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Hi all.
I have been stuck in gold 1v1 SEA since release it feels like. I am in Platinum in random 2s and 3s, but I can't seem to win consistently enough to get out of gold.
My main is zerg, I feel my best matchup is ZZ, worst being PZ (after reading the art of ZvT I feel OK with beating terran). I used to play random and can execute basic strats on any race (Last game I remember winning I 4gated a protoss who was doing the same thing).
Any tips on getting to platinum? (switch races, stop switching races or playing 2v2s...)
I can post replays in about 6 hours, once i find some of my more average recent games.
Ranks here:
http://sc2ranks.com/team/4271901
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just keep winning ladder games. If the system finally calculates that you are ready, it will move you.
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Yep, just gotta keep grinding out those games. A leagues a league don't be too stressed, just play and have fun!  Best of Luck
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I'm in the same situation, but I don't view it at all as you guys view it. Just keep grinding the games and have fun. The key words is "game". Just because you see the pros doing awesome doesn't mean that you are bad. Have fun at the game you spent sixty dollars for and keep playing. @ Irre, giving up? What do you mean? Have fun and quit bitching. It's a league.
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I've been in silver for about a week now with the system matching me primarily against gold with a sprinkling of platinum players. I guess it's just deciding whether to promote me to gold or platinum. I'm not too worried.
I was told that the system accounts for random losses amongst a general trend. If that is true, loosing the occasional game to cheese or something unexpected might delay your promotion slightly but it shouldn't prevent it altogether.
Edit: I'm on SEA too.
Edit #2. I'm also platinum for 3's and 4's and gold for 2's. Same sort of deal with my two's team. We are top of gold but are regularly paired against top5 diamond (we won 27 games in a row the other day and lost 3) It's probably just deciding whether to promote to platinum or diamond, again, not worried.
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Thanks for the advice so far, but it sounds like "just keep grinding".
Anything more specific? Should I stick to to some standard builds for the matchups, something like:
ZZ Roach into overseer
ZT sling bane into muta once they stop bio balling
ZP...
Should I play differently when versing players I am favored against?
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Two things.
First off, do not just go play games just to 'play the game'. If you really want to improve, your going to have to look at every game you lost and learn from it.
Secondly, usually every single players problem below the master league level and sometimes even in master league is Mechanics!
What are mechanics you ask? Liquipedia sums it much better than I could:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Mechanics_(StarCraft)
I would put more emphasis on your macro, because if your mechanics and more specifically your macro improves, chances are your ladder ranking will improve.
Since you are Zerg, you must learn larvae management. This is unique to Zerg and usually is the hardest learning curve for most new players. You must learn when to make units and when to make drones.
I highly suggest this Day9 Daily to help you get a grasp on it:
http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4210235/
If you learn larvae management and drone timings, and improve your mechanics but specifically macro, you will be on your way to becoming a much better zerg player.
PS: 2v2/3v3/4v4 is significantly less competitive then the 1v1 ladder, which is probably the reason you are having more success there.
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Been stuck on platinum rank 1 in 2v2 with my friend for the past 4 months and up over 400 points over #2. We're both diamond in random 2v2's.
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Thanks heaps Smigi! Will watch the day9 at home.
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You will get promoted in time. I was in gold and was beating high plat inconsistently. One day I got a 3 lose streak then went on to win 5 games in a row and I got promoted to Platinum.
League doesn't really matter. Just something to show off about
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On January 28 2011 13:20 zergrushkekeke wrote:
Thanks heaps Smigi! Will watch the day9 at home.
No problem sir.
You just reminded me of my days in SC1 when I was a D Zerg and was stuck.
I wish someone came along and gave me help back then =(
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keep in mind that 2v2 and 3v3 are not similar to 1v1 at all in this game....
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Its not grinding as you should be adjusting your play with every loss and hopefully refining your play with every win
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Yeah like the above people I think your best bet is to just ignore league. On my old account I placed gold, got promoted to platinum in 10 games or so, then sat in platinum playing only diamond players for about 100 games with a positive win ratio and never was promoted. The matchmaking system works so whatever league it says you're in is really irrelevant. You'll be playing against people of roughly your skill level regardless and if you check their stats you'll see they probably range all across the leagues too. Quite frankly the league system is absolutely absurd. The best person I've come across was stuck in silver for close to a hundred games with over 80% win ratio. It happens.
