One Grand Post

I joined TL in September of 2008 because I wanted to get better in Starcraft. My Starcraft life up to that point was filled with Zero No Clutter Games and BGH games (which I thought were legitimate). At the time, the people that I played Starcraft with were a group of decent players from the RedvsBlue (if anyone doesn’t know what that is: www.redvsblue.com) forums. I had only been recently introduced to the ICCup ladder, and I was obviously struggling.

Boesthius and Tonight, two of the people on RedvsBlue talked about Teamliquid every once in a while. And because Boesthius and Tonight kept destroying me on ICCup, I decided to give TL a try.

My first few posts were just replays of me playing and losing. When I look back at those replays, I laugh at how pitiful I played. Sure, a lot things haven’t changed. My turret placement hasn’t gotten much better, but I feel like I’ve gotten a bajillion times better ever since I joined the community. The community as a whole was just constantly giving me nice critiques on how to play.

Those days were filled with careless SCing with friends. We had a little tournament at RvB, to which I pulled out because my father was cracking down on my games. I was getting better, and I finally beat Boes for the first (and so far only) time on Andromeda, where my awesome turtling tactics frustrated Boes to the point of gging.

At one point however, Teamliquid slowly moved away from being just the website where I posted up my replays. Slowly, I stopped with the replays. Instead, I started browsing beyond just the BW forums. I found the blogs section, where I found people posting up stories, pictures, girl problems, things that I thought you wouldn’t find on a normal gaming site. It would be one of the first times that I realized that Teamliquid was more than just a site dedicated to hardcore gaming. There were lots of casual D/D+ and even D- gamers who just were on Teamliquid to experience how crazy the community was.

Enticed by this, I just did random things for the first few posts. I would do things like write random fanfictions. I even posted up a girl blog once, to which my girlfriend discovered it and has continually harassed me since.

As I started breaking out of the shell, I continued to explore more and more about this forum. I started watching streamers.

Now for all you new people, I’ll have you know that there wasn’t any [SC2] tags next to anybody’s name back then. Instead, there were a dozen people streaming BW. Proleague was on every night, though I was never able to watch it. TL Attack was still featuring heroes that played BW.

And for you forum veterans, we still had people like nongminzerg, Ret, and Scan (Where’d you go…I miss you so…)streaming Broodwar games for everybody. Soon, I started to constantly watch Terran streams like KawaiiRice and Gretorp, and it opened up my eyes to what this community was all about.

And that leads to Part 2…

In 2009, I had become a little more involved in the community. My post count was still relatively low. Even when I was out of the BW section, I had never really posted anything else. I had a marine icon I believe at this point, so I felt a little accomplished at having gotten rid of the SCV icon.

I felt just a little embarrassed about posting up replays all the time. The problem is that I never seemed to improve, and as a result, I would always feel like the replays I posted up on TL were just going to be the same.

Now at this point I was watching lots of streams, trying to learn more about how to play the game. It was at this point that I ran into Terran players like KawaiiRice, Gretorp, and Scan, that all helped me play in one way or another. But I think of all the streamers that helped me improve as a player, it had to be KawaiiRice. His first person streams in BW always looked really creative. Even when he was on the losing end, the guy seemed to have a style that I wanted to incorporate into my own games.

I started up my stream in 2009. I really didn’t know how to stream at that point. All that I had really learned was that I could start streaming BW if I made a Livestream account and downloaded Camtasia Studios and FMLE. Ok. Simple enough.

Thinking back, my method of streaming comes mostly from the BW players that I had seen in the past. Contrary to a lot of the SC2 streams now, a lot of the streams from BW were filled with some kind of unique personality. Each stream that I went on had a different tone and a different vibe to it, as if each and every player had a different playstyle that one could learn from.

If anybody is still here and watched my streams when I first started, I know it was a mess.

I first streamed BW in Windows Mode. Not knowing that I could play BW in fullscreen, it actually hurt my ability to play since Windows Mode is so small. On the bright side, I streamed music from Command and Conquer, to Call of Duty, to music that I found on Newgrounds, and was proud that at one point in my streams, twenty people were coming on and asking me about what the music was.

