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It all began back in 2009 when I was playing BW with some friends at a LAN and got royally stomped. Searching something like "BW Tips" invariably led to a certain blue site with horses. Which led to watching late night laggy 120p streams at 3am. Which led to wanting to play and multitask like the pros. Which of course led to ICCup. Which led to wanting to be achieve a better rank.
For me, the dream has always been to make it to B-. It's always struck me as that point where you were clearly a notch above the majority of serious players, without being a mythically out of reach goal requiring a ton of talent or very dedicated, consistent practice for hours and hours each day. However, my BW playing has generally been best described as casual, playing games with friends but not really trying to play better or analyzing play, with occasional spans of playing a bit more focused.
Nevertheless, that idea of blue ranks has always sat in the back of my head as a gentle tickle. However, I realize my days of having a good amount of time to play BW are running out; I'm through next summer "off" (20-30 hrs/wk of work) to focus primarily on seeing how good I can get on the bike, but after that I'll be very busy with grad school and more work. The clear window is closing, and I don't really want to miss out on my dream.
With that in mind, now is the time to make that happen, and so I'm dedicating the next 7 months to some serious BW and some serious cycling. Can I make B- in 6 months? I'm don't know, but I'm damn well going to try. I've been protoss throughout my "career", but my favorite players have always been zergs (Neo.G Bonjwa, EffOrt, etc.) and overall the race just feels better to me. Plus the defiler is badass. So i've switched to zerg very recently. Which means step 1 for me is just learning the solid basic builds:
For ZvT - 3 hatch muta -> lurker'd 3rd -> hive
For ZvP - 3 hatch spire -> 5 hatch -> 4 base
For ZvZ - Honestly have no fucking clue what happens here. I could play PvZ but not sure I want to.
So for week 1 my goals are:
-Play at least 15 hours with the focus on making the early game as second nature as my protoss early game is
-Spend at least 5 hours watching reps - my understanding is pretty poor. I generally don't really know what the best course of action is in many situations. I also have no clue how to play against a mech army. Or wraiths. Nor get a large protoss army off my front doorstep. Watching reps to see how good players handle these situations seems like a logical first step combined with actually...well practicing it.
I'll be streaming my games as always at L Master's Stream and certainly would welcome people that want to help or play games.
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Make sure you check out Scan's ZvT 3 hatch muta guide here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-strategy/481389-build-orders-and-strategies-by-scan
ZvZ is rly easy, you flip a couple of coins at the start and depending on what the result is you pick one of four builds and do it. Then it all comes down to control and adjusting your play based on what your opponent does (overlord vision super important in the early game, and watching their eggs). Some maps favour particular builds, too.
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Wow, L_Master, why switch to harder race when you can stay as protoss and do nothing but 2 gate proxy, bulldogs, and DT/reaver rushes or 2 base super fast arbiter rushes against poor terrans and 1a2a3a your way into Blue rank??? 
Joking aside, seeing you blog this brings me great nostalgia of the days of DRIT and DRTLs from 2011~2013.
I wasn't too heavily involved, but I did play some games here and there.
I will always remember beating Essbee, the soon to be DRIT 1 champ, in an epic TvT in DRTL season 1, and getting absolutely dumped on by Prophecy in DRIT 4 on Tau Cross where I managed to get ONE kill the entire game.
And my game against L1ghtning where I went for proxy 2 port, but he scouted it with a FLOATING BARRACK! because I was stupid enough to place it right between our bases.
Fun times.
Good luck on your journey mang, I'm sure there are a lot of BW fans who will take great interest in your progress.
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On November 29 2015 14:54 don_kyuhote wrote:Wow, L_Master, why switch to harder race when you can stay as protoss and do nothing but 2 gate proxy, bulldogs, and DT/reaver rushes or 2 base super fast arbiter rushes against poor terrans and 1a2a3a your way into Blue rank???
What are these witcheries? I've probably done these less than 15 times in 6 years of BW . Sprawling macro games for days!
On November 29 2015 14:54 don_kyuhote wrote:
Joking aside, seeing you blog this brings me great nostalgia of the days of DRIT and DRTLs from 2011~2013.
I wasn't too heavily involved, but I did play some games here and there.
