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Road to Masters (END?)
 

Road to Masters - The End?




The time has come. The end of the road is here.

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YESSSS YESSS YESSSSSSS -fistpump- -jumps around- -dances around house-




Ooh above 50%. I thought I would be below 50% considering what I did last time.... Won't say what it is ;D

ANYWAY, for those who are constantly theorycrafting about how promotion worked, this was my recent record, in reverse order (e.g. most recent match first)

F = Opponent Favored (or slightly favored), U = I am Favored (or slightly favored), if not stated it's Even matchup.

Last 10 games: W(F) L L W L(F) W W L(F) W W
Last 11-20 games: W L W W W L(F) L(F) W W L(F)

As you can see not exactly alot of wins when my opponent is favored.. in fact, just the one that i won before I was promoted was such the case.
However, many of my 'Even' match-ups were against Master League players. In fact, I think more than half of them were such. And some of my losses were against GMs too.


Anyway, what does this mean for this column? Well, clearly this isn't a 'Road to Masters' anymore... since I've already hit Masters. What should the next column be called? 'Life of a Masters'? 'Road of Masters'? 'Road through Masters'? Halp!

Yes, I will still continue playing and blogging, though it'll probably be less often because I'm afraid of losing too much and dropping back to Diamond lol. I already have another Road To Masters column prepared for this week so I'll post that on Friday, as I probably won't be playing ladder for a while... let me bask in my achievement for a while k!! Before the harsh reality sets in =X

For this post, I'll just do the recap of the games I played TODAY, (4 games) to commemorate my special opponents who have led up to this milestone

In chronological order! (From 1st game to before-promotion game)

Game 1 - vs Felix (Masters Terran) on Slag Pits

Blizzard really needs to fix this map. They need to make it like Shakuras Plateau where close spawn is not possible... because close spawn is just retarded? I think I can reach the Terran base in like 5 creep tumors... and the map becomes just an expanded Steppes of War.

Anyway, I was feeling fairly confident as my record recently was pretty good (about 60%.. which is good for me ok shaddup all you 70% +++ people) and my ZvT recently has been doing good too.

I opened with my usual 14hatch/14pool opening, while he did a 2 Barracks opener. Surprise surprise. (I actually find 1 rax/gas openings more scary, because you don't really know what to expect and you have to scout, whereas 2 rax openings almost always develops into an expansion for them)


He moves out with 4 SCVs and 3 marines and sets up a bunker. I was experiencing quite abit of spikes so was abit worried as bunker rush means I need some decent amount of micro.

I don't understand the point of this 'late' bunker rush that's far away though. I mean, yes, it provides the security for them to dart back inside. But it doesn't threaten my expansion at all! It's too far away. So once I get put up a Spinecrawler I'm more than safe, and just have to reposition it to take out the bunker (with another Spine) if necessary.

I guess the purpose is to force spines?


As you can see, my 2nd spine goes up and the bunker rush is all but over. I already stopped making lings and was pumping Drones to go ahead in economy.

He did kill about 6+ lings and 1 drone before my spines forced his salvage and back out, but that was just because of my lag spikes Always hate the first game of the day, PC not warmed up and gives me spikes.

These close positions meant one thing - it would be easy to do some kind of econ bust like banelings or roach/bane. After my ling prodded up his ramp and saw his CC, I decided to go for a Roach/bane bust.
Once I had 35 drones (which is roughly 1.5 base saturation with 2 gas) (Glade normally does 2 base saturation with 2-3 gas before doing his roach/bane though) I started to mass roaches/blings


He was waaay unprepared - only one bunker, and no sort of wall-off. Doesn't even have stim/combat shields as you can see. His marines backed off while I blew up his bunker and took out almost all his SCVs at his expo.

However, out of nowhere came:


2 Banshees! Oh dammit, he was going dual port banshees.

I sniped his Barracks before backing out, as I didn't have any more banelings and his marine number was getting high, and I had to prepare for the Banshees.

I put down (a badly placed) Spore at each base, got extra queens, and put down a Spire, however, his Banshees came too quickly!


Banshees manage to kill 3 queens and about 8 drones before my Mutalisks popped

He made a mistake of sending his Marines over too - probably thought he could kill me off, not knowing I had a decent sized ground force of roaches/ling/blings.


Cleaned up his marines easily with roach/baneling while Mutas took out the Banshees.

Seeing that I killed so many Marines and he was investing so much in Banshees (which are clearly hard countered by Mutas), coupled with the fact that his base is ridiculously close, I decided to make a counter-push.
(yes, KILL SWITCH ON )



Roach/Baneling easily cleared up whatever ground troops he had left, and Mutas were focus-firing his helpless Banshees as well as taking out some sieged Tanks that came out.

Constantly rallied more Mutas and lings to his base, and he GGed out.


Game 2 - vs Kez (Zerg) on Typhon Peaks

This guy was rank 1 in his division, but his division had relatively low points (all below 1k), checked his WR and it was only about 50%ish.

