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Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

Bit of a story Before the Point of this Blog will come up

I have been a huge fan of RTS games since the first Warcraft game on the PC in 1994, I was absolutely hooked on the game; I must have played and played through that game at least 20 times no exaggeration. The concept of the RTS game fascinated me and drew me into stories of knighted heroes and of evil orcs and ogres, it was my escape from an otherwise crappy and lonely existence in real life. When Warcraft 2 came out I saved up whatever pocket moneya nd birthday money I had and I bought it and eventually its expansion.

It wasn't until after the release of Starcraft 1 and the battlenet edition of Warcraft 2 that I was introduced to the idea of multiplayer online. I have to admit it, I was very hesitant to play it; the idea that I was to play against not an idiot computer ai player but a human player was not my idea of having a good time, if anything my illusion of safety in these games didn't include another human person. So I refused to play online not knowing what a great time I would have had.

Fast forward at least 12 years, my younger brother suggested me playing this game called World of Warcraft. The first expansion of the game came out a while ago and there were rumours of another expansion pack coming out. That game really pushed my comfort level, at that time I had heaps of friends but online you play against total strangers. But I played it, and eventually started PvP battlegrounds, waging war against other human players.

When Starcraft 2 came out I bought it straight away because I remember playing the first game and its expansion and loving it. Played it ever couple of days and before I knew it I finished the first chapter of Sc2. I have to say I was disappointed, it was so much shorter than the experience I had with the first games and I was so disappointed it was so short. I contemplated playing the game online but shoved that thought away due to still insecurities.


There was not much going in regards to Sc2 and me for a while, I played a lot of WoW; I had a girlfriend who was living with me and I didn't ever consider playing multiplayer sc2. Fast forward a few years to about a month and a half ago today; I had this urge to play sc2 online. To tell you the truth it was all Day9's fault from me even being here and playing sc2 ladder, he showed me that this type of gaming could be really fun to play. I wanted to have fun but also be fairly good at it.

So I arrive here at Sc2sea.com, started playing and decided to not only play protoss (which I remember in starcraft being a badass race) and to get better at my basics I would work on the 4 warp gate build. I was placed in bronze at the very bottom but after getting better at my 4 gate timing I was going up to the top of bronze. In 2 weeks I went from rank 100 bronze to rank 3rd in bronze, I honestly thought I was doing alright. I stayed up there I don't know how, I would 4 gate practically ever game; I would lose a few games because my timings was not quite right and get rofl-stomped but I never went below rank 8.

A week or so ago as you know we had the league ladder lock and at that time decided I didn't want to just 4 gate everyone, I found that after my first few pushes if I lost the engagements I would be smashed totally, my macro was extremely sub par. I got pylon blocked and I would basically just fall apart due to my crappy macro. I was also told but some users on this site such as Aequitas and Futureboy that it is a horrible strategy to use against zerg (which was why unless I went against a really low lvl player I would lose all the time, making zerg my most hated matchup).


So I decided using the lockout time for my advantage (even though I couldn't get demoted lower lol), I practiced my macro and started to really get the idea going of what needs to be done and so forth. I even entered a couple tournament and even with such poor results I still felt I was getting better. Today this morning logging on I was getting ready to do some more practice with my macro and lo and behold season 7 started. I played a few games against computer ai to shake off the proverbial rust after not really playing for a couple of days. I then started my placement match and it was against a terran.

I was totally and utterly murdered that match, I started screwing up my macro again for some explicable reason, scouted my opponent late and he massed a whole tonne of marines, marauders and medivacs and totally stomped all over me. After that I was placed at the very bottom again, I was so angry that I stuffed up so bad, so I tried to redeem myself and played a few more games. I was so frustrated after the first game that I completely stuffed up every game and lost quite bad.

It wasn't until I went against another HoH member douglace, until I blew my lid. I was trying to go back to my trusty 4 gate but I haven't practiced that in a while resorting usually to a 1 gate to 3 gate expand build depending on races. I scouted and it appeared to be a 4 gate too. I had my zealot of first stalker with my probe getting ready to drop a proxy pylon when I notice a spec in my base that wasn't the same colour as my units...I was getting 4 gated already( to my knowledge then) and his execution was a lot better than mine. In 10 seconds my base was invaded by 6 stalkers and a zealot, I didn't have a chance; my warp gate just finished as he walked in my ramp and he destroyed a pylon that was powering 3 of my gates. I pulled probes but it didn't help. I gged and told him wped and surrendered.


After that for several hours I stewed over my matches, contemplating just quitting because in my eyes I dropped back down to the level of a scrub. It wasn't until after a while that I decided to not quit, I used to quit things all my life if it got too hard and I really wanted to keep on laddering because strangely enough I started to really enjoy playing competitively online, I was a laddering sc2 player (a lowbie but I was laddering and that was important). I decided after a smoke and a cuppa that I was going to go back to basics, what my problem was is that I had all these things in my mind floating and I couldn't multitask everything because I am so new.

If my macro was good (in my mind) I would just throw units away, if I focused too much on my micro of units in engagements I would fall back on my macro and end up having no units to fight with.

So in conclusion and the purpose for this blog
I am going back to scratch, focus on the basic principles of macro from protoss: pylons and probes. I will practice just on the action of probe making and pylon building so I never get supply blocked.

Every week on Tuesday I will mandatorily blog my progress, will add a few matches to show my progress and, hopefully, crawl up the ladders. Every time I see a small amount of progress or even encounter speed bumps on the way I will add something during that week to share to and maybe get advice and encouragement (which I feel is what I need at the moment).

Thank you, will hopefully start adding soon.

P.S. Any offers of practice players I will happily take, regardless of what race or league you are in I would be so grateful for your help. My schedule is very erratic sometimes being a nurse so just add me on SEA and if you see me just say hi.

