The Cost of a Trip to New York

So I went to New York City for a week and now I’m sitting jet-lagged trying to asses the cost of the trip. Besides the obvious $2500 I spend, I had to do a series of test games against the Entropy mod to see how it changed my APM. Before the trip I was regularly doing 100-105 APM in this matchup.

Matchup	Map	Length	APM	Opening
PvT	Othello	15:34	89/86	Reaver Drop
PvT	Othello	7:52	90/88	Reaver Drop
PvT	Othello	8:39	94/93	Reaver Drop
PvT	Othello	23:22	98/96	Reaver Drop
PvT	Othello	17:11	86/85	Reaver Drop

 

This is annoying. Being out of the loop even for a short while has serious implications for how fast I am. My suckiness seems infinite at moments like this.

Now why would it take me more than 10 minutes to beat the computer? Well, first of all: The entropy mod is a lot better than the regular AI, but of course still beatable in less that 10 minutes. But I use this as an exercise and refuse to do things like SCV-pulling or other cheeses against the computer.

When playing the games I realized how often I would create an assimilator on 11 and then forget to put probes on it to mine gas. Stupid me.

New York and Ladder Maps

I am going to New York for a little more than a week and won’t be playing Starcraft for 10 days or more. Yeah I know: You don’t care (although you should, since that means slightly fewer easy wins on iC Cup ;-) ).

In the mean time I hope that Blizzard gets their act together and releases some new Starcraft II information or even better announces the beta! Yeah, I don’t believe that either although it would be a really nice present upon my return to sunny Denmark. I can hope and at least Starcraft II will probably not be foremost on my mind for a week.

I recently discussed the old ladder maps with a friend. I think of the maps from before patch 1.08 or so. If you look at them again you have to agree that they were pretty bad. Some of the things we take for granted today like an easy first expansion and a choice between a mineral-only or one with a geyser were rare. Actually only River Styx looks marginally like a modern ladder map and ironically it was banned in patch 1.03 to make room for disasters like Gauntlet and Green Valleys! I think the last was by popular demand. At least I remember hanging out in Starcraft DNK-1 discussing the merits (or lack thereof) of GV as a ladder map.

I think we have the Koreans to thank for Starcraft as it is today and I hope that Blizzard have learned a lot from KESPA when it comes to Starcraft II as an esport.

You know what to do

There are some situations where you know what to do, but for some reason you do nothing or do something else. It is probably just a lack of practice with those specific situations, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Yesterday I got canon rushed on Lost Temple. I saw the pylon go up and rather than kill the pylon or even just the canons with my own probes, I did nothing. Later, when the first two canons had warped in, I attacked them with my few zealots.

After the game I wondered why I did not snipe his probe. The first canons were way out of range of anything important, so had I just sacrificed a few units to kill the probe, the push would have been contained.

It amazes me that I can still do stupid things like that.

Payback

I rarely gloat about my victories since they are few and often the result of me running into even suckier players than myself. I'll make an exception here though. In a moment of insanity Michael of Redusgaming had proclaimed that ofcourse he could beat me not just as Terran, but as Zerg and Protoss as well.

First we played a Protoss vs Zerg on Longinus where I beat him up pretty badly despite the fact that I had never played the map before.

I did not defend properly against his mutalisks, but my counter was way more powerful than his raid on my minerals. Twice I got off psi-storms that would have made JangBi proud and the fact that his mutalisks hit were sitting still, was probably unrelated to my opponent not paying attention.

The second game was another glorious victory were I, playing as Terran, got to teach him a lesson in how his race of choice should be played. Or something like that ;-) At least I won after a really long game where my vulture raiding combined with him throwing tons of units away in a head on assult, sealed the deal.

Actually the last game holds a very important lesson, and that is to always prepare for vulture raids. Even a couple of canons at each expansion would have made the game a loss for me.