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Smigi is correct. I'm in the same boat as you (been top of gold for over a month+ now) but I just can't keep consistent enough to get my moving average above the platinum cutoff. So I've stopped laddering for a few days and am focusing on my mechanics. Hopefully with a little work on that I (and you) will be able to make it to the next level.
Good Luck!
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I was rank 1 Gold for Eternity.
I plan on being rank 1 Plat for the next eternity, lol ...
To be frank, without seeing any replays it's hard to give any advice. Even in Gold I was playing at the mid Plat level and now in Plat I'm playing at the low Diamond level. Your desire to get better needs to outweigh your desire for a shiny icon. It really truly doesn't matter what league you're in as long as you're having good games.
Chances are there are some fundamentals breaking down. I've found that much of the advancement from Gold to Plat is fundamentals and having a lucid understanding of what to do in certain scenarios.
TL is a great place. Post some replays and you'll get some stellar feedback.
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To confirm; the system promotes you not fully based upon points but on your record with players who are rated higher than you. So if you win nothing else, make SURE to try and win the games against opponents who are slightly or more favoured.
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been stuck on rank 1 diamond for a week and a half now T_T goddamnit
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I'd say if you're in gold, macro better. That's the main fault of lower leagues.
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I don't know how to help you with your ladder problem other than saying win but thats not a lot of help but don't feel trapped in 1v1 and have fun with a friend in 2v2s or 3v3s they are a lot of fun! For your ZvP problem I like to go Roach lings early-mid but if I see some Collussie i will immetitly get my spire up go muta. I may not be a lot of help but this what I do =)
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I got stuck at bronze with a record if 180-130, I won 95% of my games that were ALL favored or even. I had steaks of about 20 wins in a row constantly. The others records in my league were even or worse. The system doesn't seem to be spot on, but after I just played and played and played I got promoted to rank 4 silver instantly. I stopped laddering after that, too much cheese in the lower leagues.
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I would really focus on simple things. After every game, watch your replay and focus only on idle larva. Why are the larva idle? Are you getting supply blocked? Are you just slow to build units. Also focus on your larva injects as it's essentially the same thing. You can get to top diamond by just making sure you maximize your production, but step one of that is not missing any beats.
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You basically answered your own question when you said you felt like that art of beating Terran thing helped you with that matchup. You won't start feeling confident in your matchups unless you really study the game. Up until a month ago I played mostly custom inhouse melee games and only about 60 ladder games. I decided I would start laddering again when the new league was going to come out since I had hit diamond after 20 something ladder games. Over the past month I've really gotten into ladder and am in Master's. Ive just been spamming games trying to burn through this bonus pool, but I still have about 900 left.
The point is not to brag that I got there in fewer games... its to make you wonder what I was doing with the time I wasn't laddering. I probably observe, analyze, and read more than I actually play.. I know for sure when I wasn't laddering as much I was analyzing much more and learning more quickly. Only after I analyzed alot did I feel compelled to spam ladder, which helped me find flaws in my play that I couldnt have seen without playing alot. I fixed them mostly just macroing against AI since my micro was already solid from my background in some other games. Now I feel that I'm a strong player and I feel comfortable in every matchup except maybe PvP.. .thats my current project and though I have a 60% win rate against other masters protoss, I never feel like I've got a game in the bag.
I feel like alot of people get on here and tell everyone thats struggling to just spam alot of ladder games. I call bullshit on that advice. If you dont have a system in place to help you learn from those ladder games you will never fully understand how to get better. I feel by studying the game you will have break through moments where your play with improve tremendously seemingly overnight.
Here are some of the breakthrough moments so far in my SC2.
1) My cousin and I would do some 2v2s, hit diamond there but noticed we kept winning early team fights then losing the game. Browsing these forums I found some audio clips from Brood War from some guy named Day 9. One of them was called "winning with an advantage" or something. I downloaded it to my ipod and listened to it at work. He talks about how better players will extend their advantage over time just by being better and I dont know if he says this explicitly, but from it I also derived that if you already have an advantage... that advantage itself opens the door for MORE advantages that would be unavailable if you were playing from behind... For instance... taking a third. My mentality after winning a fight, unless im absolutely sure now... is how do I conquer the rest of this map or plug any possible hole he might slip through to get back into the game.