I will always remember beating Essbee, the soon to be DRIT 1 champ, in an epic TvT in DRTL season 1, and getting absolutely dumped on by Prophecy in DRIT 4 on Tau Cross where I managed to get ONE kill the entire game.
And my game against L1ghtning where I went for proxy 2 port, but he scouted it with a FLOATING BARRACK! because I was stupid enough to place it right between our bases.
Fun times.
Yea I remember those early days of BW in the SC2 age. Going back and watching DRIT1 play got much higher level pretty quick, and I got quite a bit better between DRIT 1 and like DRTL 4/5 where I played against Ghrur in the semi's in a fun Bo5.
Prophecy was dangerous yo! Especially to terran players.
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Netherlands5998 Posts
Are you aware that the ICCup ratingsystem has been changed? B- is not was it used to be. I don't think you'll have much trouble reaching it with the current system.
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ya b- on iccup is the old d- on iccup, set your goal to get to e on fish because that's basically Olympic on old iccup
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Japan11944 Posts
So you're really going through with the switch. I've always thought it was a bit strange seeing a toss player whose favorite players are all zerg. But anyway, I don't think you'll have much trouble getting b-, especially if you adapt seamlessly. 
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On November 29 2015 15:27 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2015 14:54 don_kyuhote wrote:Wow, L_Master, why switch to harder race when you can stay as protoss and do nothing but 2 gate proxy, bulldogs, and DT/reaver rushes or 2 base super fast arbiter rushes against poor terrans and 1a2a3a your way into Blue rank??? What are these witcheries? I've probably done these less than 15 times in 6 years of BW . Sprawling macro games for days! Show nested quote +On November 29 2015 14:54 don_kyuhote wrote:
Joking aside, seeing you blog this brings me great nostalgia of the days of DRIT and DRTLs from 2011~2013.
I wasn't too heavily involved, but I did play some games here and there.
I will always remember beating Essbee, the soon to be DRIT 1 champ, in an epic TvT in DRTL season 1, and getting absolutely dumped on by Prophecy in DRIT 4 on Tau Cross where I managed to get ONE kill the entire game.
And my game against L1ghtning where I went for proxy 2 port, but he scouted it with a FLOATING BARRACK! because I was stupid enough to place it right between our bases.
Fun times.
Yea I remember those early days of BW in the SC2 age. Going back and watching DRIT1 play got much higher level pretty quick, and I got quite a bit better between DRIT 1 and like DRTL 4/5 where I played against Ghrur in the semi's in a fun Bo5. Prophecy was dangerous yo! Especially to terran players.
I think DRIT5(i believe) was the best imo. Seemed to have the highest quality of players
even though Artanis is a homo and cheesed me 3 games
(dumpsterd him standard tho LOL)
goodluck buddy
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On November 29 2015 19:05 Endymion wrote:
ya b- on iccup is the old d- on iccup, set your goal to get to e on fish because that's basically Olympic on old iccup
My understanding, and this may not be correct, is that the system is unchanged from D- -> C-. Then from there it's slightly easier than before, as playing "at rank" loses you 50 instead of 75 points. Which means it should be easy to keep a running table of what the old system points would be and hit 6000 on that instead.
Might also try for E on fish as well, but how does that correlate to B- under the old system. I'm sure D is harder but don't know much about E
On November 29 2015 22:24 c3rberUs wrote:So you're really going through with the switch. I've always thought it was a bit strange seeing a toss player whose favorite players are all zerg. But anyway, I don't think you'll have much trouble getting b-, especially if you adapt seamlessly.
Yea, as of now I'm planning to go through with the switch and don't really see myself backing out tbh. I'm generally enjoying zerg so far.
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ZvZ build order (Known as the 10 drone build, its a 12 pool style):
12 pool
11 gas
11 hatch at nat
You get lair first then speed. You take 1 drone off gas after lair starts
You make lots of lings. VS 1 base players, your lings force them to spend larvae on lings not muta. Then buy spores.
Not sure how accurate my notes are but will just paste what I have from the vod of Crazy Hydra vs Hydra Neo Chain Reaction:
12 pool then gas then drone
11 hatch @nat
11 lair
14 send 2 drones to nat
14 overlord?
15 spire
15 sunken+lings
22 overlord?
