EPT
I made an ICCup account. The seasons ends at the end of November, so I have about two weeks to achieve my goal of C-. Which I say is pretty lofty, considering it's rare that I ever break three digit apm in a game. But still, if I play enough, I figure I can hopefully get close to C-...or at least D+.
So here's an epic blog that'll be updated daily with battlereports and thoughts of my games, as well as one daily replay that I have selected for your viewing pleasure. Keep in mind it's not anything high level, but hey, why not watch my progress along the way
I'm doing this from four years of inactivity. The only BW I have played in years is pretty much UMS, and a few lans where we play about 2 1v1s, then start RW/TMM/evolves (lol)/shit like that/watching GOM at 4 in the morning. So yeah, this'll be like the progress of a completely nubcake into the world of competitive SC Ladders.
Keep up with my progress at
http://www.iccup.com/iccmatchlist/434914/
and
http://www.iccup.com/iccscprofile/434914/
Initial perceptions
Oh shit. Logging into the channel (took me a while because I'm a completely retard and couldn't figure out that my password wasn't the one for b.net), I'm immediately greeted by a sea of red icons. I click on each. 2000. 2500. 1500 points. Yeah, not looking good...I'm pretty intimidated at this point. So anyway, at least the server was kind enough to give me a generous 1000 points to start with. I figure it's just about the only time I can stay at four digits worth of ranking...though I can always reset later.
Replay of the day will come at the end of each day.
So I check the game list. And I join my first official ICCup match of my life.
Day one games:
Five games today. Two PvZs, two PvTs, and a PvP. I'm not sure what to think of how ICCup does skill levels. One of the D Zergs I played had 41 APM, rushed to hive in his main, didn't expand once, and built eight sunkens and three spores at his main. It was an obvious rape. The other D Zerg completely outclassed me with 200 apm (vs. my 98), outplayed me at every encounter, and pretty much did a Chill vs. Salv. At least I had some decent attacks at his nat, delaying him a bit, but in the end he just overran me. I managed to last just over thirteen minutes.
The Terran were awful. One of the Terran was C- and had 3xxx points, but he advertised the game as a D-/D game on LT. I asked him about it in the lobby and whether or not he was training an offrace, but just stayed silent and was random. I'm hoping his main wasn't Terran, because it was awful. Unit composition, scouting, "attacks", etc. All absolutely terrible. Hell, I managed to kill two SCVs with my scouting probe, so by this point, I knew he couldn't've been very good. The farthest he managed to get was almost to my nat with three vultures before he was completely run down by the fact that I had triple the number of bases. He managed to get his nat, but kept on losing SCVs to storm on the cliff and never bothered to clear out the templar. I got triple forges, upgraded to 3-3-2, and when he tried moving out with his main force, ran into my 1a2a3a4a5a6a while he had 8 clumped sieged tanks, 14 or so Vultures, and gg'd after I stormed all his tanks at once with my two templar. He had gotten more units, of course, but they kept on dying because I'd go in and abuse the fact that he had no positioning skills at all. Probably lost more Tanks and Vultures combined than I did Dragoons throughout the course of the entire game. Again, an utter rape.
The other Terran was some D who tried some weird bio build on Medusa, but didn't get farther than 8 Marines, 2 SCVs and a Tank movine out of his base before he ran into my 2gate range build, getting utterly crushed. It didn't help that I had sniped four marines before his first tank with my first Dragoons. Once I got into his main, he got desperate and started freaking out or something, because for some inane reason he thought two medics and two firebats would fare well against eight dragoons. They didn't. Though to give him some credit, he did continually build tanks. They just died to Dragoon fire :/
The PvP was the best game, and it was a back and forth match on Python. The P was D rank, I believe, but besides the 200 apm Zerg, was the best opponent I fought of the night. I opened Reavers to his DTs, and managed to get a 19 kill Reaver and a 17 kill Reaver because he was distracted by my 1a2a-ing of my army into his. I didn't know he had went DT originally as he hid his Citadel, but in my last foray into his base (two Zealots breached into his base), before they died, I had caught a glimpse of a Templar Archives and decided to throw up an Observatory. Very, very lucky for me, very, very unlucky for him. After that, he did a 4 gate power goon build, and ended up breaching my base with six or so Dragoons when I had just about nothing. When that happened, I was flipping shit because I had lost the game, but by some stroke of luck, managed to hold on. In a later attack of his, he killed my expansion, but somehow, I held on again, and ended up winning the game.
