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Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders Week 1
 

Currently Laddering

Was a bit naughty this week, didn't submit this blog on correct day...supposed to be on Tuesday, bad Ruski bad. Because of this my rank dropped pretty significantly to rank 52 again, at least I wasn't last place in my ladder I suppose.

Anyways, this week was pretty full on. With work piling up as the weather is cooling and lo and behold, we get a lot of influenza patients at work. Because of that I didn't get to practice as much as I wished but I did practice a few days this week. That and I got my WoW: MoP beta invite a couple of days ago and have been trying to get it to work.

On top of that I also entered myself into the Saturday BSG last week (which I got rofl-stomped against a gold league player named deadpixel) and got knocked out the next round which I knew was going to happen but I thought I would give it a go. I have decided I will try to enter in a comp at least every two weeks so that I get used to the feeling of pressure that you get from competitions.

I have to thank though my clan HoH for wishing me luck and Venom and Aequitas for the support I got during and after the BSG ♥ .

I would like to first submit my warm up match against Fung, a silver league zerg player that was kind enough to play against me and remind me just how terribly bad I am at facing zerg. A big thank you to Fung . I would also like to submit my match in the BSG, just to show how horribly I was beaten.


Game 1 - Warm up with Fung Match up: P v Z
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=785

Before this game I was spectating a game between Fung and Aequitas where Aequitas used a cannon rush to deny Fung's 3rd expo and give him enough units to eventually win the game. In this game though I wanted to do a 3 gate robo build with a fast expand with zealots and sentries to protect my base. Well that was my plan until I started stuffing up.

I built my 3 gates and my robo (which was supposed to be used for scout for unit composition and tech), of course after a bit of aggression that went out of the window, I didn't even start building an observer until after I expanded making the robo as an idle building; a waste of minerals that I could have used to get out a faster nexus.

When I expanded I stuffed up and built a gateway instead of a forge for cannon defenses, and then the forge. By the time that big zerg push happened my forge just finishes, not giving me the time to set up my cannons. Had I have expo'ed earlier, my forge going down first, I would have had cannons up for the aggression.

I then was rolled over by a group of roach and a group of speedlings. It wasn't until after this match and when Aequitas (whom was spectating at the time) gave me some good advice which I want to incorporate into my zerg match up build (thanks Aequitas, you are a legend).

Game 2 - BSG Round 32 Match with deadpixel Match up: P v T
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=786

I just have to say this first before I give a description of the match, I do not know this map well I think I have played on it like 4 times. Even though I don't know this map well I did know before this game loaded up if we spawned close air and I was on the NW side (which turns out I was) it was going to be awkward to get my expo being so exposed like that on the east.

In this match I was so nervous, my hands were literally shaking (which always seems to happen tournament day), it made it even worse when I had to wait 15 minutes for me to start my first game because I go a bye first round. I didn't want to 4 gate too much in this tournament (silly me) and thought I would try to go for a macro type game. As I said earlier I spawned on the NW and once I scouted I knew I was in a disadvantage to get my third because of how prone to drops that expansion was (although looking back on it if I put a couple of cannons there I MIGHT have been safe to expand there, oh well hindsight and all that).

My plan was 3 gate robo expand and then I was going to tech in some immortals and colossi, just like last match though I totally lost the plot and put down a robo long after I expanded, which would have been ok in a way if I actually USED THE DAMN THING . I only started using the robo til 12 minutes, that's 3 minutes that I didn't use it as it went down on 9 mins that would have been an observer and 2 or 3 immortals maybe even going onto a colossus by use of chronoboost which I had full energy -_-.

On the plus side in that match I never supply blocked which has been one of my biggest faults as a sc2 gamer. In the end though deadpixel did a brilliant job with splitting his force into 2, dropping in my main and pushing my natural with MMM, wp'ed deadpixel I salute you. Funny thing to note, had I have had 4 gated deadpixel, at the time I would have made my first push he would have had only 5 marines with no upgrades and he would have just putting 2 more rax down, although he did scout and see how infrequent my chronoboosts were on my warp gate research so I think he knew he was safe from any shenanigans.

Notable Matches this Week

I want to submit to you guys a couple practice games I had against medium ai to show my 4 gate (for terran and protoss) and 3 gate expand with sentry and zealot (for zerg) timings, just to show that I am getting there slowly but surely and my builds are coming together. I also want to show a fail 4 gate game that I still won and a better 4 gate game I won vs a protoss on the ladders

Match 3 - Practice 4 Gate Match up: P v T
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=790

Overall I found my timings not too bad, still pretty bad but after so long of no 4 gate practice I was pretty rusty (which is why I went against medium computer, giving me a chance to go through my build but not worry about early aggression and not making it easy on myself and getting no challenge at my opponents base). Have a look, I know I missed chronoboosts and I will try to focus on this more in the future.

