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Protoss to Zerg: Day Three
Current iCCup stats: 1x1 1747 11-13-0 2x2 7-5-0
It doesn't look like I gamed much, but I actually did. First, a bit of good news. Canada B leader decided that even though my Zerg isn't very good at all right now, I could stay play nation wars as a 2x2 team. I'm not going to speculate how good I am 2x2, but I can follow orders and I am willing to play and for us, I think that's enough. So 50Cal.Angel & I won the 2x2's 2-1.
The bad news is that I went down in rank about 100 points and today I just basically lost over and over. I haven't got discouraged in any way though since a lot of the games I think I just made careless errors.
Since I only won one game, I figured I would do a recap of that, since it's the single single bright spot in my overall dark iCCup day.
My single iCCup win of the day
Things start off pretty good as I overpool into speedlings and trap his probe
Gangbang.
I think I am being smart by making this ling so I can deny scouting:
My Spartan line of zerglings.
However, I underestimate how incompetent I can be and I let him scout my lurker tech:
Shortly after this, I fired those Zerglings. They were about as competent as Atrioc. (Note: That is pathetically incompetent)
I also overestimate my opponent. Apparently he just scouted my tech to see whether he was fucked or not. He had no intention of doing anything about it.
Maybe his zealot forgot to relay the message? I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. I had shoddy zerglings, maybe he had incompetent zealots too.
^_^
His upgrades were lacking in a way.. can't quite put my finger on it.
I slightly outnumber him.
General matchup information:
ZvZ: Probably my best matchup, I feel I have a good chance when this happens. I am been tweaking my build a lot and I think I have a winner now. I basically do overpool into three zerglings, than a drone than another hat. I keep drones on gas and make a lair, than I add up to two sunkens while making drones depending on what he does. I did this in a game I lost, but I made only one sunken and a really crappy placed spire. I have yet to thoroughly test it, we shall see.
ZvP: Don't really feel confident, unless I do all in type builds. I seriously think I could get a good record versus Protoss by just 9pool speedling and psyching him out, but I don't think that it makes me a better player, just a cheesy one. I have tried to do mass +1/+1 zerglings, but I was too slow teching into lurkers and I wound up losing to high templar/archon/zealot mass. Boo.
ZvT: The midgame ball of units just run over me. I need to learn the best time to flank and attack, right now I take too much damage while trying to slow him down and my macro is pretty poor.
Overall thoughts; I don't know if I am being too hard on myself, expecting more than what I have achieved so far. I don't know what level I should be at now, but considering my interest I really hoped I would be getting C- with out a lot of trouble. I think I underestimated the difficulty of playing Zerg. The games are still fun atm, even though I am often being bent over and taking advantage over. Hopefully it gets better. Three days in, not much progress though. :S
Overall mood; disappointed.
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I like your iccup reports with pictures and stuff. XD
Good luck! Don't be disappointed!!
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Appreciate it. I am still trying to find good safe builds I can use. Every day is like.. thorough testing day! Thanks for the support. I plan on doing this everyday as long as I am interested.
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You slightly outnumber him again, eh?
Keep up the good work. It's only been 3 days and you are doing great, Ahzz will help you (however he won't help you like you helped me)
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Good luck man and nice job.
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Salv, for now at least let's conclude our 2v2 sessions (you feel the same way), at least until you reach a bit higher rank. In turn I feel I am inclined to offer a bit of advice to both you and myself in terms of where we go from here .
Today we were containing the Zerg and everything was fine in game one, until you started bringing your lings away. This allowed him to break out and do a joint attack with his terran partner, and even though we were able to kill him later, you should not have needed to make so many sunkens as well as I did because of the threat of joint attack. As well, you had no sunkens when they pushed and, though it didn't affect you in this game, the next game it cost us the game. Nextly, you overcreated lings. Once you establish map control with the lings, the lings effect will wear off until your partner (me) has mutas coming to gain map control. This is why ZZ is such an effective team as you can establish map control over and over and just get an incredible advantage while being able to expand easily. This is when you start macroing like a beast and slowly getting your hydras and more expansions . This is very standard in ZZ v ZP and sometimes ZT, as what Ahzz has told me as well as what I have watched. My mistake here telling you to go mutalisks instead of lurkers. Your sunken timing in this game was terrific though, as they finished just as he arrived at your base!
