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Introduction
Hey guys,
So we feel like there's not really a good community that focusses specifically on the Gold/Platinum level player. I've been in platinum league myself for a while and sure maybe if I wasn't so scared of the ladder I'd be diamond but my current of absence of high rank is of no concern here. We know there are many groups and discords and youtube channels like Pig's, Lowko's & TTP to name a few but they have a very wide range of players and they are not specifically focussed on the idea we have in mind. We'd like to zoom in on this more fragile group of players who could benefit greatly from just 1 coaching session.
Our goals
The idea is simply to create an environment where this level of player does not have to feel scared of the ladder anymore and finally break into Diamond or even higher. We know from experience that it's quite a lonely journey and it can be hard to get in touch with people. We feel that at this level it is more important to improve your general skill and mechanics to a point at which you will automatically start promoting. We're not talking about getting your build orders down to a "to the second" precise timing like might be neccesary in Masters - GM.
This still does not have much to do with that you have to hit a timing of exactly 7:30. Because we feel that to get to that point it becomes a bit too overwhelming for the Gold/Platinum player. This is the league where you have to start being a bit more serious and have some idea of a build order. But it is still much more important that you actually macro well and try not to miss an inject or chrono boost or have production facilities not producing marines to give some examples.
We want to create a place where it is possible to learn these mechanics together without too much pressure. And it will be more about what went right and what went wrong. And not so much.. but you SHOULD HAVE had x amount of marines at X:XX timing. Or that you spent 100 mineral too much on a spore crawler 
The goal is to keep things fairly simple and just improve your general gameplay but also just to have more fun in the game!
To achieve these goals we currently provide:
- Free coaching
- 1v1 practise channels
- Weekly peepmodes
- Strategy channels
- Information sources
- A place to vent all your frustrations 
For example we take a look at:
- Your openings vs the different races
- Improving your macro
- Taking a look at your mechanics (hotkey usages, camera locations, rapid fire, control group usage)
- Scouting and map presence
- Unit compositions
- Making the right decisions
- We take a look at how you take offensive and defensive engagements
So to keep things short
This is the Discord
We hope some of you will join, or refer to this discord.
If you have any pointers/critique or advice we're open to all. It is after all for the benefit of the Starcraft 2 community and therefore how could we not listen to what you have to say.
Regards,
Juv (battletag Juvator#2757 - Discord Juvator#4832)
Fyi, feel free to add me on either battle.net or discord.
I'm on EU but I feel like region is of lesser importance in the bigger picture of this community we'd like to create.
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- Little update
Already got the first few members!
I already love it, nice guys willing to learn the game.
From low Gold to high Platinum is welcome to be honest.
Because the gap between these ranks is not that huge and I think both leagues can benefit from eachother.
So if you are in the gold leagues don't be afraid to come check it out.
Higher ranked players are welcome too ofc, but just remember if you want to help teach new players, I'd just say remember to keep it simple.
I'm in CSI myself for example and everyone there is master 3 to master 1 and that's great but they are so far out of my league that I find it quite overwhelming to actually learn from them. So just keep that in mind if you want to hang out and help our newbie members. Keep it simple.
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Hi!!
I already joined your Discord! See you in Bnet!!
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I'll check out the discord! Maybe someone can coach me away from just straight cannon rush so I can move up ^^
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On February 17 2019 19:43 Dvriel wrote:
Hi!!
I already joined your Discord! See you in Bnet!!
I love it and we already had a nice talk!
On February 18 2019 07:30 everythingisop wrote:
I'll check out the discord! Maybe someone can coach me away from just straight cannon rush so I can move up ^^
Haha sounds like a plan to me!
And in turn you can straight up cannon rush others so they get better at defending it haha.
Gimme a message once you arrive so I know who you are.
We've got more and more people joining up. And hopefully people can find a nice practise partner like this as well.
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This is a nice initiative.
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I am Diamond 3, i hope thats fine to join. Tassad #2629 (EU) or Dennis#9815 (Discord). Just be warned i am not someone who plays standard builds^^
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Good idea! There allways have been things like this somewhere somehow, like Bronze-Heroes in Wotl, by (I don't remember who).
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A very good idea especially for those of us who aren't even DREAMING of getting to masters or higher but still want to try play the full game.
If I post on TL and ask for ideas on how to deal with composition x from race y most people will want to see replays, and then most people will *cough* and say I should spend a month practicing macro and mechanics and then ask again. 
