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Hi guys.
Due to the coronavirus, I have picked up getting back into the game recently. I am a 4000-4500 mmr zerg. It's been a goal of mine since I picked up the game 10 years ago to reach GM, but I have not come close. I watch pro zergs, and try to replicate their playstyles as best I can, but I just simply cannot keep up with everything. Should I just accept the fact that I cannot reach GM? I have more than 10000 games under my belt.
There's just so many things I can improve at, but what should be the focus to reach GM? As a macro zerg, I try to scout and counter my opponents, so I have focused on getting ovie speed every game after ling speed.
But I don't know what to do with the scouting info and wonder if I should even get the speed. Example is against P, I will see a twilight council. The meta was involving a lot of adept into dt builds, so I get a spore at each base, which works against stargate openings as well. So at this point, I'm thinking, should I just blindly get spores and skip ovie speed?
I think my macro is fairly decent when unharassed. But once harassed, I find myself sometimes with close to 2000 minerals before 3 base saturation. In fact, I find it super difficult to deal with multi-pronged attacks/drops and I crumble in these situations.
My micro is pretty horrible. I just don't know. Can't control more than one different types of spell casters. Units die running around randomly. It's all bad. I think I win games mostly because I out-macro and overwhelm the opponent.
I don't feel comfortable winning on lair tech. I feel like I cannot push through on lair tech. But hive tech feels too easy to win. I wanted to focus on winning games on lair tech just for the practice, but it feels so hard.
I love mutalisks, but everytime I use them, I die because my control sucks and I end up floating 3000 minerals.. I can't produce enough lings whenever I go mutas!! Should I just erase this unit from my repertoire?
I'll stop here for now.
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Post some replays. You can't get specific advice without those.
Also if you're serious about getting to GM you should probably get some coaching. Spending the hours playing isn't everything--a coach can teach you what you should focus on, what you can get out of analyzing your own games, and so on.
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Focus on fundamentals. You've already said it yourself. Your fundamentals are bad, and being GM (not just master) is elevating your fundamentals to the next level. Many players get masters 1 and never breach into GM, and it's because of their fundamentals. It's incredibly easy to know the meta builds and the meta responses, but the higher you get, the more fundamentals, simply put, make or break games. If we each know exactly what to do, it comes down to who does it better.
People used to say a Diamond player can macro as well as a GM player when the Diamond player is under 0 pressure. That is, in an AI game, with no multi tasking, the diamond player can hit every single inject and hit their drone count and max out at the same time as the GM player.
The problem comes in a real game, when there's pressure and oracles flying around and adepts shading in and DT's are out on the map, how are you supposed to ever macro that well? This is what (higher) GM's do so well. They macro through the pressure because of their solid fundamentals. Spreading creep, not missing injects, not spending excess time on tasks, and knowing when to stop giving a task attention and move onto other things.
If you can't macro at a GM level in an AI game with 0 pressure, then you're much further away than you think. I'd recommend working on this aspect FIRST. Float nothing all the way to max, spread creep on cooldown, and get your upgrades on time. Figure out if you're actually doing it as efficiently as possible, then do it again with any little changes you make. Then find a handy multi-task trainer and try to do your build while microing the probe away from the ling. Once you can do this, your fundamentals are getting stronger. There are also multi task trainers later on that have you doing your build whilst doing, for example, an immortal drop, or oracle harrass, or whatever. If you can't do these, then how can you realistically do it in a real game?
In a game, everyone makes mistakes, and generally the one makes more mistakes loses. GM's make less mistakes than 4k players, and it is more difficult to force mistakes due to solid fundamentals. A GM can force you to make so many mistakes and make you question why you play this game. But understanding the reason they can force so many mistakes out of you is because of their fundamentals is key to understanding how to be better at this game.
And since I used the term "fundamentals" so much, let me explain what those are, in my opinion:
Mini Map Awareness
Efficiency of Macro Cycles (Injecting, making drones ASAP)
Mouse and Keyboard Precision
Awareness of Time (Inject timer, upgrade timers, creep tumor cooldown timer)
Scouting and Responses
Multi Tasking and Prioritization of Tasks
Map Control/VIsion/Awareness (One of the most important aspects at all levels that is ignored)
Decision Making (Comes with experience, extremely difficult to "teach")
It may not be what you want to hear, but it doesn't come down to "I want to win on Lair" or "Maybe Hive is better" because it's the things I'm mentioning here that make the difference between a Diamond/Masters player and a GM player.
That's not to say GM is some unattainable, god-tier status. Low GM is pretty scrubby, barely better than masters 1 of course, and people go in and out of GM a lot at that stage. It's the upper echelons of GM that are terrifying and (to me) impossible to achieve. I've peaked at 5.5k when I was grinding as hard as I possibly could and I couldn't even touch top 16 players. The difference between Low and Top GM is night and day.
I hope any of this helps. It's not fun to grind fundamentals forever, but it's what it takes.
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On March 29 2020 10:29 FalconPunch wrote:
As a macro zerg, I try to scout and counter my opponents, so I have focused on getting ovie speed every game after ling speed.
Lots of good stuff already posted, but want to add that aggressive (not necessarily allin but off meta) builds will give you lots of free MMR, since you will know the situation much better than your opponent. Weird examples like 2 base roach zvz, 2 base swarm host zvp and zv bio (zvmech might be too obvious of a SH choice) let you dictate the pace of the game and get your opponent out of their comfort zone fast.
But if you want to get better at the pro meta, try to micro less and focus on your decisions. Better to lose 20 lings to a mine shot than to float 1000 minerals (40 lings), broadly speaking (obviously not exactly true but you get the point). Try to slow down a bit, your muscle memory could be hindering improvement, that was my case.
Glhf
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Well,I can reach Grandmaster only in my dream 
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The gap between GM and M3 is huge. Even if you're talented, it will take you a lot of games, especially if you've already played 10k. You also need to seriously rebuild your whole game from the ground up. Coaching / practice partners are very important to get up there. I peaked around 5k and fell back to 4,4k, because I took a very long break from the game. Reaching GM is impossible for me, because I know my limitations.
Focus on the next goal ahead: Make it to M3 and stay there. This is a great achievement on its own. If I recall correctly, Neuro said that it took him thousands of games of grinding to reach GM for the first time. And he's still far away from the pros, even though he has been in GM for the last 5 years.
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EPT
