Ladder's locked..

But I can still practice with the new units.

Before the Replay:

Booya!  I've modified my TvT opening to be Barracks, Factory, then more Barracks into early pressure and a second expand.

It worked fantastically.  That free siege mode is all the justification I need to go early tanks.  He had a widow mine that did some good damage and ultimately defended against my first push, but it more than paid for itself in his units lost compared to mine and it let me get my second up super safe.

I got more macro going, started a third, threw down some structures for upgrades and pushed with basically the same comp and ended the game.


After the Replay:

I moved out at the 7:15 mark with 50 supply compared to his 28 supply.  6 of that lead was in workers. That makes me feel good.

Watching the replay I was just getting everything a little faster than him.  When he finally finished defending the push at 11 minutes I had 67 supply to his 25.

+ 48 Points, Bronze League Division Rank 48, Remaining Bonus Pool 612

Heart of the Swarm!

First ranked game of Heart of the Swarm.  Played a little in the beta, played the campaign and I've played vs the computer for a while.  Finally time to try vs real people.  Let's see how it goes, first Ranked match.

And I win!

Before the Replay:

I didn't play very aggressively   I pushed once sorta early with 3 Zealots at the front and my Mothership Core at the back.  I think I got a few SCVs and did some damage to his front Supply Depots, but that was it.

Otherwise I sat back, micro'd, tech'd and just tried to keep vision on the map.  He pushed and I stopped it.  He pushed again and I stopped it again.  As I was moving out to take my 3rd, he left the game.  No GL HF at the beginning or GG at the end.  Looking at his profile, I think he was also playing his placement matches.

After the Replay:

I probably could have kept hitting him hard.  When I moved out with my Mothership Core and 3 Zealots from 1 Gateway he'd only managed to produce 2 Marines from 2 Barracks.  I suppose scouting would have helped me identify that sooner.

He never checked the watchtowers  I held them without contest all game and his income was terrible, never built an Orbital or even Muled.  Not really much of a contest I guess.

1 Win, 4 Placement Matches to go

Edit: Actually he did eventually make an Orbital.  But he really didn't Mule and he didn't expand.  He also stopped building SCVs around 23.  He did do a better job of keeping his money low than I did, though.

Random = Protoss Again + mini meltdown

Before Replay:

Because, of course, I can't seem to improve at it, I rolled Protoss again.

I really thought I had been improving, with all the games I was playing, but clearly not.  Tonight is teaching me that I was waaaaaaay wrong.

PvZ, he just did his own thing and built to Broodlords and kicked my ass.  I thought I had a big enough upgraded enough army to deal with the massive Broodlords / Infestors what with all my Carriers, Zealots and Stalkers who got right up under there and tried to deal with it.  But I was way wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong.

So what should I have done?  Quit when I saw I was Protoss?

The problem with Protoss is I feel like I can't harass.  Not that *Protoss* can't harass.  That I can't.  That I can't make good enough use of the units to harass effectively.

He killed all my probes too...I don't know what happened to them all but suddenly I didn't have any.

I'm getting super ragey here so clearly I'm done for the night.

After the Replay:

Something I know before I start the replay - I wasn't making very good use of my money.  Of course.  Should I be more aggressive with my Zealots?  I can't seem to balance out when I have gas and when I have minerals.  I *understand* what I was doing before, but suddenly can't recreate it tonight.

I was sooo high on minerals but couldn't get gas.  Suddenly I had nothing but gas and no minerals.  I can't seem to build the right units and predict.  Maybe I just don't have the right mindset right now.  Or maybe I'm just getting so off tilt when I see I've spawned Protoss again that I can't think straight.

It's interesting because, with Protoss, I feel like I can't win.  I should qualify that I guess..

With Protoss, I feel like every decision I make is the wrong one.  If I choose to be agressive with my early units, I shouldn't have because he built a lot of Lings and by the time I find out, my units are dead and he's in my base.  If I play conservative then I should have been more agressive.  If I scout and he's conservative, he suddenly builds a bunch of Lings, and if I scout and he's got a lot of units then I spend money building for defense of an attack that never comes.

You know, if I want to harass I should just fucking harass.  I did some DT play but I couldn't get them in the main.  I never bothered to watch to see why, but he had a bunch of Spine Crawlers and Overseers there.  If I'd dropped a few DTs in the back his Greater Spire would have been gone in no time.

My style is tech switching, harassment and large scale production of units.  I know that's mostly geared towards Zerg but I've been able to make it work in other match-ups.  I just have to get my head out of my ass and be willing to make it work.

Nothing I didn't already know in the replay.  I had plenty of great vision on him, I just didn't realize that his army would so cleanly destroy mine the way it did.  Once again I find myself wishing my friends still played SC2..it'd be nice to have some friends to play and practice with.  But like many other games, my friends all like games I'm not a huge fan of and they generally aren't interested in playing the games I enjoy.  Board and card games tend to fall into this category too.

