My Life On the D- List

My time on the -D list has come to an end (for now)! Due to a simply masterful three match win streak, your Iccup hero is now certifiably a D grade Zerg!

I would like to thank all my fans out there who believed in me, and apologise once again to all those Protoss ballers. Keep reaching for that rainbow!

The first match of this win streak was on Zodiac, a Z v Z with a D rate Zerg (he had about 1500 points, so at least he had some wins). He went 9 pool into one hatch lair, whereas I went overpool into 2 hatch lair. Using my speed lings, I nearly sniped his spire, and managed to force some sunken colonies. With his economy reeling, my opponent went for a last ditch attack on my mineral line with his 4 mutalisks, but I managed to hold him off with mine and began to assault him mineral line. He GG'd out, most probably wondering how he lost to a -D scrub.

Next game, once again on Zodiac, against a D rank Protoss with about 1200 points. Protoss opened 3 gate which I defended without any drone losses. I decided to sit back and tech/get my economy going. He then went High Templar, getting off some nice storms, but in the end his economy couldn't keep up with the swarm of hydralings which took down his main. The game also featured some sexy HT sniping by yours truly in the final assault on his main.

Oddly, he challenged me to a rematch. So again, Zodiac was the map (I tend to play on the same map a few times until I know it/get sick of it). Once again, he went 3 gate, and once again, I defended it easily. This time, I didn't mess around with teching up. Instead, I just rallied speed lings into his base until he left, without saying GG.

Admittedly, these aren't the best of victories again the best of opposition, and I may well find myself back in the sewer of -D again tomorrow, but for today, I am a god!

I did post this in my previous thread, a stinging tirade against our foes from Aiur, but since the thread wasn't terribly popular (receiving low ratings - admittedly with good reason) I doubt anyone will read my post. So, those who read the thread up to that point will leave with the opinion that I am, basically, a whining jerk. So, without further ado - copy pasta!



It looks like I have stirred up some ill will. Rather than quote everyone I will just summarise my responses.

Basically, all of you are at a higher level than me, so what seems blatantly obvious to you probably won't to me. The reason I write blogs is to vent frustration, so I guess you see the worst of me here, but those of you who refer to that ONE line about 1A2A3A etc need to realise that the stigma about protoss exists for a reason. A whole host of people, almost all of which are more skilled than I, some of which have posted in this very thread, have at least considered the possibility protoss is easy. They may say it as a joke, but even jokes have some truth to them. If you read the WHOLE post, as well as the responses I have made to people in this thread, you will see that, outside of that one, shameful instance, I know deep down that my failure against protoss comes down to my failure as a player, not any imbalance on their part.

Let me spell it out for everyone. I suck at Starcraft, that is the reason why I am losing. Happy now? Until such a time where I am better (if that ever comes) it is only natural for me to get frustrated and angry, and attempt to blame other things for my losses.

PROTOSS IS NOT IMBALANCED!

With a clear mind, that is easy enough to say, but when you keep losing to them, as I have been, frustration sets in. I am only human folks - those of you who act like you are holier than thou - as though you have never been BM on icccup, battle.net, or just on the internet in general need to get off your high horse. Sure, what I did wasn't "classy", it wasn't polite and I am not proud of it, but that is how I felt at the time. I would take it back if I could.

Protoss are pissing me off more than ever this ICCUP season. I have become pretty angry at times, raging out at players, telling them to play a real race, putting 1A2A3A and IMBA PROTOSS in caps before leaving in a huff.

The problem is everything Protoss does is just so fucking annoying for a low level player like me. I know they aren't imbalanced, otherwise they would win all the time, but I think a case could be made on the basis that they are imbalanced at lower levels of play.

On ICCUP, 75% of low level tosses 2 gate rush. Sometimes I defend it, sometimes I don't. That is fine, since every time I face it, my micro gets a little better, and I beat it off more often than not now.

When they aren't 2 gating, they are 3 gating! First time I saw this, I didn't know what the hell to do. This is one tough build to handle at the start, since even MORE zealots will be knocking on your door. However, once I figured out how "all in" this is, I have been working hard on just holding off the initial rush. I can win against it pretty well now.

Sure, that is all fine, but then there is the common enemy of all zergs, High Templar. I fucking hate High Templar. Storms are bullshit powerful in my opinion. I know I should be dodging them, and again, this is one of those things I am slowly getting better at, but for now they just rip apart my army. I have seen it written before - Storms>Zerg.

