SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

We suck at this game
 

It is pretty late and I am very sleepy so I'll try to make this as brief as possible.

Grubby Interview


I was watching this interview of Grubby at MLG earlier today(above). Grubby talked (starting about 7:10)about how our brains all have the capacity to improve rapidly but only do so based on "the competition out there". Combined with the fact that I felt pretty average during MLG Dallas, and one of our best players in Pig exposing exactly how bad we are on his blog the other day, I feel like we really need a kick up our butt.

I know it isn't our fault that we are extremely jeopardised by our population/internet/E-Sport infrastructure and development. But the reality is that we are pretty behind in skill level compared to NA and Europe, and especially Korea. I know this isn't going to change anytime soon and I'm really not interested in people telling me reasons of why we suck, because I've heard our excuses one million times, legit or not. I'm saying **** em, we need to realise just how bad (I'm using the word comparatively, don't get offended) we are, and that it is time to really push ourselves and each other against the very best, and against the odds.

I'm talking about anaylsing replays like Rossi, grinding at the toughest league like mG/Ninja, play-out scrappy games like YYJ/Tgun, developing strategies like myself, study your opponents like Targa, analysing your own weaknesses like Mafia, learn/practice good/efficient habits/mechanics and removing bad habits from your game like Pig. PLAY STARCRAFT ON YOUR BIRTHDAY LIKE IAGUZ


My personal subjective opinion of where the StarCraft II skill hierarchy is at it's current state:

S Class players:
GSL Code S players
Majority of the Kespa players
Some strong Korean players that are currently not in GSL Code S
Stephano

S/A Class player line - Naniwa/Scarlett

A Class players:
Top tier foreigner players
Majority of professional players in team houses either in Code A or Code B.
MoonGlade/Targa
Korean GMs

A/B Class player line - Mafia/Pig

B Class players:
Top tier SEA players (I put myself here)
High Korean Masters (At least top 200)
2nd Tier foreigner players
NA GMs

C Class players:
SEA GMs
Mid-High NA Masters


Competition in StarCraft II is amazingly steep and fluctuant - Players are jumping up and down classes constantly. e.g. MoonGlade completely separated himself from the rest of SEA in between the time of WCS and MLG to move up to a A Class player. Even if your Life, MVP or Rain, you still need to watch your back, because the competition is constantly pushing everyone to get better and better. Let us SEAsians constantly remind each other how low we reside in the hierarchy in-order to drive each other to get better and better. There is no time for ego and wasting time being mad from losing to something/someone you obviously aren't prepared enough for. No more excuses such as "I'm talented but I just don't play" "He/I hit his/my skill-ceiling". SIMPLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

I know the biggest issue here is time. But if want to get better, we can't be wasting any, because the Koreans are improving at a rate of 10 hours/7 days a week.

I'm actually much of a fan of positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement(by calling ourselves shit). But we need to get our heads out of our asses and not be content from how good we think we are. Let's not get left behind!

Rayray


P.S For all you unemployed StarCraft II players out there - If my tax dollars is paying for your fortnightly CENTRELINK CHEQUE and 4AM TUESDAY GARBAGE COLLECTION, the least you can do is... GET BETTER AT THIS GAME! Thank you

Re: We suck at this game
 

Great blog and I agree 100%.

Re: We suck at this game
 

Completely agree. Being good in SEA is good but compared to everyone else out there there's a long way to go. This is very important to realise and keep reminding yourself, especially if you want a pro career in starcraft.

How you go about dealing with this "thinking" is also important. Though it sounds a bit of a downer it can easily be used to motivate you even more. That is, don't aim to be competitive in SEA only. Aim to be competitive on a world stage.

Re: We suck at this game
 

Hahhaha "for all you unemployed players" - Light get's all Andrew Bolt on us

Still, good post. We're a small pond

Re: We suck at this game
 

huzzah i made a class!

Re: We suck at this game
 

Let's get good. Time to play some games.

Re: We suck at this game
 

I'm going to play in the BSG tomorrow and every game I play I'm going to type in caps "GLHF THIS IS FOR RAYRAY!"