The second game we did fine until you starting attacking up the ramp. With an equal number of lings to us, he would have no problem holding his ramp because he could reinforce faster as well as having ramp advantage + a sunken coming. Generally, Mondi/Testie wait until spire of his is almost or just complete, as that is the correct timing where he has the least amount of defense compared to your offense. His partner was coming out, and if we would not have attacked we could have easily dispatched his marine medic force with our 4 ctrl groups of lings (in the end we both only had about 1, for a total of 2) but because we attacked up the ramp we lost about half our army for nothing. Game decision making is crucial, randomly attacking a well defended place will cost you a game. Secondly, this game you still did not have any sunkens at the ramp. This happened yesterday as well, for you even admitted yourself you accidentally made your 3rd hatchery at your main instead of natural, therefore you weren't able to make sunkens. I think if you just watched some Mondi/Testie replays would you be able to learn a lot more than just playing with me and me telling you everything what to do We were ahead both these games until we made critical errors that allowed us to be attacked and lose our map control.
There is nothing wrong with the Mondi/Testie ZZ style, it is extremely effective and, I believe if you watched some, we could emulate it better, but as of now, no more 2v2 with you (and you feel the same way) . You are great at Zerg, especially for playing it only 3 days, but you should watch replays or something to learn more strategical in-depth thinking and, in 2v2, it is crucial that both teammates have similar thinking processes for planning. Also you like arguing with me during our 2v2s. So good luck and hopefully when you are ready we can play some more 2v2s
For me, I admit my own big faults . I really hope I can ask Testie some things (but I doubt he'd want to, he just wants to play DOTA amirite), because I am still very confused even after watching 15+ reps on their ZZ vs ZP, they sometimes do lots of different things. Though today we only did ZZ vs ZT, our main mistake was coordinating. To take out the early game mnm army we should have a perfect flank, like Mondi/Testie have in their replays. So we make crucial mistakes there. Also I did explain things quite awkwardly to you, and at this point you still do not know how to balance drones and army in 2v2 (even I don't, but with watching so many replays I am a bit better understanding. 2v2 balance is much harder). Also I told you to make mutas instead of lurkers in game 2, which was a pretty big error because we had already taken out the Zerg. But hopefully we will be able to improve on our mistakes and become better in the near future. No hard feelings, I just really believe that if we wait until we are stronger and more knowledgeable we will do much better. I didn't mean this to be insulting or offensive, just to point out mistakes that both you and I must work with and fix. You are already improving very quickly and it's very good .
I wish you luck on your Zerg adventures and hopefully we can 2v2 more soon .
Edit: For those who wish to know, during the time period in which I last posted on this thread until now, we played 2 ZZ vs ZT on iCCup D+ level on Othello and lost both. Prior to this I had watched 15 Mondi/Testie ZZ 2v2 replays yesterday and a few hours before this I watched about 15 more.
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I'm sure that any sensible person will agree with me when I say that your post isn't appropriate for my public blog. Your entire post is an issue you have with me, so make it a PM. If you have any class at all you'll delete it and send it in a PM as to not distract any potential posters. Anyone who posts now will most likely reply to your post, not to the original blog.
In your PM, also explain why would thought it would appropriate to post that publically?
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On June 15 2008 14:49 Salv wrote: I'm sure that any sensible person will agree with me when I say that your post isn't appropriate for my public blog. Your entire post is an issue you have with me, so make it a PM. If you have any class at all you'll delete it and send it in a PM as to not distract any potential posters. Anyone who posts now will most likely reply to your post, not to the original blog. I don't feel that it's an "issue" with you Salv. It's constructive criticism. I give you compliments and advice and at the same time tell you the mistakes you make as well as the mistakes that I personally made. It's completely appropriate for a blog about someone trying to improve their Zerg. Some C&C always helps people improve. I really don't understand where you're coming from. As if my post was completely belligerent and maliciously insulting.
