd at 10. It is mostly bio play and siege, but I am slowly replacing siege with medivacs and some hellbats. I loose mostly against toss and early game stuff. I always forget the ghosts for mid game and I am not hitting that 50 workers by ten still [=P
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In the most general sense, SC is just like any other skill. Study, preparation, and perseverance will make anyone a strong player. Like any skill, that means it's a big time sink to get that good and in this case is probably only valuable in the sense that learning how to learn can be applied elsewhere.
Specifically for ladders, rather than BoX play, your optimal result will come from choosing a very abusive but relatively safe strategy which many people aren't comfortable playing against, and then getting really good at it. Since you never play the same opponent twice, you don't have to care about being figured out. Don't give your opponents respect and think you have to play as if they were omniscient. It's a strategy game with fog of war, after all.
Specifically for SC2, you'll just have to bite the bullet and read the guides like you're studying for a test.
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Practice an all-in for each matchup, see what units a pro has at that time and how many you have. Do this till plat/diamond. Then start phasing in macro play. By all-in i mean like 2 base and some 3 base all-ins not 2 rax or 1-1-1. I guess for terran its more of timings.
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United States4883 Posts
I actually disagree fully with what loneyoshi said. Never play overly safe or overly wasteful. Work on perfecting your first 10:00 of the game mechanically and strategically and you'll jump straight to masters league in no time.
First thing is to make sure your mechanics are sharp and always on point (good to practice trainers and custom games against AI to drill build orders). After that, make sure you're using a good build/strategy by taking a look at what pros are doing and copying them. When you're sure you've got a solid style and decent mechanics, then work on dusting by memorizing timings, responses, when to attack vs when to defend, etc., etc., through replay analysis of your own replays.
If you focus specifically on the first 10:00 of the game and learn to do it in that order, you'll see rapid improvement.
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I always forget the ghosts for mid game and I am not hitting that 50 workers by ten still =P
Then you know what to work on and why you're still in gold
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
The main problem that I see shared by people in lower leagues trying to improve is that they expect to play long exciting macro games just like the pros as they work on their game. Just like an amateur basketball player, you don't expect to lose your marker with an ankle breaking cross over and throw down tomahawk jams like LeBron during practice. You don't expect to play pick-up-games all day long. Instead, you do drills and work on fundamentals without worrying about how your game looks.
I agree with MysteryMeat and SC2John that the best way to improve is to work on mechanics and timings for the first 10 or so minutes of the game. Most of the time that means playing 2base all ins. While a lot of people consider these dirty and undesirable, you learn a lot from following a strict build order and finding ways to better execute it. Supply, gas, and tech timings are stricter, and learning to adjust them as the games go on helps you understand the relationship between your economy and production better than just winging it in a macro game.
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If you play regularly, there won't be any walls anytime soon. No worries.
Keep self-reflecting your skill though. If you're going smart about learning the game, you can learn so much faster than the average person. Most people just mindlessly grind ladder games, and that's how they get stuck on their skill level. Famous examples would be Dragon, Avilo... 
Examples:
- Avilo will mine way too much gas in every bio TvP he ever plays and refuses to fix this.
- You probably already realized how hard lategame TvP micro is. It's really hard to improve the micro while just grinding ladder. Find a smarter solution 
- You probably already realized that you keep forgetting to build units in later stages of the games. It'd be smart if you made a conscious effort to hammer "BUILDING UNITS" in your head. I taught this to a Gold Leaguer, while voicing on Skype. Made his APM go from 80 to 120. I just hammered it into his head... I told him every few seconds, "build units"..... "dude, it's the most important thing, keep building units" ..... "select your raxes every few seconds and just build more stuff" .... "dont worry if you're queueing, JUST SELECT BUILDINGS AND PRESS UNIT HOTKEYS.. keep doing it every few seconds".....
If you're a smart person, you can find these kind of mistakes in your own play and make a conscious effort to fix them.
This approach will carry you through all leagues smoothly =)
Quoted from OP:
I have figured out why Gold is the largest league. It is a fucking wall for people nuff said.
