our PSISTORM Gaming Heroes team are 2 time Blizzcon participants, and barely missed making the NA Pro League after arriving late in the season and grinding it out in the Open Division with very little time and zero points, but still qualifying for the playoffs.
It's offseason for our them, so the other day they (Neil, Kier, Ronel & Giovanni) said that they had a side bet amongst themselves: If they practice for a week, can they beat me in StarCraft 2. This got my competitive juices flowing. Keep in mind they are starting from scratch. I told them IMO they shouldn’t be able to beat me, and that I’d play each race 1 game vs each of them, so 12 games total and pay $ per win.
I haven’t finalized on how much, but it would make sense that if this was a thing that we do after week 1, and if we continue to week 2 or so, the price per win drops coz of the odds they’d beat me as they get better. I was thinking of paying $100 per win vs my Zerg, $75 vs my Protoss, and $50 vs my Terran to start.
This was Sunday, so by October 28 a week later, will be the matches.
It would be interesting to see how good professional level players in other games, especially MOBAs, in a highly overwhelming RTS game like StarCraft 2 is, in just a week.
Obviously, I’m nowhere near professional but I play at Master level in Zerg and Protoss, with a Diamond ranking as Terran. So I doubt they should be able to beat me with such little practice time.
Idea hatched here: goo.gl/89b3eJ
The tweet announcement (coz esports is done via twitter not FB?):
PengWin will be casting this at the PSISTORMGaming twitch channel on Sunday, 7pm US Eastern for those interested in how these guys do. I don't expect them to win a game. But who knows, I'm not that great.
A buddy of mine who was challenger in LoL came over to play some SC with me about a year ago. I was platinum at the time, and within 4 days of playing 5 ish hours a day was able to take 2 games off of me in a bo7. He played terran, and his micro was fantastic.
2 weeks later he was ranked higher than me in platinum 1 and I lost 4 games in a row bo7. He quit playing sc a bit after that, but I think he coulda made master in less than a year.
That's a really interesting concept. The biggest question to me is what 'from scratch' means? No SC2 experience? Or no RTS experience? Because if one of them's played for example Warcraft at a moderately high level their chances of winning are pretty good. Otherwise I don't think so.
Also do they have a friend who's good at Starcraft coaching them?
Yeah from scratch, but they are familiar with SC2's concept. They are allowed to be coached, I believe they are practicing now with KawaiiRice and Elhaym, former GM players who are now doing Heroes.
interesting idea! should depend on a lot of variables. a pro gamer has a lot of skills that should translate across games, like twitch reflexes and practice regimens, so i could see a heroes pro doing well in SC2. really depends on the individual.
probably the smartest thing they could do is pick a single timing based build to learn and execute. pro gamer mechanics and a solid build should definitely be competitive at master level sc2. obviously it would also come down to how hard they practice
If they practice the right build for 1 week straight, 8 hours a day, coached by GM players, I think they might take some games. Probably not of your zerg though.
Interesting concept, I am eagerly awaiting the results!
brickrd, exactly. I need to make sure I scout A LOT.
They've been practicing hard coz they see it as a public challenge and you know how pros are very competitive.
I think their medivac drop micro will be great, blink stalkers, or whatever, I just don't expect them to macro as well since they are used to looking at the fight more than managing things at their home base.
I was semi-pro in cs 1.6, after it died I switched to sc2 with no rts experience and it took me less than 1k games to reach masters and I think it's easier game tbh.
On October 29 2018 19:36 Hvvacha wrote: I was semi-pro in cs 1.6, after it died I switched to sc2 with no rts experience and it took me less than 1k games to reach masters and I think it's easier game tbh.
Yeah but masters isn't high level play in starcraft 2. It's the same as me saying I was masters in SC2 and when I tried CS GO I got to LEM in 1000 games. I mean it's not a bad achievement but LEM level is completely different from even semi pro level.
On October 29 2018 19:36 Hvvacha wrote: I was semi-pro in cs 1.6, after it died I switched to sc2 with no rts experience and it took me less than 1k games to reach masters and I think it's easier game tbh.
Yeah but masters isn't high level play in starcraft 2. It's the same as me saying I was masters in SC2 and when I tried CS GO I got to LEM in 1000 games. I mean it's not a bad achievement but LEM level is completely different from even semi pro level.
Also, everyone who says they played 1.6 was a semi-pro, both online and irl. I have no idea how that's possible but don't know enough about CS to argue it.
On October 29 2018 19:36 Hvvacha wrote: I was semi-pro in cs 1.6, after it died I switched to sc2 with no rts experience and it took me less than 1k games to reach masters and I think it's easier game tbh.
EPT