Another annoying little trick Protoss like to pull is Corsair/Reaver. I hate this and so do you. Add in some Disruption Web and you can only watch helplessly as your hydras stand about in a daze while reavers send them to hydra heaven and destroy all of your tech. Unlike storms which I can, on rare occasions, manage to overcome, I really have no chance against corsair/reaver. I wish I had some replays to show you but lately auto replay has not been working. I have read a thread and managed to fix it, but until someone actually does it to me, I won't be able to show you how I am performing against it. So until that time I guess I just want some general advice - what to do against corsair/reaver?

Now seems as good a time as any for a good ol' fashioned dose of cold, hard reality.

I am a bad Starcraft player.

To illustrate this, let us frame my failure in the most unemotional way possible: stats!

47 - 211 (Win Percentage - 18%)

You read correctly. 47 wins, 211 losses.

Rank: -D

The lowest of the low.

vs Zerg 14-47 (23%)
vs Protoss 14-82 (15%)
vs Terran 14-81 (15%)

How about that? I know my Z v Z, if only a little. Move over Jaedong!

These stats are kind of fun actually. How about some more?

Currest lose streak: 11 losses

Best win streak: 4 wins (all against my next door neighbour who is actually worse than me if it is possible)

My APM has improved a bit, but my play is as bad as ever. Yet, it seems like APM has a fair amount of correlation to performance. Everyone who beats me has an APM around 200, some 250, some higher. Yet I, who will hit 100 on a good day, cannot win.

It is clear that I need more than some magical guide with build orders and what not. I need a coach. Failing that, I need advice on what I should be doing in certain situations.

Build orders are great. I love them, you love them, they are essential, but they are only really helpful for the early game. Beyond that, you have to have game sense, intuition and so on. These are things one cannot get from a guide evidently, so I will be posting some replays of me playing in situations where I wasn't sure what to do, or what went wrong. I will have to find some good ones in the pile that I have, so I guess that will have to wait until next time. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, with regards to APM, I think part of my problem is that I just don't know what I "should" be doing. I don't want to make this into a debate over if it is important, or what is the best way to raise it, I just want to know, what actions people do to raise it that high??

Howdy folks!

I haven't written here for a little bit. Real life has got in the way of my Starcraft.

Basically, I am giving ICCUP, and my godly 22% win rate, a break in order to focus on improving my game.

I am going to try this training exercise out for a few weeks: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=56230

Hopefully, it will improve my overall game so I post better results. Look forward to Part 6: My Triumphant Return soon

I guess since this blog is meant to be about my exploits on ICCUP, I should actually talk about how I am going.

Well...not so good folks! I have played over 100 games on there now, which sure feels like a lot but compared to some, it may not be. I just keep losing basically.

A friend of mine, who plays Terran (D+, about to become C-) plays against me a lot, so most of my recent losses are from him, but my gameplay isn't getting any better. My APM is still lower than Bush's approval rating (I don't know what his approval rating is, but suffice it to say, my APM is LOW!).

I am kind of frustrated. I wouldn't mind losing if I could see that I was actually getting better, but I am not. I now have a pretty severe fear of attacking. I realise that is kind of stupid. You cannot win by defending. However, I just seem to get locked into my base. I am afraid of venturing out beyond mutalisk harass (which is generally speaking pretty ineffective) so basically I sit back, absorb a wave or two of attacks, get outmacroed, then I lose.

Obviously, this cannot stand. I need to be able to macro. Moreover, I need to be able to attack. I need speed, I need map hacks in my head, I need game sense. But all of this cannot simply be taught. Build orders will see you through the early game, and that is about it. The rest of the game sadly cannot be mapped out. Good instincts are needed, speed is needed, and I don't have either.

Obviously, the strategy forum is filled with ways to increase speed/macro, and I feel using them I will be able to develop at least some control over my game, which will lead to me being more aggressive. So I guess that is the end for the day. Feel free to leave a comment if you want, just be kind!

So far, I have mostly talked about my 2 gate woes, and my 9 hatching to combat those 2 gate woes. Thankfully, I am now pretty good at combating it with the trusty 12 hatch, so I can move on to bigger issues, specifically what to do against D grade Terran.