Very good post though, pump it up guys you(sea high level players) can all catch up e z!

Re: We suck at this game
 

I agree Light, less 'OMG REST OF THE WORLD DOESN'T SEE HOW GREAT OUR PLAYERS ARE' and more training.

Glade is the only player to have any international success, until that changes, train harder, play smarter and get better at the game.

Re: We suck at this game
 

******* every day is iaguz's birthday

Re: We suck at this game
 

I think most of us in SEA with a competitive mindset knew this but it was never put into such clear words.

Truly thank you for this. Amazing blog. I hope this lights a lot of the dimmed fires~

Re: We suck at this game
 

I would rank tgun above Mafia and PiG. Mafia and PiG have better ZvZ, but have never beaten such great players as Creator (twice!) in a tournament environment. tgun's ZvP is pretty even with them, but tgun is more creative, and I don't see how anyone could argue for Mafia or PiG having better ZvT than tgun.

Of course, this is all from a spectator's point of view. Our scene is unique in that if I make this post there are like 10 pros who can instantly reply with their educated point of view from having played all three.

Re: We suck at this game
 

it's hard to rate their ZvT's, pig glade mafia tgun basically stomp the ballsacks off all of us regularly. I guess mafias thrown a few more series then the others recently but eh.......

Re: We suck at this game
 

At least you have a girlfriend

Re: We suck at this game
 

Good blog man yeah I agree it's important to keep pressing to get better! Our scene has shown massive improvement and it shouldn't stop here. All the beta NA players that got famous, almost all have disappeared because they never trained hard enough to keep up with european and korean progamers and seemed happy to be "the best player in colorado" or whatever :P. Let's keep working hard and really develop ourselves at this game!

Btw when I was saying we're crap, I meant to some extent Korean progamers are crap too. We still have players like Life and Leenock who come out and make all the other code S zergs look horribly bad in comparison and that's what I mean when I say we're all trash. There's so many new styles and builds to explore. There's so many mechanics, harass and multitasking that can be pushed further and further and so people should always be wary of absolutes in our understanding.

"thors are trash vs broodlords" "infestor-ling is bad vs mech" etc etc. are all good rules, but we have to remember that in a game as complex as Starcraft these ideas can change and revolve constantly. Most importantly is timing and it's something the language even of progamers rarely touches on. We say "this is bad vs X" but honestly it's, "this is bad vs X at 6:30 if he has 12 X and you only have 4 Y"

Every unit has its usefulness and even something as crap in long-term as hydralisks can be used to massive effect (bly, snute etc). This doesn't make the unit all-in or stupid or bad. It means it has a niche usefulness and is not a remedy to all situations, and hence should only be used in tightly refined builds unlike something like infestors which can adapt to all situations.

Our mindsets are what will take us to the next level and we have to learn to play the game fluidly. Transitions, positioning, counterattacks and proper understanding of timing are something we all need to work on. They are what seperate us from the Koreans at the moment.

Nice blog Rayray

Re: We suck at this game
 

Soundwave, rankings are based on results and individual perspective.
I could care less if you have the best TvZ TvP TvT in the world, if you ain't showing them off in tournaments you ain't nobody.

I'm a bigger fan of Tgun than you ever will be (yeah bring it). But I'm going to whole-heartedly disagree with putting him above Pig and Mafia just based on recent results.

Re: We suck at this game
 

I didn't base it off recent results, I based it off consistency and what I have observed from the various SEA and non SEA tournaments (ALL TIME!) the boyz have played in.

Re: We suck at this game
 

Well if you talking ALL-TIME then no one is better then Legionnaire here, this is why I included "current-state". Regardless I have no intention of debating this any further with you, this wasn't what the blog was about. Stick to the main topic.

Re: We suck at this game
 

Really interesting post Light, though it is obviously aimed at those already in GM or Masters. I wonder if part of the problem is the difficulty in having SEA players get to tournaments?

I mean I've certainly started to play more. at the moment I play between 10-15 games per day. But I hope to increase that soon. I don't think I'll ever make it to the Lvl of SEA GMs but I can always dream.