I'm sorry, but I play casually with slow hands and confused brain matter and the meta in silver/gold/plat/diamond league is where the REAL game is at, and many master+ players can't understand the intricacies we're dealing with! Muahahaha *evil cackle (tm)*
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On February 19 2019 09:25 Krugessin wrote:A very good idea especially for those of us who aren't even DREAMING of getting to masters or higher but still want to try play the full game. If I post on TL and ask for ideas on how to deal with composition x from race y most people will want to see replays, and then most people will *cough* and say I should spend a month practicing macro and mechanics and then ask again. I'm sorry, but I play casually with slow hands and confused brain matter and the meta in silver/gold/plat/diamond league is where the REAL game is at, and many master+ players can't understand the intricacies we're dealing with! Muahahaha *evil cackle (tm)*
I'm very happy to hear about all the positive reactions here.
I've had a bunch of people come over to the discord already and it's starting to take shape.
I hear what your saying Krugessin, ofc it makes sense to watch the replays, its the easiest way to help.
And while what they say is not wrong, the idea of our community is to make sure you get that practise at your own pace while still working on other ways of improving as well.
I'm sure that besides lacking in macro and mechanics there are plenty of tips that you may not have thought of that will get you further as well.
I'm not looking to to get to masters myself either, sure if I get there naturally that's great. But I would be pretty happy simply feeling more confident in my current league.
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- Update
So I just wanted to update the topic about the recent developments and to keep it alive.
We having been growing steadily going on 40+ members now.
Still a bit low in the gold league department so I'd love to see more of those, don't be scared
I've been doing a lot of improving on the structure of the discord to make it a better experience for everyone.
Oh and on Sunday February 24th Starting time 20:00 CET (19:00 GMT+1) 14:00 EST we will be having our first Peepmode tournament to get to know each other a bit and have some fun practising.
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- Update
Lots more Gold and Platinum players have been joining! It's really great to see those players in here.
We are working hard at making sure everyone can find their practise partners.
Going on 100+ members now which is just insane and beyond any of my expectations.
Still doing a lot of improving on the server making it look better and more easy to use for our members.
I've been assigning some coaches but we could still use more. If you are interested in helping out in this way feel free to join the channel and send me DM. There are some requirements to being a coach though it is important to us that you can follow the idea behind the channel when coaching. We are most interested in a few Terran coaches right now.
Also we've had our 2nd peepmode mini event today which is becoming so popular that next time we will be running two groups based on ranks. It's also being streamed for those who can't play but still wanna follow along.
Our third peepmode will be on Sunday March 10th Starting time 19:00 CET 14:00 EST
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This seems like a really cool idea! Keeping practicing and getting better guys!!!
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Yeah I'm stuck firmly in mid plat (former Diamond) with a 50 percent win rate so this is probably useful to me, I joined the Discord.
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i rly dont know how much you learn if u only play vs ur same skill level, as a platin player i would rly encourage you to play vs diamond / low master players to learn the most, it might be frustrating to lose a lot but if u win 1 out of 10 it feels very good and you learn a lot just by making ur builds work better and after every session ladder afterwards feels sooo easy then xD
i agree that a LOT of playing vs same ranks also helps alot but some of the games you should try to play vs better ones
(and dont play vs high master/ grandmaster) as they are TO good to learn, always aim like 1 1,5 leagues higher.
so masters vs gm, dia vs masters platins vs dia gold vs platins and so on
and for the rest i encourage you to "feel" the game more then to memorize builds, "feeling" is way more effective when your thrown off your way by the enemy
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On March 04 2019 16:06 Drake wrote:
i rly dont know how much you learn if u only play vs ur same skill level, as a platin player i would rly encourage you to play vs diamond / low master players to learn the most, it might be frustrating to lose a lot but if u win 1 out of 10 it feels very good and you learn a lot just by making ur builds work better and after every session ladder afterwards feels sooo easy then xD
This, when I read the start of OPs post I assume this is what he meant. A practice/academy group where gold/plat players could play against high diamond/low masters. This is by far the fastest way to improve, and a lot of teams offer this (the one I know for sure is Born Gosu, but im sure most teams do). In WoL/Hots I remember there were ingame academy channels/clans where you could find higher ranked practice partners and this was really helpful.
TL;DR: A plat player isn't going to improve much playing against other plat players, in fact it might make you comfortable with bad habits and cause you to stagnant or improve very slowly. If you have the chance I highly recommend you play against better players.
