Road to Grandmasters on Korean Ladder

I used Terran during Wings of Liberty, playing professionally for the team "Infinity Seven" until I decided to retire. Here are some of my achievements:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Edge_(American_player)

I started playing Starcraft 2 right after getting accepted into the University of Arizona as a transfer student (from a community college in Southern Arizona). With no real ambitions or desires, I decided to accept the grant from the school along with the loans just to get out of my current town. I was soon addicted to playing Starcraft 2 and ended up failing all my classes. I didn't care at the time, because my career as a professional gamer started after joining the team Infinity Seven.

My time with them was particularly memorable. With their support, I attended two MLGs and an IEM. I still remember the emotions I had at the time; being nervous playing against Hero, feeling down after losing to someone I shouldn't have, and being proud of myself for winning against someone who was better than me. Sometimes I wonder when I'll be able to feel that way again.
Besides the competition, there was something else that I was looking forward to at my first experience at MLG: the after party. An event where pros and alike gathered to relax and enjoy their remaining time together. Drinks and food would be free, and I’d meet all kinds of people I would otherwise never have thought to meet in person, much less have conversations with. One memory that will always remain with me is getting caught by one of the guards after hooking up Drg with Heineken.

One day, I completely lost interest in Starcraft. I’ve been playing on the Korean ladder during my late days of Wings of Liberty. Being unable to maintain even top 100 masters within the Korean ladder, I was shocked to realize the difference between the level of foreigners and Koreans. My parents being against progaming and my managers telling me to practice every week was turning into an annoyance. I practiced less over time and eventually became sick of Starcraft.

I’d have never come up with the decision to go back to Starcraft without my friends. One of my best friends told me that he believed in me, that not many people could even reach the results that I made, and that it was sad for him to see that I lost the passion of what was once a dream. Having someone who recognized my talent in something I loved sparked a revival of passion within me.
Soon, I dreamt about being the player that everyone knew of. A year after I quit playing Starcraft 2, I picked up Heart of the Swarm the day it came out and slowly fell in love with the game once again.

I made the decision to go all-in this time: no turning back, no giving up, no pussy toeing my way in.
I wanted to make sure I wouldn't make the same mistakes I made before: falling into a downward spiral of despair and giving up.
Steeling my resolve, I picked Zerg as my main race this time. The idea of not missing a single inject and shitting on the whole map with my creep seemed beyond glorious.
The ladder region of choice would be Korea. My mentality was that I have to practice with the best to be the best, no time for scrubs in the NA ladder.
The first thing I did when I logged onto my first owned Starcraft 2 account was finish the campaign.
My gamer nature had to get that out of the way before entering the “real” world of Starcraft 2 in the ladder. After figuring out all the default hotkeys during the campaign, I decided to configure my own hotkeys as I did during my late end of Wings of Liberty. I wanted to have strong keyboard and mouse fundamentals from the beginning so I researched the best cpi possible (which I determined was 1150 according to a certain post on teamliquid). For my hotkeys, I wanted to utilize most of the hotkeys available at easy access. I changed 8, 9, 0 to q, w, `, and decided my create/jump location keys would start from f1 to f5 along with z, x, c for easy access rally points. I found out about the turbo button called "Choose ability or A.I. Target" one day and put that as G, which is my creep as well as infested Terran hotkey.
I started off as platinum, easily went into diamond but struggled there for about a week. As I was playing, I took notes of anything Starcraft related on a program called notepad ++ and reviewed it whenever I felt like I should. During this time, I kept up with almost every single professional Zerg player’s games and tried to understand exactly what was going on. I would copy the same build order and practice it by myself with an AI until my builds became near perfect. I was able to understand which build order worked best in almost every situation. My notes currently contain most of the timings of the current meta game, and answers on preparing a counter measure against most builds, ranging from 1 base all-ins to 3 base macro.
In the near future, I would like to organize my notes and create a guide for anyone to see.