The replay of it is attached below. Don't expect super solid mechanics from me, as I honestly am not good at all at Starcraft and I'm still rusty (even for my crappy self). But still, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the game, what I can do to improve, etc.
Empyrean (P12) vs. angeluz (P9) on Python:
http://rapidshare.de/files/40935874/0007_empyreanP_angeluzP.rep.html
After day 1: Rank: 1430. Record: 4-1. Average APM: High nineties. Depressing, really...I don't hotkey my gates or nexuses, and when I do hotkey my gates, instead of 1z2z3d4ding, I just manually select them and build them from there. It's kind of pathetic, I probably have around 5% hotkey (too lazy to check!)
Much better than I had anticipated. I expected to get steamrolled by D level players, but I managed to beat three Ds, and a C-. I actually ended up higher than the 200 APM Zerg who beat me. Unexpected twist!
And, since I'm a busy college student (If I complete my program of studies, I'll literally be the first double major in Statistics and Biology at Duke), I don't have much time to train, so I'll only probably play less than five games a night. But still, I'm looking to improve! Haha.
Looking forward to day 2
...though I'm dreading that this period of beginner's luck won't last.Day two games:
As expected, I did worse today. I mean, not terribly worse, but I lost my first two games today, freaked out, and won my next four. None of the games were replay worthy, though. Both of the losses were just poor play on my part, one of them being opening 1gate tech PvP against a 10/12 gate lot opening on Medusa (I don't know what I was thinking...I can only hold this build vs. a 10/12 gate when I have a ramp) and the other being the fact that I absolutely blow PvZ and it was the first time I'd played Bluestorm in my life. He just ran me over with a 9 pool build...but at least I haven't lost to any D-'s yet, so I think I'm comfortable saying that I'm at least D- skill level.
Hooray!
The wins were very uhh...pedestrian. Three PvPs and a PvZ. The Zerg I played against kept on warning me he'd disc, disced three times (found out that I didn't Alt+F4 or something, and played on. Three times. Annoying as fuck. I basically 1a2a3a steamrolled him over, especially since he had fewer expansions than I did the whole game. He finally ended up discing for real. I checked his stats afterward and now he has 2 points and a 4-50-0 record. I can't believe I wasted twenty minutes on that.
The PvP wins were just me opening 1 gate tech to 10/12 gates while putting down a shield battery at my ramp. I think this discourages people from rushing, because no one actually ended up attacking so I ended up with a tech advantage. I always scout crossmap, and on one game got lucky, we were opposite positions on Python and I capped his gas. So he went gate>gate>forge. I could've won earlier if I had scouted more, because he expanded immediately afterward. Oh well. In the two straight up PvPs I played, I took my Reaver with my army, and it was very effective. I also Reaver dropped someone and had a 23 kill Reaver, but this was after his army got obliterated.
The last PvP was somewhat interesting, but not really worth sharing the replay because he played like shit. It was on Medusa (I don't have the best luck with that map), but he went Forge first and I guess he wanted to try something cutesy like. By now I had learned my lesson, and opened 2gate goon, but built a Zealot just for kicks. He decided to cannon my main minerals (Bifrost style), but that utterly failed because I had a pylon there. But he decided to try and do it anyway. I ended up building three gates on his high ground, and 5gate range gooned him to death. He didn't even get to build a cybernetics core. It was pathetic.
So yeah, second day of ICCup didn't give me any good games. All the games were pretty much one sided rapes (the wins and the losses) and unfortunately, I didn't get to play any C-'s because when I tried to join the game they made me leave. I guess I wasn't worth their time. Whatever.