League Laddering

Week 1

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

you might feel discouraged at times, but don't worry, you'll improve quickly. gl hf!

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

Same happend to me, started 4 gating all the way to silver and then people started stopping it and i started loosing every match. Work on making probes while you attack, build pylons and all that.

If it helps,something I did with my friends (Who NEVER played RTS) with great results is, getting to top bronze by doing some easy build order (7 roach rush, 4 rax , 4 gate) just to learn how to actually follow the Build and have a correct management of the units (Which you already did) and then start working really hard on macro mechanics and get back to top bronze. Its good to be able to micro your units on lowerleagues while you keep up your macro. Multitasking comes alone so no worries.

cheers!

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

Currently Laddering

Well I have to admit I haven't been practicing as much as i should, I have been busy lately with work but today I did a little practice of pylons and probes before playing a few games on ladder. I have to say I am a little happier at my performance today even though my macro is still very sub par. It wasn't until my last game that I was a bit happier with my play.

Anyways I want to share 3 games that I played that stood out today.

Game 1 Matchup: PvZ
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=754

I have to say I wasn't too happy about this game, zerg is my worst match up and this game is a fine example of how bad my macro is. I started off at trying to do a 3 gate robo expand with zealots and sentries and lo and behold, I stuff up and not make enough sentries to expand safely at first. My opponent sends some speedlings and roaches, I clear them up. I then forget to look at what zerg was doing, if I did I would have seen he was building muta (which I have a huge amount of problems with dealing with). He then massed a huge amount of muta and roflstomped me, by the time that I tries to deal with muta I was dead.

The only thing I enjoyed about this game was that I got to deny his natural expand, he ended up getting fairly mad and bmed me pretty bad about that after the game. I have a guilty pleasure in making people butthurt at times.

I stuffed up though, I failed to saturate my mineral lines and supply blocked myself a few times. Not a great start I assure you.

Game 2 Match up: PvT
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=755

I was happier in this game because I had a couple of 4 gates against protoss and a game where a zerg just leaves the game before anything else happens before this one. I attempted to 4 gate this terran to start, timing not quite there yet. Terran decided to get some tanks and siege up at the ramp, I did a little damage but after a couple of warp ins at the front of my opponent I went back to base and started to macro and expand, not really having a plan except to get a lot of dudes.

I got harassed a few times with banshee and got reluctant a few times, I eventually expanded a few more times, massed some zealots, sentries, stalkers and immortals and pushed on terrans base. When I got there I found that the terran was teching into BCs and got a lot of stalkers. I didnt really realise until later on when it looked like something was wrong with my production that I realised that my opponent had a few banshees destroy my pylons in my main; powering down my production.

Overall I was happier about this game but I just floated way too much minerals. My macro was still pretty poor but expanded a lot more than what I was doing earlier. I still want very observant, I had a few observers around to check my opponents tech and unit composition but I didn't end up using my units effectively. I still feel like my game was really bad but I snagged a win and that made me happy .

Match 3 Matchup: PvT
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=756

I was much happier with this game, and this was my last game of the day. My strategy was the 4 gate push but timings still not quite there, need to practice this more later when I get the time. I pushed when I warped in 2 warps worth of units and really hammered him hard, he only had a few marines and just warped in some units every now and then to keep the pressure on.

I haven't had a chance to actually see what my opponent was trying to do but I think he tried to expand pretty early in a proxy position, because when I thought I destroyed the command centre ( i was looking away macroing at the time) and he was still in the game somehow. So while I macroed up I spread my army around to find the expand, eventually finding it after failing to macro well, and tried to clean him up. Of course he decided to lift off and float away, I threw down a stargate and tried to get a void out to kill it off. While that happened I spread all my army all over the place so he couldnt drop his command centre and macro up.

I eventually destroyed his CC just as he was floating his CC over my natural expand. I was happier with this game but my macro was still pretty terrible. I did a lot better though and I got a win.

Overall I has happy with my day today, I know my macro needs a load of work and once I get some time tomorrow I will practice much more. It is still early in the week before my mandatory update but I thought an update now would be good to map my progress.

Thank you all for reading, I will add more as things happen.

Currently Rank 26 from Rank 52

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

RUSKI HWAITING!

nice blog dude

when you are practicing its a good idea to play vs a very easy ai so you don't have to worry about attacks/scouting (most attacks from very easy ai can be stopped with 5 probes) and this way you can focus solely on one thing, like expanding, workers and pylon or mechanics or keeping your money low, etc.

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

Yeah, I have done that and still do but my problem is once I am in a game and I get the pressure from my opponent I tend to stuff up and macro slips. I actually put the ai difficulty on medium at the moment so it makes the computer attack at times with a small group of units and it makes the computer to take an expansion as well. Once I get better I plan on upping the difficulty. It is just something that I need to get used to I guess but thank you for the advice.

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

yeah it's really easy to get distracted by the myriad of things that go on in a game.

maybe some games just ignore your opponent and what he is doing and continue to macro well, (i think this advice was from one of the dailies). I did this a few times and it helped to deal with the pressure, one game there was a banshee killing the probes in my main but i ignored it; continued making workers, building pylons, warping in units and then when i had gone through the whole production cycle moved my army to kill the banshee.
i'm not saying this is a good way to win, but it is a good way to keep calm and deal with the pressure that comes with sc2 games.

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

he mustve been high as ****....stalkers>bc as they hv bonus vs dmg and can blink under unless the bcs are in the hornets' nest numbers...which is impossible... :P

if u need help with tvp, i can help :3

other than that, good read! keep goin! will continue to follow your journey!

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders
 

also, when you have major updates, put it up on a new blog! blogs dont hv the *new* tag on em everytime theres a new post...unless u sub to it :P