ESL Bronze/Silver Cup #84!

So I played tonight in the ESL Bronze/Silver Cup, and did surprisingly better than I had expected!

I made it to the Quarter Finals just to be cheesed, which I really should have defeated.. I noobed myself with poor micro defense and decision making.. booo... oh well, next week my goal is the Semis!!

Below you can find all my replays from the tournament::

::: Round 1 :::

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=167632

::: Round 2 :::

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=167628

::: Round 3 :::

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=167630

::: Quarter Final :::

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=167622

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=167623

Enjoy!

A little update!

So I made the switch back to Zerg, and man does it feel good!! I've won like 10 of my last 13 games and am now facing Platinum players! ^_^

My play is getting stronger and stronger and I now also have a new Protoss practice partner in Heathen; a follower of the blog! Many thanks to you for the help, I hope we can help each others play a lot!

I'm gonna play a tonne this weekend, and depending on what division i'm in on Sunday morning, will be entering the ESL divisional Cup for Sunday evening.

Zerg fighting!!

To Zerg or not to Zerg?

So recently I switched to Terran as I felt the race favoured my playstyle of constant harass; however, I feel like I'm not having as much fun playing with them, especially when I lose...

The thoughts running around my head are telling me I should switch back to Zerg - the beauty of seeing 100 zerglings rush into the enemy base, or 4 overlords carpet bombing the enemy with banelings is something that neither Protoss nor Terran will ever be able to achieve for me..

I have a US and an EU account, so perhaps I will play Terran on my US account (which today I finished placement and got into Gold!! [shows a massive improvement in my play :D]), and I might switch back to Zerg on my EU account... hmmmm...

If anyone wants to practice, although I'm in Silver on EU, I am definitely worthy of being higher; you can add me on Battle.Net:

Both my US and EU account have the same name and ID# which is.... :

SeGi - #192


Please feel free to add me, I could do with all the practice and guidance I can possibly receive in my eternal quest to one day compete in the top tournaments!

Think of me as the new European Hyungjoon ;)

The return & The promotion!

So the past 6 weeks has been soooo busy for me with my final year of University and applying for graduate careers meaning I haven't been able to concentrate fully on my SC'ing.

Nevertheless, I was determined to learn more about StarCraft and have done so simply through watching streamed pro play; GSL, MLG, Go4SC2 etc etc.

I also switched to Terran in the latest patch, largely due to my new found preference in controlling when the first attack will take place, and being able to harass in so many different ways.

So; my journey has been hotting up over the past 3 days; I've been able to play quite a lot and wait for.... have FINALLY been promoted out of Bronze :D

My request to whatever readers I have now - can you observe my replays and let me know how YOU think I'm doing?

This blog is as much about your interactivity as it is watching my progress through the ranks, and obviously any advice aids me in progressing further!

Below is my last match in Bronze - a TvT where I endlessly harassed with drops; something which seemed to work a LOT better for me than going straight up Viking/Tank etc

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&id=164130

A further question - how far do you think I can go?

I'm 21, a student, an ex-pro FPS player, and am dedicated.

Much love,

SeGi

Gaming gear

A little off topic from the blog title, but i'd just like to take a moment to show real appreciation to the gaming gear I have switched over to in the past 6 months.

Firstly, the SteelSeries 7G keyboard. Wow, is this an awesome keyboard, you get a real feel for every key press and the keys seem to fit so well to my fingertips.
At over £100 this keyboard isn't for everyone, but coming from a highly competitive FPS scene where I used a Razer Arctosa for a long time, I can certainly feel the difference in quality and feel much more accurate and responsive with every keystroke I make.

Sticking with SteelSeries I have purchased 2 more of their products recently..
We'll start off with the SteelSeries S&S Mousepad; this is a true gamers mousepad, and if you have a high quality gaming mouse, it is essential to back it up with a good mousepad.
From what i've read, the durability of this pad is simply amazing, and the way my mouse glides across it yet maintains such a high level of accuracy is unparalleled with anything else i've ever tried; this product retails at around £20 for the Solo version (doesn't include a carry case) and is worth every penny.
Next SS product, and the most recent one I've purchased (arrived today!!) is my SteelSeries Siberia In-Ear Headset. In-Ear? You ask, yes indeed. I wanted a quality set of earphones for my ipod but which could also be used for gaming on my PC when I wear my glasses instead of contact lenses. The reason for this is that I have a pair of Turtle Beach X41 headphones which I use for intense gaming on my Xbox/PC but when wearing my glasses I get an aching pain where pressure is put on the arms pressing into and around my ears, and so we have the Siberia In-Ear Headset.

Sound quality so far seems amazing, noise cancelling is top-notch, I can't even hear myself typing on my SS 7G, which is fairly loud as it's a mechanical keyboard!
Another bonus with this headset (which actually classes it as a headset) is that it comes with a seperate microphone, inclusive of a clothing clip so you can clip it to the collar of your tshirt and won't even know it's there! I'm yet to test this, but will soon be using it when getting into streaming my SC2 experience.

Finally we have the integral part to my PC gaming - my Razer Imperator. A simply amazing mouse that is so smooth and versatile and fits so so SO well for anyone who uses a Palm grip with there mouse. It's packed with features, including on-the-fly DPI adjustment ranging from as low as you want, right up to 5600 DPI (this is quite insane though), I have found that 3000-4000 does perfectly, especially for SC2.

Any further questions about any of these products feel free to drop me a comment!

Seems like I should be some sort of SteelSeries representative! Haha..

Back to laddering!

/curzed

Back for Business!

After an unfortunate amount of time being busy in real life (work etc) I am now back for a very hardcore weekend of a minimum 12 hours a day playing.