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On March 04 2019 16:06 Drake wrote:
i rly dont know how much you learn if u only play vs ur same skill level, as a platin player i would rly encourage you to play vs diamond / low master players to learn the most, it might be frustrating to lose a lot but if u win 1 out of 10 it feels very good and you learn a lot just by making ur builds work better and after every session ladder afterwards feels sooo easy then xD
i agree that a LOT of playing vs same ranks also helps alot but some of the games you should try to play vs better ones
(and dont play vs high master/ grandmaster) as they are TO good to learn, always aim like 1 1,5 leagues higher.
so masters vs gm, dia vs masters platins vs dia gold vs platins and so on
and for the rest i encourage you to "feel" the game more then to memorize builds, "feeling" is way more effective when your thrown off your way by the enemy
You're not wrong but I think it has to be a specific practice partner. Like if I just found some anon in diamond and I was plat I'd be mad if I kept losing to him because even though I know he's better it just reinforces the fact that he keeps beating you. Even though you'd play lower quality games with a plat player the fact that you can take games off of him and the fact that his caliber of play is probably what you'll find on the ladder makes playing with other plats worthwhile.
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There's pro's and cons to the points being made here.
Both are true but there's more to it than that.
Playing against a higher skill level can/will increase your rate of improvement if you are purely looking at efficiency. But not everyone is cut out for that. Not everyone has the goal of reaching Master or GM. And not everyone can deal with constant losing. But I don't disagree this is a good way to improve. If your goal is Master though I would not suggest staying(or expecting to improve) in the discord beyond reaching diamond as you would indeed stop improving at a faster rate. But the discord is not intended for this anyway.
Obviously it is also great if these players actually stick around to help their lower ranked players as they are familiar with the discord and may have already gained some "streetcred"
I disagree when you say there is not much to learn when playing against another plat it's not that black and white anyway. Because what you forget is that replays can be watched, just simply talking about the game afterwards with someone can show you, oh dang if I had attacked you here I could have actually won because so and so. It helps to learn about what the other player was thinking at the time. This is also a lot more fun than just facing your opponent and then leaving with or without a GG and never looking back. Because this is what most of the players around the gold to plat mmr actually do. I think both of the players skill levels will still increase up to a point and not decrease.
I do agree that you can stunt your progress or learn bad habits as well if you were only to play against your own mmr. This is the downside of trying to run a community with the focus on gold and platinums ofc and I'm aware of the limitations but I also do not pretend to want to exceed these limitations.
But to defend ourselves a bit, we also have a bunch of higher skilled players join and we have been selecting coaches of Diamond 1 to Masters that want to help these players out "if said player asks for it"
Nobody is forced to play against someone of much higher skill if they don't want to and this does not mean this player is not still going to improve by posting his replays or having him get coached during his match or having a coach spectate the two platinum players that are playing.
And for example the main idea behind our peepmode is actually getting players to interact, get to know each other, find out who are good practise partners for them or with whom they can simply have fun practising. It makes the barrier of asking for help a lot lower because you actually know the people a bit more now. And I find that after a peepmode many players start to team up afterwards to play and practise which to me is "goal achieved"
Simply by having these players interact in this way they play more games than they otherwise would have when laddering on their own.
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Serious question but how is that different to ingame chat channel ? You can also talk with people and get to know each other there's also audio.
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On March 05 2019 03:55 FFW_Rude wrote:
Serious question but how is that different to ingame chat channel ? You can also talk with people and get to know each other there's also audio.
I mean it's different in so many ways that I wouldn't know where to start.
1. sc2 general is famous for it's trolls and utter nonsense.
2. Discord has many different options for channels and content, try having dozens of people speaking about 10 different subjects all in the same starcraft 2 channel
3. You can set up different voice channels
4. You can moderate it.
5. You can actually set up events( the ingame group event calendar is a day off)
6. It's much much easier to link content.
7. People can add their twitch to discord
8. You can pin messages in discord
9. Did I mention you can moderate it
10. Players who take the effort to join a discord are usually also more interested in putting in the effort to improve.
11. You can order players by rank very easily
12. You do not have to check the profile of each player to see what their main race is because you can give them a role in discord. with a simple click you can see all the relevant information about a player.
13. It's also much easier to get help with your replays.
14. It's easier for coaches to set up a coaching session.
Well I could go on for a while here but I think you get the point
It is a much better environment for players to get to know each other, I don't really see starcraft 2 chat being better.
I would invite you to join the server and have a look to see in how many ways it is different than starcraft's chat channel.
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EPT
