I Suck at Understanding MMR

So I am a big fan of the MMR rather than the weird leagues and divisions. But I really don’t understand how MMR points are awarded. But sometimes you lose a lot of points and often you gain very few. Like in this example:

11 points is not a lot. I thought that if you defeated someone better than you, you’d get a lot and lose a little. And the other way around too.
This is weird.

Every Game Ends with a GG

According to this article here:

“…every game plays out—hit the play button, set your control groups, carry out the game, gg no matter the outcome, repeat; like breathing.”

And then the end picture from my last game:

Well, it can’t be roses all the time :-).

Zerg sucks in Team Games

Okay, it is not like StarCraft II is balanced for team games in any way. It never has been and Blizzard seems to prioritize carebear team games over balance. Nothing new.

And Zerg has always been the worst race for team games. Traditionally it has mostly been a map design issue. The shared bases with an easy-to-block entrace removes the threat of early pressure. That sucks and make games less dynamic.

But the newest patches since blizzcon has removed any illusion of Zerg being viable in a team game. I kinda like the new battlecruiser, but team games allows you to mass them making the late game air-show even more ridiculous than it has been before.

So team games is Terran and Protoss only until next patch.

Active on a Smaller Scale

While this blog has been mostly inactive, I have not. I still mange to get in a handful of games each week and everything has settled in to a common level of suckage.

But now we have a new patch and everything becomes unsettled. After the patch I have definitely lost some games I normally would win and won others. For Zerg mutas seems to be back in style. While I have enjoyed the beefy hydras of the last patch, I most admit that I am preferring the more mobile play style that mutas offers. I just wished that it didn't feel forced.

The Protoss tempests are now like oracles on acid and they need to be countered. I have yet to find another answer than mutas.

Absent but still Active

In the new season I have been demoted to Gold. It is because I suck, but still pretty annoying. Opponents all around has gotten harder and even in bronze, people are fairly accomplished. It makes me feel less good about my skills, but is probably only what we can expect by now. I hope that it is not a sign of the scene fading away.

This weekend I think I'll watch as much Dreamhack as possible and cheer for my favorite Zergs. I hope they do well, despite the problems that I think the race is suffering at the moment.

My own goal is the same as when I started this blog: To play a hundred ladder games per season and win more than I lose. I might have to improve if I want to achieve the latter goal.

who the fuk ataktks main?

I haven’t posted here in a while, but I thought I would finish of 2012 why some screenshots to demonstrate the Christmas Spirit of the Starcraft community. This is from a game from the the 27th of December.

I’m not really certain that he honestly thought that Zergs have the duty to attack Terran armies head on at all times? It just seems to weird.

Teaching Starcraft

This is a hard subject that I have been struggling with for quite a while. I have a handful of friends who are in silver/gold and while I suck at the game, I am still doing a little better than them. They are not new to the game, they just don’t improve that much if at all.

In itself this is not strange. Improvement is rarely gradual. Most often it is in jumps. For instance, my ZvP improved dramatically when I realized that versus a fast expanding Protoss it was safe to do nothing but drone until 6 minutes in the game. From one day to another, my win-rate went from 10% to 35%. Much better.

If you are in silver or low gold you are probably having problems with the following:

• Macro, basically building workers and spending your money
• Basic build orders
• Scouting – not enough
• Scouting – seeing something but unaware of its implications
• Certain categories of cheeses
• Bad engagements

If you have 1000 games behind you and still are in the lower leagues, then you are probably aware of all of the above problems and yet seem unable to step beyond it. So what to do?

Things I have tried:

• Concentrate on one thing at the time (usually macro, build orders or scouting)
• Training certain situation: i.e. how to defend a specific cheese or how to deal with a 4-gate
• How to works toward a late game goal

None of it reliably works. Any ideas?