EPTI am the Commanding Officer for the NA Division of The Art of Warfare, which is a community clan that spans many games including Starcraft II. Recently, I've been getting questions from a few members about how to not get mad when you're Silver and playing vs a Diamond player on Ladder, or how to avoid hostility vs certain races (i.e hating PvT and getting mad at every Terran player you lose to). I want to talk about my solution to this that not only will make you less angry at the game itself, but also improve your performance.
Now, this is something that is more of a recent revelation for me. I've definitely had many moments of anger when playing the game. I would lose to builds and strategies that I did't understand how to beat and get really frustrated and sometimes take it out by venting to my opponent. I believe, though, I have found the core root of this problem that plagues many video game players (and even athletes) that also impedes your actual performance in game.
The problem is that we're thinking too much.
Have you ever had one of those games where you played your absolute best? Your build lined up perfectly, you defended all of your opponent's attacks, you took amazing engagements, and your macro was on point. Think for a moment about how immersed were you in that game. Did you scout a Protoss player going double gas with a missing Pylon and think of all the possible build orders he could be doing? Or, did you rather, just let your muscle memory take control, and just played the game out without thinking? This is a really important point when it comes not only to your overall mindset and enjoyment level of the game: it also affects your performance.
In the ideal scenario of Starcraft, or any game/sport, you don't want to think. You want to have all of your actions, build orders, responses, macro, micro, counter attacks, engagements, etc to be completely internalized and reliant on your muscle memory. You don't want to sit there and think, "Is this a good opportunity for a counter attack?" You want to let your muscle memory do the decisions based on your game experience. When you think, you're mentally taxing yourself. Starcraft is a really difficult game. It requires a lot out of you and forces you to multitask to your limit. By adding this idle thought into the game, you start hindering your performance by not only your brain having to process every bit of your APM into the game, but also having to form complex thought in the process.
When you do encounter something you've never seen before; the best thing to do is just continue as you would normally. Whether you win or lose, you should then consult the replay, see what they did, why they did it, and what your response should be. You then want to internalize that response and make it muscle memory. You don't want to think about this response, just do it.
I have found that, the days that I manage this mindset, I perform at my own personal highest level of play. The days where I put thought into everything I do, I perform worse. I can't look at my minimap as much, I start queuing more units than I should, and I get supply blocked more. These basic aspects of the game that are internalized by my muscle memory get skipped because I am thinking about something else, and my brain can't keep up. There is no such thing as true multitasking. Your brain switches between multiple actions really, really quickly. If you add complex thought into this process, it only makes it that more difficult to multitask. Thinking is the most demanding part of multitasking in Starcraft II, and it should be limited to outside of the game, not during it.
You'll also notice that, if you achieve this mindset and play without thought, you'll feel more immersed in the game and be a lot more focused. Not to sound like a hippy, but you'll feel like you've become "one with Starcraft" and enjoy the game a lot more.
I hope this helps anyone that's either been struggling with their mindset and rage, or just anyone who's wishing to do something to improve outside of drilling build orders or practicing their micro/macro. I think this is, fundamentally, one of the most important aspects of competitive play that needs attention with the goal of improvement in mind.