That's not the reason. Gold League is the largest league by design. It is coded to contain the majority of players.
And this wasn't always the case! For the most time of SC2's existence Bronze League did this job, but the developers decided that it'd be nicer if most players found themselves in a higher league.
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As someone's who's plateaued many times before league promotion, I know what it's like. Personally for me, it's usually been fixing a particular matchup that's been helpful, which true or not, tends to feel like the one I'm matched up against the most on ladder.
If you REALLY want to reach masters by a specific date, then you want to do it in the most efficient way possible; generally this means a lot of out of game practice. First, as much as people like to say that low league players should just stick to macro and spending money and army etc etc, these players tend to be higher rated players and haven't played in the lower leagues first hand in quite a while. They see some inefficiencies in macro and immediately conclude "Yes, should work on macro". As someone in gold(I think mid to top, there is quite a large skill gap within gold itself) right now and use to be masters, build orders and knowledge of game flow matter a lot more these days than they use to (to my defense, it's kind of what begin away from the scene for 2 years and picking it up a week ago will do to someone hehe). Given the state of my macro, I do feel superior to most gold players and I've won my way out of a lot of matches where I should have been totally dead due to simply overwhelming them and taking bases. However, if I were to try and make mid plat and diamond again, right about now is when I'd start to learn the metagame again (what are widow mines?)
Analyzing replays is one of the skills that will absolutely take your knowledge to the next level. After many many pro replays and practice, you should have complete comfort in your games and how they should be playing out in theory and as the game develops. You should know not only your own build order to the 12-15m mark, but your opponents as well. You should be able to pick apart their mistakes as well as you can your own. This is a bit unusual to begin with, because players tend to be so focused on themselves (rightfully so) when they begin, but it's a necessary skill. It's not enough to say "he's probably going colossus". It's better to know "given his build, if he's optimal he should have colossus by xx:xx", and yes you can be that specific.
This second point is a bit more complex that is necessary to get out of gold, but if you're aiming for masters, you'll find it useful to put in the back of your head. Map play and positioning. You often hear sc quoted as being similar to chess. Sure it's strategy, but if you've never actually attempted chess at a even amatuer level, it can feel like a hallow comparision. To make chess overly simple for a second, chess is basically 2 openings matched against each other, followed by a midgame that revolves around finding an advantage. Players will try to place their pieces to be able to attack on multiple sides of the board, and overload their opponents defenders. I use to think in sc that if my build order was absolutely perfect and they made any mistake, I could snow ball it and eventually kill them. This in hindsight, while it does work, is a bit one-dimensional. Rather, see the game as two evenly matched midgames, and then positionally gain an advantage. Tactics like drops and flanks are to help induce a weakness in your opponents positioning, such that you can gain small advantages by picking victories such as a couple of buildings. Map presence (board control or space advantage) gives you tips and hints on when you can exploit such a flaw in the play.
In a simple sentence, the players who make it to masters are the ones who can remain perfect for the longest period possible.
Also, beg makes a good point about finding mistakes and make conscious efforts to fix them. No one piece of advice on here is any more correct than the next. It remains true that lower league players suffer from a general disparity in all aspects of play rather than a large disparity between one or two areas.
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On October 11 2014 12:08 lichter wrote:
The main problem that I see shared by people in lower leagues trying to improve is that they expect to play long exciting macro games just like the pros as they work on their game. Just like an amateur basketball player, you don't expect to lose your marker with an ankle breaking cross over and throw down tomahawk jams like LeBron during practice. You don't expect to play pick-up-games all day long. Instead, you do drills and work on fundamentals without worrying about how your game looks.
I agree with MysteryMeat and SC2John that the best way to improve is to work on mechanics and timings for the first 10 or so minutes of the game. Most of the time that means playing 2base all ins. While a lot of people consider these dirty and undesirable, you learn a lot from following a strict build order and finding ways to better execute it. Supply, gas, and tech timings are stricter, and learning to adjust them as the games go on helps you understand the relationship between your economy and production better than just winging it in a macro game.
finally someone agrees with me
based lichter is based
i give lichter shoutout next blog
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EPT