Points: 1710. Record: 8-3-0.
LT: 2-0 Python: 4-1, Medusa: 2-1, Blue Storm: 0-1.
PvZ: 1-2, PvP: 4-1, PvT: 2-0.
APM of my games today (and results): 96L, 95L, 93W, 92W, 86W, 97W. So I didn't break three digits today, and throughout my entire ICCup experience, only broke it once, at 102 APM.
For your entertainment, here is a screenshot of my hotkey use:
![[image loading]](http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/7075/empyshotketswf9.jpg)
Apparently I didn't even 1a2a3a, because I never got to the "3a" part of it.
Still going strong, I guess. Hopefully I can continue this trend.
...now I need to work on two problem sets due tomorrow, so I probably won't play at all tonight until lateish. Wish me luck! :D
More of day two
Ok, so I lied. I played some more...and it was my worst showing yet (mainly because I played against mostly Zerg). Nothing too exciting, though all of the games were certainly fun. I decided that PvZ pretty much sucks ass, so I 6 pylon 6 gated every game after a while in each PvZ. They were all horribly ineffective, as for some reason Zerg just love to 9 pool now. What happened to 12 hat 11 pool? Fuckdamn. Anyway, in one of the games my 6 pylon 6 gate somehow ended up winning, but it was only after midgame rolled around and I 1a2a3a'd into him. :/
Some interesting stats:
Average APM still hovers in the 90 range. I also am 4-0 on Lost Temple...maybe a sign that I'm more used to the oldschool maps haha...I need people to teach me Medusa/Andro/Blue Storm/etc. Hell, I even got lost on Longinus. I think map knowledge and adapting builds to them is a large part of what I'm missing.
I'm 2-4 PvZ, which means I have a 33% win rate against Zerg. Ouch. I'm 5-2 PvP, and 3-0 PvT. PvP is definitely my favorite match up, but only when it builds into midgame (aka I don't get bumrushed on maps that don't have ramps). I pretty much need ramps to function. Also every single Terran I've faced completely sucks balls.
Something I've noticed: Whenever I join game lobby, I immediately choose race to P. People have a bad habit of staying random until the last second and then choosing Z because they are absolute cuntbags. Do they think I don't notice? Why don't you just straight up choose Zerg? Hell, next time someone does that to me, I'm timing the game until 1:50, telling them they're dickwads, and leaving.
So lessons learned today: I have no map knowledge, and I massively suck against Zerg.
Current Rating: 1873. Stats: 11 - 6 - 0
More of day two...though it's technically day three since it's past midnight here
So I logged on. Played a PvT that I had the advantage in, but Fakesteve logged on and I didn't want to keep him waiting so I left. Lulz. I got utterly raped by a sleepy/slow Fakesteve, but he helped me a lot afterwards helping me a lot with PvT (well, one facet, anyway). Really grateful
...I then lost a PvP, and the other player just completely outclassed me (180 apm as well...wtf). In the end, I ended up using the PvT build Fakesteve taught me and utterly destroyed some random Terran, even with my many, many mistakes. It's just a beastly build, even with my 82 apm that game. So hooray.
All in all, I went 1-2 (in the rated games), keeping up my trend of steadily decreasing my point gain. I ended up having the same rating, though my stats suffered a bit. 12 - 8 - 0.
Looking forward to tomorrow!
Day three:
Went like 1-5 today. Really shitty performance. Anyway, I'm off to class so I'll give a more detailed summary later tonight! Rating like 1700ish.
Quick after dinner update: I rallied back today, ended up at 1973....so I'm almost at D+ rank! Hooray! My PvP record finally slipped to the negatives, though, I'm 6-7 PvP...7-3 PvT though. Also I finally lost a game on Lost Temple, so I'm 4-1 there. Still averaging 90ish APM...I hit a new record, though, 126, but that was because the game got hopelessly laggy.
Also, I've noticed that lots of D rank Terrans seem to disc after I reaver drop. What assholes.
More detailed summary coming up later tonight! :D
More of day three, including an important event!