There will always be obstacles along the way. My worst enemy to date was wrist pain.
Around the second month of getting back into Starcraft 2, I got to a point where I couldn’t play without pain. Luckily for me the answer to this solution was also found in teamliquid. It was called “trigger point therapy”, some East Asian voodoo magic where you literally heal the pain by touching yourself.
After consistently massaging myself in the right places, my pain gradually subsided as the weeks passed by.
Since then, I’ve never felt pain from holding my mouse ever again.
Distractions would be the next obstacle in line. Hanging out with friends, watching TV Shows, reading books, playing new games, dealing with ladder anxiety, etc. The best way to get through these distractions was to simply play a game of ladder, ride the momentum, and keep playing. You must force yourself to make it a habit to play.
I struggled for the longest time trying to maintain top 100 masters. It was about a good 3 months of going up and down in between 100-200. I felt like my skills were improving, but my results on the ladder rank seemed inconsistent. It was a wall that I just couldn’t climb over, casting an ominous shadow of doubt over my dreams and efforts.
Much like learning how to climb an actual physical wall (or a mountain, even), I’d have to continue “working out”, practicing, and learning the right techniques. With more information gathering and consistent practice I eventually maintained top 100 Masters and actually played decent games against Grandmasters.
With one more month of effort, I was finally able to become a Grandmaster on Kr.
If you are going through the same dilemma of being stuck at a certain rank, don't give up. Just keep at it, keep trying. With consistent hard work and dedication over time, you will inevitably see results.

1. I'd like to focus on my stream the most. I will stream more often and commentate, explaining the hows, whens, and whys of every match up. I want to make my stream educational and entertaining for all kinds of viewers.
2. I want to make my notes useful for everyone. It contains build orders, what to do in every situation in every match up, scout timings, and mechanics to help improve your fundamentals. It is information gathered from professional matches along with my own experiences.
I will update the links of my work to this blog whenever I can to keep everything organized.
3. I will enter various online tournaments including WCS America. Just because I hit grandmasters on the Korean ladder doesn't mean I will be qualifying for everything. I still have ways to go and I only consider being a grandmaster as a beginning of a new chapter in my gaming career.

All I ask of you is to support me by cheering and encouraging me. Tune into my stream at http://www.twitch.tv/edgesc whenever you feel like it and watch me make progress in the pro gaming world as a newcomer. Your presence would be greatly appreciated.

- Research and find the perfect setup for your mouse and hotkeys.
- Strong basic fundamental is important especially when you start playing
- Play as much as you can
- Take notes of everything related to the game: vods, replays, ideas, mistakes, answers.
- Review the notes you took whenever you feel like it. It doesn't have to be every day; once a week reviewing the new notes you made for that week is good enough.
- Watch and analyze the vods or replays of all the latest games played by professional players of your race. (I watched more Starcraft than playing it, especially the in first 3 months of getting back into Starcraft. Just make sure watching more than playing doesn't become your permanant habit)
-Go to options, hotkeys, global, camera, and use Create Location/Jump to Location.
-Don't give up!
-The keys are hard work (practice, practice, practice), dedication (gather as much knowledge and information as possible), consistency (practice often at a steady rate), and patience (all great things take time to achieve).

Did you enjoy the actual time spent gameplay wise or was it more of a personal improvement enjoyment i.e do you enjoy the game itself or the competition it provides?

When I got back into Hots, it took me a while to really enjoy and love the game again. Currently, I don't really feel much from practicing, I just practice whenever its time and try to get better. I enjoy the game itself, i can't see myself playing any other professional games that are out right now.

What's the most efficient practice? Have you had any problems with wrist pain?
Efficient practice is "Deliberate practice", i solved my wrist pain with "Trigger Point Therapy"

where do you live that you are able to play on KR without lag?
Arizona

you emphasized practice, so how many games total were played before you achieved gm?
About 3.5k games including customs, one of the screen shot should give you an idea of how many games i played.