- 10 Points, Silver League Division Rank 15, Remaining Bonus Pool 101

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=273257

Well, at least I wasn't Protoss...

Before Replay:

I don't really know how to play TvP.  I hate Mech, I mean I really hate it.  I like my Siege Tanks but I can't stand to go mass Siege Tanks and I don't like to go with a Cloaked Banshee rush and I cannot do enough damage with early Hellions to justify it.

So I don't know what to do with TvP because if I move out quickly, I'll just get run over.  If I wait and let him do what he wants, I'll get run over.  If I try to harass, he's faster than I am and more able to split his units.

So instead I lose.

After the Replay:

Nothing really surprising here.  I never stood a chance, he had me beat from minute one.

Maybe I should try turtling up and going Thor?

Absolutely nothing of value in the replay other than reiteration of the fact that I had no idea what I was doing and no chance from start to finish.

- 7 Points, Silver League Division Rank 14, Remaining Bonus Pool 111

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=273214

Proxied!

TvP.  I quickly scanned his base to check for cheese and saw no buildings   No pylons, nothing but his Nexus, Assimilators and Probes.

So I assumed he was building near me.  I sent a marine to scout it out a bit, not wanting to over react, he did and didn't find anything.  I continued with my build to get some banshees up and a decent ground army.

Soon I spotted a pylon.  Okay, so maybe he just did a single pylon proxy?  I went to investigate and my Marine found a large group of Stalkers.

Game was soon over and his Stalkers charged my ramp and could do nothing about it.

Lesson learned.  I'm going to stick with a modified version of my TvT opening for TvP.  Get a lot of units up, focus on core upgrades, be prepared.

- 12 Points, Silver League Division Rank 16, Remaining Bonus Pool 20

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=272300

"gg, gtg, wp"

TvT, we exchanged Marine armies a few times when I got too agressive, he came out ahead each time. Eventually he pushed me back to my base.  He finally tried to push in with his Siege Tanks, I defended and he gg'd out saying he had to go.

On watching the replay, I was in a lot better shape than I realized.  He slowed down on making SCVs a few times where I stayed reasonably steady.  He didn't really get upgrades where I had 1/1 and was working on 2/1.  I also had STIM and Combat Shields where, again, he had none.

And the places where he came out ahead (aka where I sacrificed my marines for no perceptible gain) he didn't really have much left over either.

+ 28 Points, Silver League Division Rank 20, Remaining Bonus Pool 15

http://drop.sc/257551

Hooray, a win! =)

TvT, I kept up some moderately agressive acts early in the game to put pressure on him and make him feel pinned back.  I got a little greedy and threw away the advantage that I had gained, but it wasn't a monumental loss.

Ultimately I won because I had better map control and used it well.  He kept trying to move around and drop but I was able to see it coming and get my Marines into position quick enough and he eventually just quit.

I got supply blocked...not a lot, but a good number of times.  Certainly more than I wanted to.  So I need to keep focusing on that.

+ 46 Points, Silver League Division Rank 26, Remaining Bonus Pool 13

http://drop.sc/256240

Rinse, Repeat

Continuing with the goal from yesterday.  Keep producing, don't get supply blocked, keep my money low.

...

Loss.  I didn't expand.  I didn't built more hatcheries.  I didn't keep my income low once things started happening.  I didn't contain my opponent or harass hard enough.  I let him build up his mech and simply roll me while I kept getting supply blocked.

- 9 Points, Silver League Division Rank 29, Remaining Bonus Pool 21

http://drop.sc/254590

First match of the new season

Let's see how I do.  Hoping to get reset in the ladder a little given my lack of recent practice.

...

I got rolled SERIOUSLY hard.  Zerg who just went to town on me.  I wasn't able to touch him, ever.  Couldn't put any pressure on him, couldn't get to his base much less in it.  I was outclassed and totally outplayed in every sense of the word.

Very frustrating game on top of that.  The whole game it felt like I couldn't do anything.  I had no way to win..everytime I tried to deploy anything it got shut down.  Anytime I tried to expand or move my troops out they got slaughtered.

Frustrating.

Placed in Silver League, so at least that's something I guess.  I need to play more.

- 0 points, Silver League Division Rank 26, Remaining Bonus Pool 40

http://drop.sc/253870

4 placement matches to go, let's see if I can do better.

This one I won.  TvZ on Daybreak, first time on this map as well I believe.  He was super passive which gave me all day long to get comfortable.  I pushed out a few times and had medium success.  Lost more troops early than I should have because I got over agressive.

He never did a good job of out mining me though, or really teching too much.  Just did roach / hydra / infestor which was effective enough but eventually he fell to my endless supply of Marines.

Anyway a win is a win, helps to get the rust off.  3 placement matches to go!

http://drop.sc/197521