Ling wall formation
23 second gas
Hydra attacks with lings. After, crazy hydra is on 18, Hydra is on 16
4 mutas pop
29/34 one muta, 1 scourge, then overlord
1 muta, then 1 scourge, then 1 scourge, then 1 muta, then 1 muta, then 1 muta,
More of each (not sure of numbers)
Overlord
37/50 is reached.
Ofcourse the notes above are partly specific to the game.
VS 12 hat examples:
Crazy Hydra vs Hydra on Neo Chain Reaction 12 pool vs 12 hatch (watch Crazy Hydra @3 in brown)
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/106617_Crazy_vs_Hydra/vod
Hydra vs Modesty on Chain Reaction 12 pool vs 12 hatch (watch Hydra @3 in pale yellow)
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/90864_Hydra_vs_Modesty/vod
VS 9 pool 1 base muta
Soulkey vs Calm on Chain Reaction 12 pool vs 9 pool 1 base muta, Soulkey uses spores
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/98776_Calm_vs_Soulkey/vod
I havent double checked if these example games are indeed examples.
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Good luck with ZvZ, man
It made me switch to Terran
But after I had quit Zerg, I learned to appreciate it. If I ever switch back to Zerg, I won't race pick.
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GL and what is your current rank? Id be happy to assist with some replay analysis
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On November 30 2015 09:13 vOdToasT wrote:
Good luck with ZvZ, man
It made me switch to Terran
But after I had quit Zerg, I learned to appreciate it. If I ever switch back to Zerg, I won't race pick.
I don't think I will mind it once I get used to it, but right now it's sorta a "hmm I lost dunno why" situation.
On November 30 2015 12:40 FyRe_DragOn wrote:
GL and what is your current rank? Id be happy to assist with some replay analysis
I'd definitely appreciate it as I start to get my openings down solid. Was C-/C border as protoss, but being so new to zerg I'm probably closer to D+/C- at the moment. Worse at ZvZ
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I like ZvZ. For reds, you can basically 12 hatch every single game and win at least 50%. Contrary to popular belief, very few people go 9 pool speed (Peruvians excluded ofc).
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On November 30 2015 22:47 Djagulingu wrote:
I like ZvZ. For reds, you can basically 12 hatch every single game and win at least 50%. Contrary to popular belief, very few people go 9 pool speed (Peruvians excluded ofc).
what halfassed peruvian plays zerg? they all play protoss and proxy 2gate or cannon rush, or they play terran and they set lat to extra high as soon as the clock hits 6:10 vs z
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On November 30 2015 23:39 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2015 22:47 Djagulingu wrote:
I like ZvZ. For reds, you can basically 12 hatch every single game and win at least 50%. Contrary to popular belief, very few people go 9 pool speed (Peruvians excluded ofc). what halfassed peruvian plays zerg? they all play protoss and proxy 2gate or cannon rush, or they play terran and they set lat to extra high as soon as the clock hits 6:10 vs z
all peruvians play zerg
usually 9pool speed into 3hatch powerling all in
similar to how all polish people play protoss and go dt-> carriers 99% of games
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On November 30 2015 23:39 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2015 22:47 Djagulingu wrote:
I like ZvZ. For reds, you can basically 12 hatch every single game and win at least 50%. Contrary to popular belief, very few people go 9 pool speed (Peruvians excluded ofc). or they play terran and they set lat to extra high as soon as the clock hits 6:10 vs z
LOL. I have seem that tactic before. My counter is usually to start harassing and quickly f10 o n l, and then get right back on it. Usually they are too freaked out to change it back.
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On November 30 2015 23:39 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2015 22:47 Djagulingu wrote:
I like ZvZ. For reds, you can basically 12 hatch every single game and win at least 50%. Contrary to popular belief, very few people go 9 pool speed (Peruvians excluded ofc). what halfassed peruvian plays zerg? they all play protoss and proxy 2gate or cannon rush, or they play terran and they set lat to extra high as soon as the clock hits 6:10 vs z
They play Zerg, they just don't play ZvZ because in that match up you can't use low level tactics which work not because they are good, but because they are easier to execute than to defend against (but fail if the level of play is high enough).
In PvZ and in ZvP, such tactics do exist.
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for zvz do this:
- overpool
- 1 hatch ultra
good bo
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EPT