D grade Terran are actually pretty good! Granted, they may not be D grade at all - people could simply be playing on their alternate account, or they could have just started playing. Most Terran's wall off (which I hate! - Let me scout wankers!) and they tend to play fairly standard. There isn't much rushing. A lot of players open 2 rax, but since I usually go overpool against Terran (today I will be 12 hatching a little - should be interesting), it isn't very effective. From here, they tend to wall off and proceed down three basic paths.

1. MnM + A few tanks + Vessels - I truly hate this build. I am sure Terran players love it, since it is so very strong, but for Zerg it is so very annoying. I for one cannot deal with this head on, so I try to take advantage of the relative slowness of the build and expand a lot along with executing plenty of drops. Alas, the Terran ball usually reaches my front door, and I cannot break out. The problem I guess is that my mutalisk harass is usually pretty ineffective, and I do not get Defilers fast enough to strengthen Lurker/Ling.

2. Cloaked Wraiths - Usually, I can spot this coming. The Terran will wall off more or less no matter what, will build bunkers even without much aggression on my part, and won't move out with their first Medic and Marine group as is standard in order to get the Zerg to sunken up. Basically, they turtle up to get their precious wraiths. Overlord speed is a must to combat it, as are plenty of hydralisks. Mutalisks can work certainly, but the Terran usually follows the wraiths up with the standard MnM + Tank + Vessel seen above, so getting the hydras and skipping mutas allows getting lurkers faster to combat it IMHO.

3. Mech - Tanks, Vultures, Goliaths OH MY!

The "it" build for T v Z at the moment, the Terran player will turtle up much like above, and will lead out with Vultures (speed upgraded, mines) and will assault your drones/lings freely. Overlord speed as always, sunken up a bit to wear off the harass, expand everywhere ala GGPlay and mass mutalisks! Seriously, I don't quite know how to combat this mech stuff. I figure mutalisks would just melt to goliaths, and going for hydra/ling doesn't seem to work either (see Midas Vs thezerg - OSL ro16 - mind you it is on Plasma). Any help would be appreciated on this one.

This entry was supposed to explain how I found 9 hatching to go against Terran (not good) and Zerg (ditto). I guess Starcraft isn't Warcraft 3, one build won't work for everything (for what it is worth, I was a decent War 3 player, better than my friends who can now beat me handily at Starcraft). Lots of people have said 9 hatch isn't a good build period, so I have decided to drop it.

So where do we go from here? Well, I guess we go to what we should have been doing all the time, a variety of builds. There is no magical build, and if there were, people would figure it out soon enough. Further, maps make some builds more viable than others, so it is a matter of mixing up your play based on the race, map, and psychology.

Obviously, nobody is going to mass hydras against a Terran going MnM's, it just doesn't work. Nor are they going to go 3 Hatch before pool on Blue Storm (or any map for that matter), but ICCUP psychology, even at the lowest of levels, is a strange beast.

For whatever reason, everyone rushes. All D rank tosses go 2 Gate, all Zergs 9 pool (or lower), all Terrans 2 rax. I can only guess that they do this because they lack skill, and want quick wins. Indeed, in one of my first games on ICC, I stole a win from a D+ Terran going 5 pool. I felt like shit afterwards. 5 pool is a legitimate build, and I guess it is a good thing to rush occasionally so you are not predictable, but I felt bad about the win because I didn't deserve it. I almost certainly could not have beaten them if I played straight up.

People who are higher levels do tend to play straight up. After all, they are the favourite, they should be confident. However, they tend to have an arrogant demeanor towards lower ranked players. I already mentioned the "how many games have you won!?" incident, but I have had players ask me to GG even when I am on top. I guess they are hoping I don't know I am winning.

Psychology quickly spills over into paranoia. When I host a game, I imagine the "gosus" in the channel (D+ is gosu compared to me) tipping each other off "join his games for easy wins haha" and so on. Of course, they probably don't do this, but one can see how you can develop a reputation.

We have all seen the fall of Flash. Once deemed the "ultimate weapon", now he seems to be locked into 14cc builds. Now, Flash is a far more prominent player than me. His games are on TV, opponents would study them meticulously, so it doesn't take a genius to find that Lee Young Ho does like his 14cc. For me, I liked to 9 hatch against Protoss. It gave me security, albeit false security. There is basically zero percent chance people will discuss my "strategy" and say "he 9 hatches every game", but people I play against often, like my friends, know I basically do the same build every game, so they are free to fast expand etc.