Anyway, I decided to go for ling/bling this game as this map isn't very favorable for 15 Hatch (expo abit far from ramp) though I think it IS still defendable due to how the expo is 'sunken' inwards, making defending slightly easier.

Yup so we basically both go standard 14/14 and start having little zergling skirmishes in the middle of the map


Sigh. He was also microing his zerglings.

This screencap was quite funny to me because you see both of us micro our red HP zergling away at the same time. haha. anyway.

I let him know how i feel:



Oh he asked me if I was from sc2sea.com at the start of the game, and apparently he read the 1st post of my Road to Masters series! Always awesome to be recognized.

I actually got a Roach Warren immediately after about 10 lings - roach/bling rapes ling/bling so hard.

We continued our little micro wars:

I was dodging his solo baneling the entire time while sniping his lings (I had more total lings at this point - which was because he was expanding)

The ling/bling micro wars ended when my 5 Roaches popped - and I made the stupidest mistake of moving my Roaches towards his base without baneling support. When I thought about it, it was too late - he was already moving in



Yes, Roaches lose to lings when you have about less than 7 and they have around 2.5x times the number of lings to your roaches. (basically enough to get a surround)
If I had waited for banelings, I would easily take out his defences and force a cancel on his Hatchery (or maybe even win) and I can expand.

Anyway, after killing my Roaches his lings got in and sniped my Queen before my own lings popped to clear his. Then I had the ling advantage, so I ran towards his base. I saw 6 banelings morphing so I just ran by them and went for his Drones! I killed 7 drones AND his Queen! Which pulled me roughly even, though my expansion was only just going down.

At this point came the Drone Window - the moment after initial aggression where you are free to Drone until a certain point when Defender's Advantage won't help you anymore - and he basically out-droned me in this critical, delicate phase. I was, however, teching to Lair and had +1 attack on the way.
I did catch up on Drones eventually, but his econ lead had already begun and he made a smart timing push at this point with his Roach/ling army, which outnumbered mine by about 20 food



I frantically rallied units but it was too late. GG

I need to learn to Drone harder during that Drone window... and if possible check his Drone count! Ugh.


Game 3 - vs Felix (Masters Terran) on Shattered Temple


Yes, it's the same guy as before. He blocks my expo this time and I only got it up at 16 supply... not that big a deal though. He did a gas opening this time, which I later scouted to be a Reactor Hellions + CC build.
I threw down a Roach Warren in response, and put 2 spines and blocked my ramp with Queen.

Something was off about my gameplay this game though - I noticed one point where I was floating 400-500 minerals.. No idea what was going through my head. :S Probably concerned about the Hellions. Anyway, I quickly made a round of 10 Drones when I realized that, but I was already slow in my economy, hence I couldn't do a Roach/bane bust again.

He threw in Marauders into his unit mix this time, probably wary after the previous game with my Roach heavy composition. He sieged up at the middle and danced around with his marine/marauder/hellion army.

I decided to engage too early - should have waited for my Infestors to pop and more units.


My small army of roach/baneling was annihilated with some wise Tank focus-firing - my banelings barely killed anything

He forced a cancel on my 3rd after this, while establishing his own 3rd at his gold. This was probably where I already lost - 3 base Terran (with a gold even) >>> 3 base Zerg


Amidst this battle, he made a multi pronged drop with marines into my gold and main which killed quite a fair bit of drones. And with this Marauder heavy army here, my fungalgrowth/Roach army wasn't quite effective.

I realized this is quite a problem for my favourite roach/baneling/infestor army - Marauders make it alot harder to do anything... I'll probably need Mutas in those situations :/

Anyway, with these multi-pronged attacks and better unit composition, he managed to clean up my forces, take down my 3rd, together with the win.

Oh, and with some MULE drop BM too:

Probably sore that I crushed him previous game


My macro had really slipped this game too, noticed 1000++ resources floating while fighting. So bad! I needed a 3rd expo AND a macro hatch... just wasn't keeping up with injects and macroing properly with all the drops going on. Need to work on macro macro macro


Game 4 vs sMoAquarius (Masters Terran) on XNC

This was my first 'Opponent slightly favored' game today, with the previous 3 games all being even matchups.
Great, that made total sense, give me a favored matchup after 2 losses. Oh well.


Game started off shittily, with him being annoying and blocking my expo with an Engineering Bay

I eventually expanded at 21, while my scouting Drone spotted a no gas build... and I was expecting him to Fast Expand actually. However, he had a 2nd Barracks hidden in the corner of his base!


My patrolling lings caught sight of his sizeable force of 6 marines 2 SCV force moving out

I was worried - because I haven't played a game of Pool -> Hatch in a long time, normally I do get my Hatch down before Pool, so my whole sequence was jumbled, so I wasn't quite familiar with defence. (or defense, however you spell it) (both are correct)

Lucky for me, several points led to my successful defence of this:
- He did not bunker for the longest time - SCVs and Marines were just shooting my Hatchery which is highly unproductive - if he had started his Bunker(s) immediately, I wouldn't have had enough to defend it
- Zergling Speed finished
- I had 2 Queens
- He moved his Marines up my ramp


This last point allowed me to get a semi-surround and with my Queen, I killed more or less half of his Marine force before he went off creep, and my lings easily cleaned up the rest of the marines streaming in and the late Bunker.

