8th iCCup Ladder Season

Today apparently they are going to end the current ladder season on iccup. I found this interesting link about the current toprated players. I wonder who the rest are?

In the 8th season I succeeded in getting to D+ for the very first time. It took me 45 games which is a bit more than the optimum of around 8. I would like to set myself the goal for 9th season, to get to D+ a bit faster than in 45 games, but I don’t think it is realistic.

The problem of course, is that many very good players will be D too, at the start of the new season. I could wait a couple of months to get back into the game again, but I am not. I’ll be playing again very soon.

So my goal for next season is to get to D+ and stay there.

Repetition

Okay, so I suck. And I have the age where I have to win based on my preparation rather than my ability to think on the spot. So I research maps and I play the same match-up over and over and I hate when I have to react to something unexpected. Like having a random opponent or playing on a map that I barely know.

On that note I have played 5 PvTs on Othello against Michael and lost the four. I feel that at my level, Terran has an advantage in our matchup. Simply because they can leave their mines and tanks and turrets alone for a short while and count on them defending themselves sorta okay. My units will happily stand still while tanks roll into range and setup siege without doing anything. I’ve reached the point where I am about to explode.

Oh well, but I do suck and I don’t mind admitting it. I could be way better at this game, but somehow that next level seems to always be on the horizon. I mean: I do improve, but only to encounter the next wall.

I have a temper and sometimes RL spills over into my gaming and sometimes gaming can help me relax. I can never tell which it is going to be, before I start a series of games.

To Make a Living

I haven’t played much since I reached D+. I blame real life obligations the most, but mainly I’ve been scared of playing. At the start of next season, I want iC Cup to say, that I was D+ last season. That will make C- a much more attractive goal!

As this is Sunday and there is another work-week coming up tomorrow, I wonder what a life living of Starcraft would be like. I realize that I will never be fast or smart enough to live of playing, but could I potentially make a living on the edge of the game itself? In Korea you could obviously become a coach (heh, not for me) or a commentator or probably a journalist in a eSport magazine?

I like to think that I’m pretty good at writing, but would I be good enough at the game, for people to find my writing interesting? Would it require the western world to become as infatuated with eSport as Korea? Could Starcraft 2 potentially lead to that?

Today you don’t really need a spot on TV to become well known. There are services that allows amateurs like me, to make fairly professional broadcasts on the internet? I’m not the daring kind, but I wish I dared make the jump and give up my day-job to work in a Starcraft related function.

The goal of D+

I finally made it. After 45 games and with a score of 20 wins and 25 loses, I am now at 2089 and thus officially D+ on iccup.

I find it weird that the 45th and final game before D+ was a Protoss vs Protoss on Andromeda and that I won so fast. Basically my opponent tried to break into my base with zealots and dragoons. He had more, but my first reaver had just popped out and his was far away yet. I wonder if he realized the reaver was stuck among my buildings? It certainly was nice of him to move his units into range! I guess it shows that D level players suck. Now I will prove that D+ level players, we suck too!

My quest to this goal started late April 2008. More than a year ago. I have improved a lot since then, but boy did I stink then. Watching some of the old replays and reading my own words is so funny! I wonder how I won a single game last May!

I guess that Michael now owes me 100 invisible USD. I don’t know how I will collect, but I am looking forward to the cash while I celebrate with some very visible wine. Cheers!

Among the other nice benefits of my new position is that I have moved from #68 to #62 on the list of Danes on iccup. Most importantly is that I have gotten ahead of QDK ;-), although I am not sure he knew I was trying to beat him.

So what are my new goals? Obviously just to stay in D+. I think that is getting tough enough. I’d also like to beat Michael in a series of games and get to play Tom Phoenix, whom I suspect of being a lurker here :-)

Protoss vs Protoss

I have never liked mirror matchups. They seem to be the worst games that Starcraft have to offer. I guess it is because there usually is just one right strategy for this type of matchup and it all comes down to execution. Not my strongest quality as a Starcraft gamer.

The above seen is depressingly familiar to me now. I looks like I did not produce units enough, but that is not true. I made them, attacked and lost them one by one. I suck at this. I like my macro – spending time on units is hard compared to this.

On a more positive note: I got to experience the rare feeling of owning a Terran earlier today.

He quit right after this. He could probably have dragged the game out for another 10 minutes, but when I got the storms of, I knew the game was won.

Terran Fortifications

I have no idea how to handle Terrans in the mid to late game. My statistcs on iccup right now (currently I am 3-3 vs. Terrans) are wildly misleading. First of all: I rarely encounter Terrans and when I do they are often pretty bad. If they just manage to keep up into the mid game I know I am dead.

So what makes them so problematic?

1. On equal supply, they win. When we both have maxed out our armies, then the Terran will win.
2. If he can manage to secure an expansion somewhere with a ramp, it is probably his until it is mined dry. A couple of tanks, turrets all around and mines and my only option is carriers. Something he can easily counter with goliaths.
3. Scouting. If I could just figure out if he fast expanded or did an early two factory attack, it would help a lot. I need to know this before I get observers and he is most likely walled in. I know there are signs like an early siege mode probably means fast expand, but it does not seem reveal itself early enough.
4. Turrets. Most Terrans at my level build at least 4 to 6 turrets around their main around that finishes about the same time as my drop would arrive. That makes drops largely ineffective, but somehow the cost of 6 f*ing turrets should give me a huge advantage when I do something other than a drop. Somehow it does not give any advantage to me.

I’m at 50% wins against Terrans, but I feel much more comfortable playing against another Protoss and I am only winning about 35% of those games.

Unexpected improvement

These last few days I feel that I have improved my Protoss vs Zerg matchup quite a lot. I’m kind of surprised about it as the trick seems to rather easy: to not make any units!

Two zealots is really enough in most cases for quite a long time in the game. Before I knew that there would come a point in the game where my opponent would have way more units than me and it is not obvious that making less units is the way to overcome this problem.

Fast expand, two zealots to either scout or defend against the zergling onslaught and tech, tech and more tech. It has worked quite well. It sounds simple, but I am surprised.

I don’t win every game now, as I still meet a lot of opponents who quite obviously is better than me, but I last longer and the games does not seem quite so one sided anymore.