So I finally convinced teh leet newb to play after months of inactivity. He's on dota a lot now because he is a whore. There, I said it. Anyway, we played two games on Luna, a PvP and a ZvP (yes, I played Zerg). The PvP was fairly uneventful, as his crappy CMU internet (haha, ironic) connection lagged out so he disced. When he disced, I think we had just started our respective expos, I had 4 goons/2 reavers/shuttle and he had 8 goons, so I'm not sure who would've won. The ZvP was hilarious because in every single ZvP before this one, he had shut me down with Corsairs and I just flipped the shit and couldn't react with my hydras fast enough. This game I ended up opening 9 pool, killing his pylon with my first six lings, getting spire and then scourging his sairs, mass expoing while playing sunken defense while 1a2a3a4a5aing Zerglings into his base. Didn't even get out of his nat. Absolutely rape hahahaha :D...he left before Ultras came. I only build Drones/Ovies/Lings/Scourge that game, it was hilarious.
Anyway, for the last game that mattered, it was a PvR(Z) on Python. I had shitty luck and scouted him on the last location, so I had already taken a 12 gas when I realized, oh shit, that he was Zerg. I also let him sneak lings into my base and kill the pylon powering my two gates, but uhh, I opened blind Reaver and was able to defend. Lucky lucky me. At one point I think I had over 1k minerals, but it ended up tapering off. I 1a'd into his base after some harass to seal the deal.
D+.
![[image loading]](http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/7254/drankhc9.png)
Day 4:
Only one game so far, against a 180 APM Protoss. I had less than half that. Anyway, it was a game on python, I opened 2gate range goons>obs (even though I knew he was cross map) he did 1gate tech. Minor skirmishes here and there, but I got an earlier expo up, so I was able to macro off of 5 gates to his three, eventually expanded again and was 7 gates by the end to his three. I ended up reaver dropping quite a bit, with 23 probe kills. He got a shuttle and two reavers along with 8ish goons in our first major battle and I had 8 goons 4ish lots, but his Reavers were absolutely useless and I killed them both. I ended up a moving into his expo, which he prompty canceled. I just macroed some more, 1a2aing into his expo to keep him on his toes, and in our last battle, the 23 probe kill reaver ended up with five dragoon kills as well because he completely sucks at dragoon vs. shuttle/reaver micro like you wouldn't believe. Even with his 180 apm.
Rating: 2223 Stats: 19 - 14 - 0.
That win evened up my PvP stats again, making it 7-7. 3-4 PvZ, 8-3 PvT.
So this evening rolled around and I logged onto ICCup for some more fun. Basically, I played three games against random players and won them all. I hosted all three on Luna, a map I actually know, so as not to be raped by maps like Medusa or Blue Storm, etc. Apparently one of the people recognized me from TL.net and he was D+ as well, so I was a bit intimidated. Luckily he was a Terran ;D
Anyway, I played a decent enough PvP against some other Protoss. Actually it was kind of one-sided as well, aka he never got outside his base with anything other than a Probe. Literally. Oh well. What sucks now that I'm D+ is that I have to play against D+s if I want to get 100 points per win. Winning against Ds just gives me 75 points only, so with this increase in difficulty of playing field, well, I'm not looking forward to it much. But at least I've affirmed to myself that I'm better than D rank, something I was never actually sure of
Rating: 2448. Stats: 22 - 14 - 0. I evened up my PvZ record to 50%, at 4-4. Still, the Zerg I played today was pretty awful. And I have a positive record against Protoss again, at 8-7. Terran is still 9-3, or a 75% win ratio. Most D/D+ level Terrans are awful, and even the C- Terran (whose loss to me made him drop down to D+ haha) I faced was bad. The Terrans who beat me did so pretty convincingly, so they must've been better than their rank indicated. Oh well.
Onto day five soon! And on a side note, I'm playing a bo9 series with ghostclaw (waterGHOSTCLAWdragon) with one game in each match up so that should be pretty fun. I won't bore you guys with the details of that here, though