2) Moment 2 came pretty early on and its just from watching events like MLG with Day 9 casting them. he is very knowledgable and often he quickly explains why a player is doing something during the cast. Its very rudimentary stuff, but for someone stuck in gold I think an issue is an overall understanding of not WHATS happening, but why its happening. You will learn alot from these.
3) APM training on blistering sands. My APM is alot like that of a war3 player... probably because the first RTS i really dedicated any time to WAS war 3. My average is around 125, which to be honest, is double that of some masters guys and half the amount of some OTHER masters players. I kind of try to model my play after WhiteRa who seems to be very calculated.. i feel it helps me have more clarity of thought than just cycling through hotkeys... i still do this sometimes, but not like some of these other nerds. Anyhow despite having more than enough hand speed to play this game, I went through a phase where I didn't feel like what I was doing at any given moment was exactly the right thing. Go into 'create game' and type "APM trainer" in the search box. The map is APM training on blistering sands. I think its just the right difficulty for your level and only takes about 10 minutes to complete. I'll let you see what the map is, but honestly its valuable and not because of that silly little APM number.. thats irrelevant... its valuable because its basically concrete evidence that you are wasting alot of time on unimportant shit. Pretend like the probe in the map is your whole army... While you keep that thing alive, you are macroing and monitoring your income and thinking about how you're going to push out. 95% of the time you spend in the map will be staring at that probe. It shows that you can macro and spend all that money and start your upgrades and actually attack spending only that 5% actually looking at your base. The lesson is crucial.
-I'm a little more hardcore about it... What I actually do when I'm working on a new build or trying a new build is go into Yabot... compare the timings with actual replays of builds I want to beat... run the build through YABOT a few times... Then I practice it vs very easy computers and unless its an all-in I will take a 3rd, hit 200 food, then leave the game. Once I feel comfortable with the macro, I go to the APM trainer. If I can do the build and win that map at the same time, its ready to be used. I find the ladder has too many variables for really trying a new build out and seeing how good it is. I like to narrow it down and then see how this build, when perfectly executed, interacts with the multitude of builds I see on the ladder. There is so much self-discovery and refinement that goes into or is a natural result of this process that I really feel its the best way to prepare a new build. At times I even go back and pause my replays during practice sessions at points in time when I know a strong 4 gate, for instance, will hit. I see if I have enough to hold it, etc. This is a little extra thing you can do to reinforce those timings and understand what you need and when. I digress
4) Finding one macro oriented build per matchup and practicing the everliving fuck out of it. Most of my friends during the "acute" stages of learning the game played terran. A TLer named KCDC made a post about the PvT 1 gate FE that he came up with.. .this was a little before Day 9 tried to take credit for the build. I was really impressed by the writeup and I felt like I had struck gold. I was beating the ass of all my terran friends with it and all the people I faced on the ladder. Since it was macro oriented I got to see more stages of the game and really got a chance to understand the matchup. I know exactly what they can have and when and exactly how long it takes them to switch to a different tech that might hurt me. Its to the point where I'm actually feinting my entire tech paths and then punishing them for assuming I went a certain way. You will need a build like this in every matchup if you truly want to understand them and understanding your matchups really is the key to consistency... you WILL NOT understand your matchups solely from spamming the Find Game button and laddering, hoping to somehow magically become good.
5) Just reading the shit out of the TL Boards and sifting through the crap and finding the good stuff. The strategy forums are okay i guess, but 90% of the stuff you read on here wont help you... you have to learn to quickly sift through it to find that 10% of goodness. Usually that means learning who the good posters are that actually know what theyre talking about. I'm not familiar with zergs enough to know who is who.
While ladder is a tool for learning to an extent... it should also be viewed as the fruits of your labor... for me, my ladder performance, when it is good, is a culmination of everything I've taken extra time to learn... a culmination of all the nuances. When I'm doing poorly that day on the ladder, I see it as an opportunity for new things I need to work on. Often, those things just involve more ladder games... often also though... they involve not touching the ladder for a day or two. This multi-faceted approach will make you learn much faster than just playing a bunch of ladder back to back.