The point of all this is to say I have realised that being locked into one build is dangerous. Though it may simplify things for you, it makes you predictable. Predictability is probably more dangerous than having bad macro or micro, since your opponent has in many ways won the game before any of these things have come into effect. So from now, I am going to mix things up a lot. Nothing too crazy. I doubt I will ever 3 hatch before pool on ICCUP (though that build is pretty awesome) but I will have a few builds to use against each race.

I guess next time I will talk about the general Terran play at this level, since I have mostly talked about Protoss up to this point.

Firstly, thanks to everyone who read/provided feedback on the first entry. I didn't expect anything, so to have lots of people reply is great!

Now to the entry:

Most of my early losses on ICCUP were against Protoss. I have always had trouble against toss (tossers!), especially Corsair/Reaver-Dt Builds. However, all of my losses came early. You see, most D rank toss players rush (for what it is worth, I am yet to be rushed by Zerg or Terran). None of this "forge first" Nal_Ra esque business, it is all about 2 gate rushes, get your manlots and rape.

For me, who would 12 hatch all the time, this build is pretty hard to beat. 12 hatch is what the Zerg heroes, sAviOr, Jaedong etc do, so I was attached to the build. I would do it against Terran, against Protoss, and even (if I was feeling daring) against Zerg. But, as I would find out, ICCUP isn't so forgiving of your desire to get an economy. D rank Protosses play to win dammit, and they play to win in quick time.

So, my beloved 12 hatch would fail again and again to this 2 gate bullshit. Perhaps players with better mechanics can make it work (though, watching Jaedong's recent MSL games - though they were against Terran, maybe not) but for me 12 hatch had to go. So what would replace it? Keep in mind that at my level things like "game sense" don't go beyond "Oh, he is building lots of zealots" so basically I needed one build for each race that could be rolled out safely.

As I do, I came to Team Liquid looking for help, scouring the strategy forums for some hope against the manlot onslaught. And the answer came, a new sAviOr, a new hope, a new build: 9 hatch.

"Wait, you can 9 hatch?!" I said aloud when I saw it, "why didn't anyone tell me?!" Sure enough, now I notice pro's doing this build on occasion, and better still, I haven't lost in the early game against toss since. I still lose, mind you, just not early.

For those wondering, here is the 9 hatch opening. I am sure one could 9 pool, overpool or even 12 pool and stop 2 gate, but 9 hatch allows the fast expand, which I feel is pretty sweet!

9 Hatch:

10/9 drones (extractor trick)
2 drones move out (1 to scout, 1 to make the expo)
10/9 (again) - Spawning Pool
9/9 Overlord
10/9 extractor trick again

The build is nice as you get to fast expand, and you get extra larvae for lings should you need them. You can follow up with pretty much anything too, based on what you see with the scout. But, at my level, there is little doubt a Protoss will be going 2 gate. Smile, make some lings from your surplus larvae, even make a sunken at your expo if you are that concerned, and watch as that once seemingly unbeatable build falters.

Tune in next time to find out how 9 hatching has worked out against Terran!

Somewhere in between Tasteless thanking Intel for sponsorship of Gom's so far awesome tournament, and creepy Korean ads selling me something I can only hope is a computer and not a sexual favour, there was the mention of ICCUP, a Starcraft league where all the gosus play, or something.

Anyway, I hopped on, started up as D (as everyone does, I guess) and quickly lost a few games, resulting in my prompt demotion to D-, the lowest of the low. D and D+ players began to thumb their noses arrogantly, asking sarcastically how many games I have actually *won* and things of that nature.

Yes indeed, I am a bad player, attempting to use pro-like strategies without pro-like mechanics, without game sense, without timing, without an APM north of 100. So here, I will write for the rest of us, those who cannot lay claim to being foreign gosus, those who cannot macro while mutalisk harassing, those who cry "imba Terran" when vessels and tanks ruin their "epic" lurker turtle.

Of course, virtually anyone else on the site can give a noob better advice on playing the game and getting better than I can, but I think advice from someone "on your level" as it were has greater clout, so I will write about my experiences on ICCUP, and my quest to become a solid D player, then C, then B, and hopefully (though the chance is slim) an A class Zerg.