Of course, my play was still horrible. I was basically winging all my builds. All I knew was that in TvP, I built tanks and vultures. And all I knew in TvZ was that I was supposed to build MnM, science vessels, and tanks. My perception of a build order was a loose copy of what I saw other people do on their streams. To be honest, that was probably the only reason I kept doing mildly well against people who actually knew what a build order was.

But the real awesomeness of my streaming experience was just how supportive the viewers always were. I’ll list two examples:

The first: At one point in my streaming career, I started using Pandora as my source of music when I streamed. It made the music unpredictable and sometimes awesome. In this case it was both.
It was a TvP on Heartbreak Ridge. My opponent and I were on even bases. But at one point, my opponent seemed to want to end the game right then and there and recalled units into my base.

With a 200/200 army sitting at the front, I unsieged all of my units, and begun to start a counterattack. At this point in time, everyone in the stream (around 30 or so), began violently spamming in the chat, telling me everything that I should do. One viewer told me to just “GOGOGOGOGOOGGOOGOGOGOGOOGOGO”. Another told me to split up my forces to take down every single Protoss expansion in an elimination race.

Confident, I was following these instructors, knowing that it was now a race against time. And right as I started entering the Protoss base and started taking down the last few buildings and my buildings started to dwindle as well, THIS SONG CAME ON IN PANDORA:



At that point, everyone in the chat just went absolutely crazy. Everyone started LOLing, telling me that the song fit the scene perfectly as I raced to eliminate my opponent.

By the end of that game, I owe my victory to the stream viewers who were urging me on and the music of Pandora that completely took me by surprise.

The second: This one starts out bitter. I was on a big losing streak. My quest for D+ (because I still wasn’t D+ yet at that point) seemed to be failing epically. For those who don’t know, I stream really early in the morning (around 4AM – 5:50AM) to avoid my dad knowing that I’m streaming and playing the game. But by now, it was already 5:45, and I was supposed to start preparing for school.

But my stream viewers said “No. You NEED to win one.”Tired and depressed at having lost these games, I reluctantly agreed to their plans, and gave it one more go.

It was a TvZ on Heartbreak Ridge again. Knowing that TvZ was my better matchup, each and every one of my viewers urged me on. I scouted my opponent. 3hatch muta.

I went for the A-Yumi build at that point (for those who don’t know, it’s basically a 4rax timing push that hits before 3hatch muta comes out).

I was THIS close to losing, because my A-Yumi timing ended up being at least fifteen seconds off, and his mutas hit before I had salvaged enough marines for an assault. In fact, the Zerg player brought an entire army of mutaling to come in and kick the crap out of me.

Luckily, I held it off, and after scanning to realize that my opponent had absolutely no static defense, I went in for the kill.

Once again, I HAVE to thank the stream viewers for making my streaming experience so fun. Even now, while I stream amidst so many SC2 streams, I still have to thank people like PUPA555 and Necessarius (sorry if I butchered the name) for watching me and always giving helpful critiques. Other people like Sayle and Kiante are also people that have always been a help and source of encouragement.

Probably going to be the shortest section, but still very important.

Teamliquid has really shaped the way I perceive things. A lot of things that I’ve experienced are in part because of my experience here. So I’m just going to list two of them right now:

1. Anime. Screw you guys in the Anime Discussion Thread. I cannot believe you guys brought me into this stuff.

But I’m going to be honest; my initial perception of Anime was completely off. What was a biased and one-sided view of Anime has been all but erased and replaced by the mentality that I need to understand Anime before I criticize.

This is actually why I have to thank Shauni specifically for helping me open my eyes to more Anime. While I had initially watched more slice of life stories like Kanon, Air, Clannad, K-ON!, etc (why are they all from Kyo Ani >.>), Shauni was one of the people that recommended some new things to me. Animes like Xam’d and Texhnolyze would have been ones that I had brushed away had he not given me them to look at.

Then there are users like Ferrose and Sentenal who have helped continually commented on various new Animes that I’m watching this season, helping me even more to branch out and watch new shows.

2. Practice. What used to be a wish washy way of playing has also morphed into the understanding that nothing comes if I just screw around all the time. While it was cool just winging all of my build orders when I first started to play BW, I realized that the only way to get to my goal of C- was to start learning actual BOs and practice and practicing.

