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A lot of people know me as the long-winded analyst of the Tier 5 SEACL, but today I am going to write a bit about the new goal I have set for myself. I know there are a lot of blogs (especially after starting a new season) which state they are going to "Play 1 million games a day and never lose again and be GM by the final week of the season". Inevitibly, a lot of these people have the goal, but not the motivation or the plan to reach their goals, and will usually end their season with no change to their rank, and about 35 games won.

Background
As a bit of background, I am a terrible sc2 player. Starting in bronze as a protoss, and 2 immortal 2 stalker 2 zealot'ing my way to gold (I used immortals before they were cool), I then constantly changed races to what i thought was the most OP race. Eventually I have settled with terran. I like the pace at which the game is played, and I really dont mind the mid and late game macro. But it took me going through a whole heap of losses and raging to realise that I actually wanted to play terran.

So here I am, finally a marine heading into the scary world of actually trying to get better

Aside



The Goal and how I will get there

I am at my baseline as a low plat in sc2. I know that if I really want to get better, I need to really focus on the little things I do wrong. For example, I watched one of my replays the other day, and after watching my main for 15 mins and then my natural for 5 minutes, I had missed 14 scvs. at 33 minerals per minute, that is about 400 minerals per minute i am not getting! It is this type of criticial eye that I beleive it takes to get through your skill ceiling.

I have had my goal for a while - I hated being in gold and admitting that there were as many players better than me than there were worse than me. I was literally middle of the pack, in a game i absolutely loved and really REALLY wanted to be good at. But despite my love for it, all I could say was that I was average. I believe that you shouldnt make massive goals that are so far off, there needs to be a level of achieveability to your goals. So my goals were as follows:-

1. Get to plat by myself with whatever builds I am using, focus on macro and getting better before getting help (achieved)
2. When I have hit plat, get a coach and get to diamond

How I will do this:-
Play more, and play consistently - Starting season 6, I have been forcing myself to play 4 ladder or tournament games a day. As some people have pointed out to me, this may not be the "optimal" way to practice, as you should do 1 matchup on one map blah blah blah. But until I really have builds i want to do, or super solid plans for each matchup, what is the point?

I would rather have games every single day that I really REALLY want to win. I dont go into any tournament game or ladder game half hearted, I am 100% trying to win every single one. Nirvana said to me in chat that mass laddering isnt a good practice style if you aren't really thinking about what you're doing - and he is probably right. But this is working for me, and I have done it for all of season 6, and I am actually improving mechanically and at multi tasking.

4 games a day may not seem to much to your zvz and pvp players, but as a terran focusing on macro, all of my games for for 24min+. And I have a full time mind numbing job, so you have to work with what you have.



The second way to get to diamond is to get coaching, and it is this coaching that has made me take the time to write this entry.

Coaching First Impression: AsGChobo

After getting our times mixed up (my bad mate) and Chobo going on holidays, I had the pleasure of working with Chobo last night on my worst matchup. I am not going to tell you what he taught me, or builds etc (as these are his to teach), I want to talk about the approach he took.

Before the lesson, I had to email him answering the following queries:-

1) Your goals before the end of the season;
2) What difficulties you are having in each matchup; and
3) Where do you feel you improve the most.

By putting a time-limit on what you want to achieve, it makes you pick something specific. It isnt suddenly "I want to be good at starctaft", it makes you pick something by which you as a player will measure success at that particular point.

The second also made me focus critically on my own play, because it is very tough to respond to this question with what is said to friends on sc2 after a loss such as "terran stims herpa derp" etc etc, and for once you are in a calm mood while thinking about your play.

the third question is a sneaky one, becaue it makes you analyse your own play generally, and makes you respond with what your strengths are, and what your weaknesses are, without framing the question in that manner. you might say somethign like "my micro is really good, but in battles my multitasking and macro completely stop" - because obviously you want to improve somethign you see as a weakness. No-one would answer with "my maco is the best part of my game, I want to improve that".

The lesson then proceeded as planned, talking about his history with the game and him asking questions about me, my playstle and the responses to the email. And then he did something else which made me really happy, he looked at my goal, confirmed what i had written, then just said "that's pretty easy, we can do that". There is a massive difference between someone telling you "good luck" with your goal, to someone that says it is achievable. One gives you massive confidence - and this is the way the whole lesson went.

We didnt spend time with him teaching me a build and then me doing it over and over - he showed me the build, I took extensive notes and asked a heap of questions, then we spoke about the mid game and problems for this builds. It wasn't a "I will baby you" approach, it was a "you can do this, you have the skills" which was fantastic. Then we did a cheese build (for use at times when you are frustrated with the macro build, and need a break, but macro build is the one to focus on).

The lessons went for 40 minutes, and we will be doing 20 min replay analysis at the beginning of the next lesson, seeing the problems I have in a competitive environment with the builds and plans I have been shown.

So I have a few new builds for my present least favourite matchup. And I have someone coaching me that knows my goals, has a quick summary of my play-style and weaknesses, without ever having watched a game.

So as for first impressions: they are all good.

To those out there thinking of coaching, all you really need to think about is whether you have yet reached your skill ceiling, and whether you can answer the questions posed to me by AsGChobo. If yes to both, do it - the prices are so cheap compared to getting any service in Australia today. And if you really love it any want to get better, it is a small price to pay.

Volition Out