This was intended to be a small progress report but my journey to get to bronze was much shorter than expected. No doubt aided by my shortcomings as a player in a few of my placements, it took just over two dozen matches before I was consistently playing bronze players.
This process in itself was a journey of discovery and showed a surprising capacity for build improvement. When I think of delta formation I don't imagine too many players being more experienced at it than me, as when it comes to team games I practically coined the term and strategy. In solo games, though, there are a few differences. When I first started I was in full screen windowed mode and used my first action to construct an additional worker from the HQ building. The second action was to move my workers in the general direction to get them moving, before refining the path to mineral walk to the opponent's base (going close air first in the case of a 4p map). The worker in training would then be added to the convoy as I mineral walk to about a quarter way into their workers and then a-move.
This is what I would call a "high maintenance" delta formation execution and later incarnations of the build involved just sending the first workers on an a-move and not bothering with a 7th warrior. I also went in to windowed mode so I could read about salamanders on wikipedia but still keep an eye on the game when I needed to attack or stop my workers following a scout.
With my build order refined to perfection I went about the messy business of worker rushing game after game, making sure to be weel mannered with gg wp and gl hf. The great thing about the Korean server is you rarely play the same person twice at lower levels and you find games almost instantly. In this fashion I went through 10 games relatively quickly within the hour after completing the first blog with a 2-10 record. It was rough at first with a lot of losses to silver players who could have passed for high platinum on NA or SEA. Despite making no effort to strike up conversation with the players kicking my ass aside from the usual pleasantries, there were a few memorable exchanges.
Language is no barrier to good humour.
I had set the goal for myself to keep playing until I win 3 in a row with a worker rush, and then I would just disconnect the next games until I was down to 0 points so I didn't get promoted or anything silly like that. This would be the benchmark at which I'd start the real adventure. I thought there would be a real sense of achievement beating a Korean with a worker rush, but he was a lowly bronze player with around 20 APM (spiking to 35 when he got really mad) who had a-moved his scouting probe and scouted with his 7th worker. I was right - I felt like a man.
He scouted me half way and then rode out like Aragorn to meet me. Unfortunately you can't stutter step probes no matter how much you try with 20 APM and my a-move proved too powerful.
His folly that would prove his downfall was his scouting probe going out so early. With time to react so early he had the chance to thinik about what action he was going to take - big mistake. When a moonstar of this calibre is left in charge of tactics you get the strategic equivalent of an alleyway abortion. It was messy, he pulled 5 or so of his probes to meet my own between the ramp and his nexus while the rest continued mining - obviously planning for the late game that is so crucial after a successful probe rush. This meant my probes were in a better position to attack and he lost his one advantage in numbers. I cleaned him up pretty easily. If he had not scouted my reckless charge he might have a-moved with all of his workers at once and won easily.
Success! Makes you feel big beating casual players.
At this point I was curious about what level of player I was getting matched up against. They were still all in bronze or silver but like I said, some of the BSG players I have seen on the KR server have been impressive. While I crushed the player comfortably they weren't completely useless - even expanding! This of course meant I still had some work to do. The first hint that the first stage of my quest was nearing completion was when I was accused of cheating after a successful probe rush and a delayed game where he tried to lift off with his CC and 1 SCV to mine elsewhere. Despite playing in a way that my opponent described as "not play game like" I secured the victory, which would be followed quickly by similar such victories. Fortunately not every player on the server was as quick to anger as my good terran friend, and people were generally pretty accepting of their defeat.
Koreans: manner until the end
OK so part 1 of the adventure is already over - I have made my way to the dregs of the bronze league. While it was a tedious journey and probably produced a tedious if not boring read here this phase is behind us and we can move on to the good stuff after the TA retreat. It is already apparent that Korean silvers aren't as bad as other silvers that we know from SEA, such as TABottles. Thankfully there's been enough broken English to convince me I should get a few interesting conversations to share and my BM will not go unnoticed. See you in a week!
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