I think what it boils down to is whether or not you feel you want to be a student of the game. I enjoy learning about starcraft as much as I enjoy playing it and I think it helps out my playing more than just playing alot.
Sorry for the long post or any redundancies. I hope it helps.
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OK I watched the day9 video about drone production, he must say drone a hundred times in that episode  I also saw the first part of Mr bitters ZvP and use sling roach for that matchup which feels pretty winnable. This one game I just played though failed to stop a 4 warpgate with pure stalkers, should have i build more slings? not expanded when i spotted the chrono boosts on the cyro?
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/131641-1v1-protoss-zerg-delta-quadrant
First replay uploaded so tel me if I've done something stupid like just used the desktop location instead of the url.
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Ah i cant watch the replay at work, but one last thing to add to my post. I feel poor hotkeys or lack of hotkeys is the #1 thing plaguing players or holding them back from improving quickly. Its abolutely crucial you are situated in a way that makes each action take fewer clicks/APM. It will buy you time to actually think to not have to search around for your army/production.
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Nice advice Jayrod, a friend of mine watches more replays and spends way less time laddering but is ranked higher than me, I still reckon I could beat him 1v1 though.
I will try out the APM trainer tomorrow.
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try to improve your play by watching replays.
and just keep on playing youll get there.
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I nearly remapped my hotkeys to prevent the s key for "select larvae" stopping my main army, or all my mining drones. I still play standard key layout, I don't think its worth re wiring my brain to stop something that only happens when I am tired.
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Edit: i'm new, is there a way to delete a post?
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On January 28 2011 12:48 zergrushkekeke wrote:
Thanks for the advice so far, but it sounds like "just keep grinding".
Anything more specific? Should I stick to to some standard builds for the matchups, something like:
ZZ Roach into overseer
ZT sling bane into muta once they stop bio balling
ZP...
Should I play differently when versing players I am favored against?
Zerg is an adaptive race, i would definitely not have a set build order against a race, i would instead try to find what builds work good against different openings from your opponent.
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IME, you'll get promoted when you're winning quite a few games against platinum players.
I was in gold for around 160 games. I was ranked anywhere from top1 to top10 in my division towards the last 40 games or so, and felt like I will be forever stuck in gold as I was constantly losing matches to plat players, but always winning against gold.......then I started watching the replay of every single game that I played, whether it's a loss or not. Kept watching for certain things -- when was I not scouting, when did I overdrone, when should I have expanded, when should I have attacked, etc etc. The improvements came in slowly and steadily -- eventually I was beating all gold opponents and winning against plat. Shortly after beating a BM plat Terran, I got promoted. Yay!
Right now I'm rank 1 in my plat division for a good week or so, beating maybe 1 out of every 3 diamond players I get matched against. I think until I address my two main weaknesses, I won't get promoted to diamond. My ZvZ is horrendous, especially at Scrap Station where I can't do a 3roach ramp block. My ZvP has gotten better, but I don't remember the last time I won against a 3 or 4base protoss. Thankfully my ZvT has been good, or else my win-loss ratio would've tanked by now LOL!
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I found the best way to improve was to play with players better than me. I started SC in the beta thanks to a friend, only coming from a FPS game background, so I had a lot to learn. I spent a lot of time watching replay's from husky/HD/day9 and was improving. I was playing a lot on ladder, but it was troublesome because there was a TON of cheese going on in the low levels especially at that time, and my ability to manage basic fundamentals was pretty low, less yet manage a crisis of an early cheese.
It was then that I realized I was not getting better at the game just grinding it out on ladder, I really needed to learn the fundamentals and more mid/late game management rather than going for quick wins/losses on ladder. So I started playing solely customs, with players much better than myself. My buddy played BW before and was ranked in diamond sc2, so he crushed me game after game, but even through this I was progressing at a speed I could have never imaged on ladder. The constant losses to someone with skill, rather than a cannon rushing noob, motivated me to play better rather than get pissed at not getting to play a full length game.
I really have to say that playing better people is the best way to play at a higher level overall. You have to take each game and think objectively about how you lost and what you could have done better to prevent that mistake. Watch simple things when you play such as not getting supply blocked, drone production, larva injects, creep spread, ect. and focus on trying to do one really well each game. Build on your successes and learn from your failures. After all of those customs and learning, I went into diamond now with a pretty good record and am still trying to learn.