I decided to use my 4 gate build against protoss and terran for a couple of reasons:

• with protoss it is a good build to punish bad timings, macro and build orders and to give good aggression early on
  
• with terran it is still fairly viable and I have won games up to top 3 bronze players with it, I need to use an extra warp in round before I push though which is a little extra time terran has to scout what is going to happen and bunker up
  
• it is a good basic build which, even when considered an all in, I can continue to practice the two most failing thing about my game: pylons, probes and my macro skills

A huge note inb4 people say I shouldn't 4 gate a terran, I know but once I get a solid build specifically for terran (which maybe something like a 3 gate early robotics into colossi we shall see).


Match 4 - Practice Zerg 3 Gate expand Match up: P v Z
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=791

So what I probably learned the most from Aequitas was about my decision to get a robo before my expand as scouting is so essential but hard to do after a short while once speedlings come out. By not putting a robo down I am able to expand a little earlier, but my main problem was what could I do to scout when I just quickly lose a unit if I use a probe or zealot.

Then Aequitas decided to tell me a good option in this scenario, and it was a fairly simple idea too; teching in hallucination once the warp gate research is done and use hallucination to get hallucinated phoenixes to scout expands and tech. My plan is as following for my zerg match up:

• go for standard play (9 pylon, 12 gate, 14 assimilator, 16 pylon, 17 cyber and 18 zealot))
• once cyber is down and I have 75 minerals put down an extra assimilator for enough gas for sentries
• use my chronoboost on cybercore until I get around 1/3 til upgrade complete and drop 2 more gates
• once warp gate is done I hope to have about 1 zealot and 5 sentries for FF's
• at WG research end start hallucination research with one chronoboost when available
• my first warp in I hope to get 2 more zealots and a sentry coming to 3 zealots and 6 sentries
• expand and pylon in natural, when pylon is finished put a forge and, depending on naturals ramp, 1-3 gates to wall in.
• when hallucination finishes use hallucinated phoenix to scout opponents expansions and tech

After that I plan to react to what my opponent has by scouting with my hallucinated units, I would have a bunch of sentries with heaps of energy so that would be a good investment. I then would decide whether to tech into robo units or air.

Note: I realize in my match I didn't use hallucination at all, a speed bump in my play is all it is just like my wall off didn't happen either. Also I plan to only use this build on maps that a normal FFE would be difficult to do e.g maps with open naturals like zel'naga caverns.

Match 5 - Ladder 4gate against Terran Match up: P v T
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=792

I was mixed about this game, my timings on this was not quite right for a proper 4 gate and suffered a bit because I didn't stop training probes when i was supposed to. I was happy to get the win though and although my opponent was a low tier player it shows if you are lucky and your opponent is greedy enough a 4 gate is still possible with terrans. As you can also see while I am trying to push I am also trying to multitask and macro back home, only with practice will I accomplish this though.

Not much else that I want to say about this game, disappointed on my fail timings but glad on getting the win after a disaster day a week ago with 6 or 7 losses in a row, feel free to comment though.

Match 6 - Ladder 4gate against Protoss Match up: P v P
Replay: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=793

At first before looking at the replay I was pretty happy all up with my game but looking back on it I failed pretty bad with my timings again. My 3 additional gates were late, my chronoboosts wasn't consistent. I have to say I need to practice my timings all over again, were it a better opponent (not to say my opponent was awful or anything) I would have been cleaned up.

I have to say though I liked my pylon placement looking back even though I was pretty lucky he didn't expand a lot sooner. I think I really got him by surprise, that and although an immortal is really good against stalkers I had a few zealots to soak up the damage. My decision in the end to warping more zealots than stalkers paid off I think.

I have to also add my macro was pretty bad again but considering this game was before the last game (PvT 4gate) I would assume it would be slightly worse off.

In Conclusion

Wow this blog entry has taken so long to do, but I really wanted to share with everyone my progress and my slow crawl up the ladders ( trust me once I get to top 5 again I most probably will slow down in progress a bit in terms of ladder ranks and leagues. Anyways thank you all for reading, once something notable happens I plan to post an update here so keep you eyes out for my next entry, please leave comments as this will really help my play.

Thank you SC2SEA.
Currently Rank 25 from Rank 52

Purpose for this Blog :: Next Week

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders Week 1
 

Cheers for sharing dude, keep it up

For future blogs, I'd suggest throwing some pictures or something in occasionally, to break up the paragraphs a bit.

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders Week 1
 

Sure will do, thanks for the suggestion

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders Week 1
 

u cld copy the format I used for my PRtG just check the link in my sig!

Re: Ruski's Crawl to the Top of the Ladders Week 1
 

3gate robo is a good build...just a matter of ur macro...a simple way is to do games vs ppl and hv a mate scream over chat or skype, MACRO WORKERS MACRO WORKERS MACRO WORKERS....until the end of the game like how d.Apollo trained tb XD