Edit: You're absolutely right though. At this point in time, it's becoming a little out of hand and will detract the quality of the original blog post. Not my intention at all, but it seems you felt overly insulted by my post. I recommended you put the pictures in the blog and you took it a whole new level with your jokes and the summary of each of your matchup feelings, making the blog very excellent indeed. However, I am still confused as to why you feel angry but we should probably end it here and take it to ventrilo tomorrow. I have to go so I'll see you then.
Edit2: Banning me from your blog really will solve all your problems, amirite? Especially as I decided to end the discussion here and continue it later somewhere private, you decide to continue the argument and ban me? The reason constructive criticism needs to be posted public is because there are people who don't ask questions but still lack answers, and therefore need to see constructive criticism which in some cases can answer their questions. Second of all, if I said something completely wrong, someone else could correct it. Otherwise if I PMed something incorrect to you you would have never known and played incorrectly for a very long time.
I pose these questions to you, Salv: Is it really worth it to ban a friend over some constructive criticism where I was trying to help and encourage you at the same time, thus making hard feelings and a wall between us? Or are you really just unable to control anger and let rage take control over you? Is constructive criticism considered bm nowadays? Or is it because you are more skilled than me, and you can't accept advice I offer you even though you yourself clearly admit I am better at Zerg than you are? What does it take for that, do I have to be Ahzz level to offer you advice and tips? Since you and Atrioc are both D+ (well you will be soon, at least) how come you can't accept advice while Atrioc can?
I used to be a part of an active animating community, and as such we gave each other much constructive criticism on each others animations. This is the first time I've seen someone taken so aback from a little bit of C&C.
As of now I have a slight regret about not obliging to your request, however I don't feel anything overly wrong with the posts I have made today. Although it's too late now.
This is the second time you've done this, and I would have no problem forwarding that DotA mishap PM I sent your old account that you forgot the password to.
If you really found it that offensive I apologize, but I feel it is a post that is not incorrect in any way and your MSN convo with me just now was something I personally found insulting as well, especially your last few comments. You have put strain and tensions on our friendship over the past few months and you've finally broken it in half. Congratulations. Ignoring me will really solve ALLLL the problems you have with me. I feel slightly morose because just a few hours ago, we were laughing and making jokes together, but altogether I'm not too sad because this is a hurdle that had to be cleared, and sadly our friendship was not strong enough to clear it. However, I can bet in a month or two things should return to normal regardless.
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Considering this blog has gone completely off topic: to anyone reading it, I will post a new 'Day Four' blog tomorrow afternoon, so save any comments to for that blog. This one is more or less tainted.
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On June 15 2008 15:21 Salv wrote: This one is more or less tainted.
Doesn't look tainted to me. Anyway - gl with your zerg, dude! I like reading your diary
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Thanks , read the one tomorrow, it will be better than this one.
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SALLLLVLVLLVLVLVLV. whats up man? ^^
Havent seen you in forever.
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Proxi.Bon! Add me up man. I am Salv on iCCup!
You like the blog?
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Blog summary: 1) Cool blog with pictures n shit 2) Massive wall of text about blog banning and strained friendships 3) Insightful blog summary by ShaLLoW[baY]
5/5
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Yea the op is entertaining. Superiorwolf's conceit is boring however.
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not gonna lie, hydras in zvz own learn that one
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On June 15 2008 16:16 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote:Blog summary: 1) Cool blog with pictures n shit 2) Massive wall of text about blog banning and strained friendships 3) Insightful blog summary by ShaLLoW[baY] 5/5
lol,
Great blog, I love to read about other peoples progress and you make it really funny and easy to undestand with pics and so on. All I can say is keep up the good work, looking forward to reading again tomorrow.
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Thanks.
If there is anything else I can add, to make it better or more entertaining to read, just let me know.
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rofl keep it up salv. funny shit.
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O.o I just found this blog. I read the previous ones, and as a new zerg player myself (Totally new) I think they are pretty interesting. Seems like people here have a good sense of how fast you might progress, and I was wondering: Have I had good progression if I've played about a game a day for 6 months and I'm now a rank D?
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