Hopefully my journey can help you with yours,
Good Luck,
Wes
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On January 29 2011 05:54 Wes2000 wrote:
I found the best way to improve was to play with players better than me. I started SC in the beta thanks to a friend, only coming from a FPS game background, so I had a lot to learn. I spent a lot of time watching replay's from husky/HD/day9 and was improving. I was playing a lot on ladder, but it was troublesome because there was a TON of cheese going on in the low levels especially at that time, and my ability to manage basic fundamentals was pretty low, less yet manage a crisis of an early cheese.
...trimmed...
I really have to say that playing better people is the best way to play at a higher level overall. You have to take each game and think objectively about how you lost and what you could have done better to prevent that mistake. Watch simple things when you play such as not getting supply blocked, drone production, larva injects, creep spread, ect. and focus on trying to do one really well each game. Build on your successes and learn from your failures. After all of those customs and learning, I went into diamond now with a pretty good record and am still trying to learn.
Hopefully my journey can help you with yours,
Good Luck,
Wes
This is a fantastic point.
I'd recommend getting a practice partner who is better than you, and talk about the games after each one..
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If you're 'stuck' in a league, it usually means that's where you belong with your current skill. Rather than grinding ladder and continuously making the same mistakes that prevents you from reaching higher leagues, grab a few diamond friends and ask them to help you out.
If you don't know any plat/diamond/master players who can spare some time, feel free to shoot me a PM. I'm not great, but I think I would be able to teach you a thing or two.
edit: 3v3 and 4v4 rankings aren't that accurate. My friends and I are all plat/diamond 1v1, we won all 5 placement matches and got placed in Silver 3v3. From my experiences, 2v2 seems significantly more accurate than 3v3/4v4, but still not terribly accurate.
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Sorry if this thread came off that way Saracen. I read the zerg help me thread heaps a few months back and felt like it had heaps of good advice, I was just asking for something more specific to me.
So far I've got the feeling that getting better is more about watching replays, studying better players methods and for me just improving basic mechanics, and not worrying about what division I'm in.
Thanks all for your input.
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I used to feel the same way, until something happened and I got promoted to Plat. I then played on NA to see if it was luck and got into plat straight away instead of taking weeks.
I suggest you keep at it, watch your replays and try to understand why you lost. Think about the unit compositions you need and want to have. Have a game plan, how do you want to win?
A lot of the reasons I begin to loose and I think other players might too is that we overthink things. We macro too hard and forget to bring the battle to them. Basically, watch replays, find where you failed and improve that aspect.
Were you being killed by hidden tech? you must scout more.
Did he macro better? you have to be more aggressive with less and macro harder yourself
Stuff like that..
(BTW don't feel bad for not being in Diamond. The aim of the game is fun, and not to be the best because there's always someone going to beat you out there, even by luck)
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Australia8532 Posts
Probably got to do with your macro; like most things this is a deciding factor.. if you have more shit then your opponent you should win?
Constantly make workers
Dont get supply blocked
Continually producing units
Expaaaaaaaaaaaaand
The usual shit.. basically once you have a >50% win ratio against Platinum players and you convincingly beat other gold league players.. you will be promoted (that is the simplistic version)
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I switched races. Z to T. Hope it works out for you too.
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hmm so much advice but somehow i feel urged to contradict!
Stop playing 2on2, stop switching races. Play at least 30games in a row, find out what you weakest matchup is and read / watch vids for that matchup for maybe 2-4 hours. Play another 30 games or something. Only if you experienced certain problems by urself, you truely understand the advice you get from reading / watching vids.
Switching races (and also playing other modes) can easily spoil your mechanics and game sense. It is great if you offrace every now and then, but switching entirely will you need almost 3times as much practice to get some timings on the point, because there are three times as many!
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just try to stay consistent and you'll get promoted. I know that my mmr goes through a sine curve cause I only play on weekends so at the beginning of the weekend, I go down to gold, and then work back up to diamond by the end, but I never actually stay in one place long enough to get demoted/promoted haha. The system really wants you to have a 50/50 win/loss ratio, and so if that happens to you in platinum, then you'll get promoted
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EPT
