Plateaus

This is not the first time I've hit a plateau in my laddering / game play.  The first time it happened I was still in the Bronze League.  I was playing Zerg exclusively, they'd been my race in Brood Wars and they're the race that makes the most "sense" to me for whatever reason.

I don't know what the problem was, exactly, but the fix was to start playing Random.  Maybe I just didn't understand the other races well enough, or something, but once I started playing all 3 my overall wins increased a decent amount.  Enough to pop me quickly up into the Silver League and about 1/2 way up that ladder before I stalled again.

The second time was 100% economic.  My macro game just wasn't good enough.  I'd been so busy trying to get my hands around unit strategy, builds, etc, that I didn't have my hands around expanding concepts, building my drones and overseers (scvs and supply depots, probes and pylons) at the right time.  I made a few changes.  First, never build a building I can't always be producing out of, and always produce out of it.  Second, always be building a worker from every structure that can build one.  Third, keep an eye on my supply count and always stay just ahead.

I lost a few games, probably my first 6 in a row, after I made that change.  But eventually I started getting used to it.  I couldn't micro at all...I had to simply 1-A my units towards wherever I wanted them to go.  But over time I got used to macroing like that and was able to get back to playing the rest of the game.  More to the point, I won a lot of games.

Then I hit my 3rd plateau, at the top of Silver.  I was winning 3 of 4 games against other Silver Leaguers and losing 3 of 4 games against Gold Leaguers.  This is the one I never solved.  I ended up taking a break from the game for 5 or 6 weeks and started this blog when I came back.  I'm still not back up to the level I was then, but I'm getting there.

Clearly I need to change something.  I've been logging little rules here that will help.  Always have a plan, choose strategies that use units I'm comfortable with, etc, etc.  I just don't know if my problem is that I'm not keeping up with my rules and strategies well enough, or if I need another whole paradigm shift in the way I approach / play.

The most important thing, of course, is that I continue to have fun.  Which is partly why I still play Random.  Terran is my best race, I don't have stats but I'd be willing to bet I have the highest win ratio as them.  Then Zerg, which is the race I'm most comfortable as and finally Protoss which I pretty much suck at.  But keeping that level of variety in the game helps it to stay...fun.  If I was constantly churning out the same 2-3 strategies with the same units I'd be bored to tears and probably frustrated to boot.  Sure, I could practice my Protoss and 4-warpgate rush my way to Gold or even Diamond, but I have no interest in that.  I'd much rather stay Silver and have fun.

Just as long as I felt like I was learning.

1.3 rolled out to the servers today, which I think everyone was expecting.  This patch locks me into Silver for the rest of Season 1, so now I have a week or so to play through my remaining Bonus Pool and try to secure my place in the top 8 of my Silver League.  I think I'm 6 or 7 right now, and most of the players in the top 15 haven't played in weeks...we'll see if the patch brings anyone back or sees other players shooting up through the League.  Hopefully I can secure my place in the top 8, though.  We'll see....