I'm currently stumped as to what race to play though - after a lot of watching replays / reading things on TL.net I quite like the look of Terran play... not because it might be "OP" or easy to play, but I like the idea of medivac drops and kiting with Marauders..


Anyhow, I just played my first game in like 4 days and wow am I rusty!! My hands are so slow!!

As before, if you'd like some low-level practice games with me I am available on EU @ CurZed.782 and now also available on the US servers @ Glow.263

Please, if you add me, leave your name & character code in the comments below!

Want to help / train with me?

Hi to any followers out there!

If anyone would like to add me ingame, whether it is to help me, or to train alongside me as a fellow RTS-tard, my ID is CurZed and code is 782 and I am on the EU servers.


On a side note, I have been recently winning ALOT more of my ladder games, mostly due to massively improved macro; as Day9 says, smoothness is key, and i'm slowly smoothing out my play and realising how important it is to leading to potential wins.

I shall be massing games tonight hopefully in order to move up a league or 2, we shall see!!

Training ---> Action !

For those who read my first blog entry, this will be showing my progression from the lowly Bronze league up to hopefully Tournament level..

Over the past couple of weeks I have been studying SC mechanics a hell of a lot; i've been watching tonnes of Day9 Dailies, reading up on loads of strats and making sure my metagame is up to scratch.

Roughly 2 weeks ago when I first bought the game, I rushed straight into vs AI, and after managing to just about win on Hard I decided i'd jump into Online play..

Needless to say I got roflstomped.

My macro sucked, my timing sucked, everything about my play sucked.

2 weeks down the line we get to where I am now. Over this 2 week period I decided to not play online, however to simply play vs AI, but to concentrate on single aspects of my game to improve them..

From the simple tasks such as continuous worker production to knowing when to expand I practiced everyday vs AI.

I have just come out of my first ladder match after the 2 week break, and needless to say the training certainly has paid off.



Above is the replay of my first ladder match in 2 weeks.

Please, any further help will be appreciated, no matter how hard you are. I am still in bronze; on the large scale of things, I do still suck, I just need to know exactly where to tighten up, and how you think i'm doing as a complete RTS-tard!

Cheers and I hope you continue reading!

Day[9] TV

I'd just like to dedicate this post to Day[9] and his awesome netcast. As a new player, his videos have become an invaluable source of information to me and I would urge any new player to study and watch them as soon as you have a grasp on the very basics of the game.

You can reach his videos by visiting:

Blip.tv (all his videos are hosted here) - http://day9tv.blip.tv
Youtube (new, doesn't contain everything) - http://www.youtube.com/day9tv
Live Stream - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/day9tv
TeamLiquid Archive - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=104154

Also follow him on Twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/day9tv

I seriously can not push the fact of how informative his videos are anymore - as a low level player I have been through all of his lower level play analysis and have been able to observe where I specifically need to work on.

Once your level of play progresses, he regularly analyses replays of the top players in SC2, this allows you to be able to practice imitation, and in turn, progress to potentially a top Diamond level player and possibly even further into a tournament level player.. the possibilities are endless.

So once more, I huge shout and massive thanks to Day[9] for creating such amazingly informative videos. Keep it up!

Into the storm!

After seriously sucking in my 5 placement matches (winning 2 out of 5) I have been placed in the Bronze league - for those of you that don't already know, this is the lowest league...

Before we get started I will let you in on what I play.

I decided upon playing Protoss as the units are awesome, and the builds seem really strong - none of this matters though if you suck at the game like I do!

In my placement matches I only really had one build that I knew (I figure now that perhaps I should have played more, or even all my games in the 50 match Practice league!), the build I attempted to orchestrate game after game was the 4 warpgate push using a proxy pylon - newer players amongst those of you reading may be super confused right now with all that jargon; basically this build incorporates 4 gateways morphed into warpgates once technology has been upgraded from a cybernetics core, and pumping units often to a proxy pylon - a proxy pylon is a solo pylon placed way outside your main base, as close as you can to the enemy base, in order to get units out and attacking as quickly as possible.

Now the reason I lost so much with this build isn't really because it sucks loads - it's pretty much due to my terrible terrible macro / micro abilities and my timing failures.

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&id=137199

The above replay is my epic failure to 4 gate push, and in turn I got rushed by 2 standard gateways pumping out early zealots - yay!

For now, I must work work and work some more on my basic macro, micro & timing!

- CurZed

The Beginning

Hello gamers and welcome to my blog!

This blog will be outlining my journey from the ultimate StarCraft 2 "noob", hopefully into the realms of real competitive gaming, and will outline how well I am progressing and through methods I find work best.

Before StarCraft 2 I had never really played Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games; I was more of an FPS and MMORPG player - FPS which I had played very competitively at an early age in my life (Medal of Honor: Allied Assault back in the days!)

Before I purchased SC2 I decided to install my copy of SC: Brood War which I have had sitting in a drawer for about 9 years! Needless to say I sucked at even beating the computer AI!!

This lead me to researching pro gaming in StarCraft, and how pro gamers play, their different styles, as well as generally researching the game and its mechanics. I quickly stumbled upon Liquipedia (http://www.liquipedia.net) - an extremely resourceful website ran by Team Liquid.
The site contains an astonishing amount of information about the first StarCraft - ranging from biographys of famous players, to different build orders for different races and different matchups (confused? we'll come onto that in a later post!)

And so this blog has been created - documenting my personal challenge, from being the complete anti-RTS player who really struggles at multi-tasking different units in a game whilst continuing to produce buildings and expand his base - into what hopefully will be a player who will be recognised within the StarCraft 2 community and who competes in various competitive tournaments!

Wish me luck!