A little bit of background for anyone that doesn't know me. My name is Jared Krensel and I'm a full-time SC2 progamer (zerg) from Sydney, Australia playing for Tt eSPORTS.
Back to the old conundrum, didn't train very hard today so was meant to play atleast 15 games tonight only to find myself getting ~500ping to SEA.
Wow. F*** you you F***ing piece of sh***.
So I'll eat pizza and write a blog to amuse myself. I enjoyed Dippa's blog so much that I will copy his idea of mixing random videos and songs in to make my random ramblings more interesting.
Stallion linked that in clan aLt chat and it made me laugh:
Anyone else get goosebumps every single time they watch the scene where Simba's in the canyon and the stampede starts charging down... oh I'll just embed it too:
Anyways. Training has been fun of late. I've been making more higher level practice partners on the Korean server and hovering around top 8 masters. The main improvement has been my ZvT where I actually can read into T production and timings really well now and am dominating the matchup really well. I still think straightup rushing to lingfestor as a standard build is bad but hey if you make it work as well as Tgun does then... all I can say is it's not for me. Meanwhile my win rate going through the roof with this and I've really refined my zero scouting play DRG style with a fast ling speed for safety and good knowledge of marine-counting, drone-checking for the 1 rax expo and gas counting with overlords.
Anyone remember the Gran Turismo 2 intro video with this song? So awesome.
My ZvP has been steadily getting a little more refined. I feel my next step with it is knowing when I can just safely walk an overlord through my opponent's base in the earlygame to spot for early timings and tech. Also I need to learn to defend that 3rd on entombed valley, bloody rocks keep making me take way too much damage from zealot stalker harass. I think I just need to overproduce lings especially on that map and shut it down so i can go back to droning.
My ZvZ is a bit random. Basically I'm just not focusing on it and whenever I don't focus on it it goes to crap. My mechanics and knowledge get me by but basically I just lose to being slightly too greedy or mis-positioning a little. Nothing worrying really I still feel if I practice enough especially my fast 3rd builds I can beat any zerg player in the mid and lategame. I'm just a little sick of the matchup, if you've ever seen the bracket to a SEA tourney you wouldn't blame me.
Randomly thought of this song and it brought back memories..
Well, I'm kinda getting bored of typing now and want to check if my nets doing any better.
I guess I'll update you on my tournaments before I go.
I made it to the ro8 in Playhem today only to lose to GoldenLight (formerly SlayerS). Taldarim first map and his overlord scouted me first so he snuck some banelings and despite my solid micro once on the defensive in ling-bane wars 1 base vs 1 base, you're pretty screwed on this map because you can't get creep to your...nonexistant ramp. Eventually he kept just trading evenly until the splash killed my hatchery and I had to gg. Game 2 he did a 1-base lingbane bust which I thought I was holding fine with mass spines and queen block until I realised I forgot a 3rd queen or my own defensive banelings. Normally people try to expand before it gets that far but he just sniped all the spines within transfuse range of my ramp (Cloud kingdom so not much room). And took down my hatch. The game reset to about even but his ling harass got me into a defensive mindset and I neglected scouting and went super greedy straight teching up only to die to a roach-bane timing . I suppose the ~200ping versus him in a NA teamhouse in Seattle didn't help either, but I could have played game 2 better decision-wise so, lesson learnt.
ACL qualifiers: First one I won my group and couldn't be bothered playing Sunday so forfeited. Last one I lost my first set just after waking up to Myuu. Game 1 I was in a slight lead and then as my lair was finishing up and i went to overseer scout, I realised I misclicked and my lair never started. So I had to wait another 60s, during which time I didn't take precaution against mutas, and so was caught completely offguard and took way too many drone losses to get back in it. Game 2 we both went 1 base lingbane and crossed seperate paths of metalopalis. I made the mistake of turning back to defend and lost straightup. I then dropped a single map to both danmate and sensei so despite going 3-1 ended up behind myuu on map score and didn't go through. erk. Means I need to pwn this sunday at Cityhunter to ensure my seed into the pro bracket. I plan to win it so should be fine.
I'm in the poll for this tournament and it will be an awesome opportunity to prove myself if I get voted in. Help me out by voting please
Thanks for reading the blog guys hope it amused. My twitter and facebook and stream are in my signature so check em out if you wanna see more of my play etc.
I take full credit for they call me mr pig. Linked that in crux chat and then stallion's like, it should be pigs intro song.
IMO someone should post that in the onog invitational thread. Ez votes. Good read though, yeah zvz is stupid. No hate on ling infestor though pig, it's really strong, I mean even drg and idra (both known for their muta play) have been doing it a bit recently and to be honest it's been doing quite well. Then for zvp zealot stalker is stupid, pool hatch hatch is like imba and then they go zealot stalker and you have like 30 drones and u just die...
Anyways, you should definitely try and learn the fast third, I have got a lot of it under control (for my level) and wow it's actually amazing. You just roll through everything and it even means that infestors are actually incredibly easy to beat mutas with. Watching stephano play zvz just makes the matchup much easier for me (in that he doesn't really scout so everything he does works independent of my scouting, to an extent). Allowing him to do different ling pressures whilst droning, expanding, aggresively scouting and staying safe(if you can call it safe in zvz).
I still think straightup rushing to lingfestor as a standard build is bad but hey if you make it work as well as Tgun does then... all I can say is it's not for me.
Anyways, you should definitely try and learn the fast third, I have got a lot of it under control (for my level) and wow it's actually amazing. You just roll through everything and it even means that infestors are actually incredibly easy to beat mutas with. Watching stephano play zvz just makes the matchup much easier for me (in that he doesn't really scout so everything he does works independent of my scouting, to an extent). Allowing him to do different ling pressures whilst droning, expanding, aggresively scouting and staying safe(if you can call it safe in zvz).
Yeah it's not 100% solid, simply because nothing is in zvz but it's very close to it. I never thought of going mutas off a fast 3rd as you need roaches to get out of lingbane wars otherwise the korean always wins cos it's pure micro wars. So roach-hydra, or straight to roach-infestor if you feel you have enough room works just fine and normally if I get that base up I can't lose. I remember Sen had a slight lead on me one game but once my 3rd was up I just out-controlled him and then ended up losing because I forgot macro hatches, mistake I don't make anymore!
Haha yeah I haven't had the pleasure of watching Stephano play zvz much but would love to learn off it. lingbane and ling pressure is definitely the best scouting and I've been doing it more and more lately. Especially with a fast 3rd u have to start just suiciding lingbane onto opponent to keep the pressure up.
Hopefully in a few weeks I'm not as sick of ZvZ and can refine this more :P
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