For this, I have to thank people like Boesthius, Tonight, and more recently Kiante, Necessarius, npnl.deepshake (I think that’s your name), and other people for all of your advice and help. While it’d be easy for me to just thank Day9 for all his efforts to the community, you guys have been the ones that have helped me specifically to practice and get better.

At this point, I’ve already thanked a couple of people, but I feel like a lot of them still deserve so much recognition. Maybe it’s excessive, but here we go:

1. Boesthius – You are the man. Thank you so much for getting me onto this community. Best decision I’ve ever made in my life. You continue to help me out when I need help, offer up good pointers, and you’ve always put up with my annoying habits with patience, which I have to thank. You’re a baller banling, and I think you’re one of the coolest Vikings alive.

2. Tonight - Dude. Every time I saw you post on TL, I thought you were so cool. I loved your PvPs with Boes, and your play was always so fun to watch and play against. Even though I never beat you, I felt like I learned so much every time I played you. I’ve gotten better now, but I’m pretty sure I’d still get my ass handed to if I played you. So baller man…..

3. Kiante – LOL, you’re a really funny guy when you’re drunk. Honestly, you’re just a funny guy in general, and thanks for playing with me in BW! Your streams are really entertaining to watch, and I think when we play….it always gets more fun every time.

4. Sayle – I’ve only started knowing you for a short time, but you streaming BW have made my days. Thanks for the shout outs and the Broodwar casts. They’re always something I will always look forward to in these days of SC2.

5. And finally, this guy. He’s been the one that’s influenced my Terran play the most. The one who’s influenced my choice of music when I play. The one who’s influenced to stay with Terran because they’re the best race in the whole wide world. Though he might not know it, a lot of my BW habits have come from it, if either subconsciously or consciously. He’s a guy with awesome dry sarcasm and an interesting game he plays before every stream. He’s:


Isn't that rice so cute?

There are so many more people that I’d like to thank, like Konadora, Xsebt, and Grobyc for streaming sooo much BW all the time (I’m sorry Craton, I know you stream too, but I never see you on as much )

For those who have gone unnamed and believe you should be up here….I’m sorry, but there are just so many people that I probably forgot. 

So here's a little backstory. I wanted my C- game to be as epic as possible. That's partially why I didn't want to stream it, and that was also why I didn't want to play any friends. That way, I could do a battle report that would be super special awesome.

Ok. That's the backstory. Here's what actually happened.


So my Zerg buddy spawns in the 12 o'clock position on Outsider.



And I spawn down in the six o'clock position.



From this, I assume my opponent is 3hatching, and so I respond with...



That's right! A-yumi!



Extra fast stim for extra fast sunken breakage!



With so many marines....I love ling-all ins for breakfast.



It isn't natural to go for a den AND a spire at the same time right...?



I got this...I got this!!!



I don't got this...I don't got this.



And here comes the counter attack. I think I'm screwed.







My opponent's third is up shortly afterward. It's now 3base vs 1 base



Here comes vessel, to my rescue!



When in doubt. Do what Flash does.



It might not look like it, but I broke out of this one.



Guess what happens to that vessel that's hanging over there...



What's left of a promising counter attack.



Finally retook my natural! If anyone doesn't notice, it's 4base vs 2base....*sigh*



But now I realize....even 5base don't matter with shitty macro.




And here comes my marine micro.......




Yeah, no marine micro. So I busted his natural instead.



Victorious ZnF has breached the main! Bad gg timing? Maybe not. I still don't even know that he has three other bases. >.>



This....is how all the pros play.




He gged because of my baller scan....


And there you have it! My quest for C- is finally over! One can look on ICCup if they like, but C- is now officially added to my history of rankings on the ICCup ladder!

I'm so happy for everything that's happened. C- is because of all the people on TL that have helped me struggle through my SC:BW ineptness. I've met so many people I've already thanked countless times, and I don't know how much better my 1K post can go but like this.

I will continue to stream BW way into my college years. I feel like it's so much more fun than SC2. It's been a game that I've constantly returned to, no matter what I've been played.

I will continue to visit TL as well. This is the first site where I've been dedicated enough to reach the 1K post limit, and I'm so happy that this one grand post has been a big chronicle of all the bad ass shit that's gone on in this community.

I hit 1K Posts. I hit C-.

yay C-!