I followed this up with a round of Drones, while my speedlings moved out to get some scouting done.
He then commits yet another mistake:


Forgets to raise Supply Depot!

My lings see everything - his CC as well as his 3 barracks in construction

The mass marine /bunker defence is probably the easiest to break with a roach/bling bust, as compared to tanks, hellions, etc. Ok maybe marine/hellion is even easier actually, depending. With just pure marines, you can use lings to get a surround and blings to blow them up so.. yea.

Thus I decided to bust him and this time I started pumping units earlier because I wanted to hit earlier.

And now he makes yet another mistake which more or less seals the game for me:

He actually MOVES OUT with ALL his marines , probably to do a prod at my base as the typical Zerg would be droning up heavily at this point and may be caught unaware.
Unfortunately for him, this timing coincided perfectly when my Roaches were moving in to hit his base from the left, and my Banelings would soon follow.

He should have scanned my mineral line to get an idea of how many Drones I was making , before moving his entire army out!


Indeed, my Roaches/lings quickly took out the empty Bunker before his marines got back

Even with his marines back, his marine pack was no match for my Roach/Baneling army, and I cleaned his expo out while he tried to retreat into his base.


Managed to snipe his wall-in before his SCVs came over to abuse mass repair

My roaches marched in, and with mass lings and some roaches continually streaming in, he had to GG out.

And then of course, as you know, came the unexpected:



I am so happy now Going to take part in MASTERS CUP lololol. Am hoping I face Glade in the first round so i get knocked out fast (I don't expect to win anyway) . And at least if I get to play Glade, I get the experience of it!

Thank you everyone for your support all this while, I hope to continue to provide entertaining writeups of my ladder experiences in Master league! !

Thanks for reading!

As always, feel free to message me in-game as well at crAzerk.187 for a chat or a game! I'm always glad to talk to you about anything, strategy or otherwise. Don't mind games against any leagues too! (I can play an average Protoss off-race )

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Grats dude, you definitely earned it.

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Congrats. 10char

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

CONGRATS crAzerk, really enjoyed these bog posts so far, helped me know what zergs were thinking when I played against them.

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Congratulations!

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Thank you very much! You guys are awesome!! Really motivates me to keep writing.

@Lemminks haha damn that's not good Giving away information to the enemy! hehe

Anyway, since blog functionality don't allow for rep, if you are nice and kind and appreciate my effort so far, feel free to go to any of these links where I've started threads to +rep for me ! Entirely up to you! Really appreciate it!!

http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=1493 (Picture Wars)
http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=1455 (Zerg Scouting Miniguide)

Just hit the Heart button (and + rep of course, not minus )

So happy now hee sorry for my madness

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

btw i love the label road to masters from HotS

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Haha. I am really happy for you. Feels like I am in master. lol Good job.

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

How about road to grand masters? and then you can do road to code-A, then code-S. See you got tons of sequels

But awesome man, gratz! But dont get scared to ladder now that your in masters!

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

ahahaha u did our game thats so cool!! (ps. you are a noob ahaha (pps. i only said that cauz u said i should at the start of the game if i beat you

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Road to Masters (NA edition)

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Gratz!! U finally did it

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

@millionaire thanks! Do i get trial now? lolol

@LennX LOL I would love to do that, but I get some delay (0.5s) on NA so I cant play there :9

@kez - haha I'll get you next time

@daboo / silver Pharaoh - Hey thanks alot!! I'll keep the posts coming as long as you all keep the views coming!

@Fourby omg finally someone notices it (or notices and comments) !!! Thanks!! I love it very much too haha. Photoshopped out the words 'heart of the swarm' and added my own text

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Grats man ^_^
I hope I catch up in the not too distant future ;D
Having pictures as part of your blogs made them infinitely better to read as well, nice touch so as to not scare away the readers from a wall of text!

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Road to Grandmasters next!

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Haha big hearty well done to you SiR! knew you'd get it = D

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

Road to masters KR ^^

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

@meatex - Probably Road to Platinum there first :S

@TcaTX - A big hearty thanks to you sir! Appreciate it

@QuestionMark - haha unlikely, I aim high but not unrealistically I know so many good Masters players who are still, well, stuck in Masters. And also the activity requirement will make it impossible to maintain when my school term begins

@elimzke yupyup! If I was just writing for myself I would just use pure text. But because I know how as a reader, pictures make the reading experience that much easier and better, thus I take time to add pictures.
Good luck to you! Get out of bronze!

Re: Road to Masters (END?)
 

This is awesome, I've been reading for a little while and love it.

Congrats man.