Starcraft 2 (Info on first post!)

[Zankoku]

The current league divisions are
Bronze
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Diamond
Placement starts off your hidden MMR score (your Match Making Rating, which is used to pair you as evenly as possible) and randomly matches you against players that are available. You can generally predict where you place based on how many wins or losses you get, which is something like
Bronze - 0-2 wins
Silver - 1-3 wins
Gold - 2-4 wins
Platinum - 4-5 wins
Diamond - 5 wins against high-ranked players

Basically, doing particularly well or poorly in one division will eventually move you up or down. The ladder system attempts to keep your win-loss ratio 50/50, so if you start to go significantly one way or the other then you have a good chance of being promoted or demoted. In terms of true competitive tournament play, nobody below Diamond actually matters (read: anyone who isn't Diamond will probably not make it past three rounds of MLG). However, when comparing absolute player levels, since the scoring system is not zero-sum, there is such a thing as "points inflation" and thus the "high diamond" level is constantly shifting upward. In September, it was 2000. Now the top players are pushing 3500-4000.

Blizzard plans to eventually implement a Master and Grand Master division. These divisions will actually carry meaning, because unlike the previous ones, they have strict requirements to reach them:
Master League is limited to the top 5% of players in each Region (North America, Europe, Korea, Southeast Asia).
Grand Master League is limited to the top 200 players in each Region.

 

[Lore]

Werekill's gonna get ***** in ladder.

X3

I know; don't ruin the moment for me!

By the way, do you remember how every time I saw you on aim I said "are you geno" because of your avvy? Well, he finally added me, lol. It turns out that msn glitched and I never saw the invite, but I found it in my hotmail inbox. XD

Edit: Ok, cool! Thanks for the info, Ankoku.

 

[victra♥]

hey werekill! wanna add me on sc? It'll be fun to play someone on the lower level since all my friends are plat-diamond ;-;

 

[Sion]

anyone have advice for pvz? i'm having trouble answering a 14 pool 15 hatch. i try to intially go blink stalkers to make them burn larvae on lings, but it's not working out very well. maybe i'm over committing?

 

[Twig]

anyone have advice for pvz? i'm having trouble answering a 14 pool 15 hatch. i try to intially go blink stalkers to make them burn larvae on lings, but it's not working out very well. maybe i'm over committing?

I'm a big fan of the early 2nd gas zealot/sentry expand build personally. They won't be able to put on any early pressure because of their early expo, allowing you to expo just as fast. The early zealot/sentry combo should be more than enough to prevent any harassment + all the minerals saved on the gas heavy sentries will allow you to throw down that nexus pretty fast, and transition into your mid-game phase.

Blink stalkers are good as long as you get the necessary damage done, because if that initial attack gets thrwarted by speedlings/spines, being a base down for that long + losing map control will most likely seal the loss. (Mutas after that point will keep you somewhat pinned allowed them to take a third... etc etc).

I'm assuming you are waiting to expand until after you are pushing out? Yes/No?

 

[Sion]

i'm hoping to keep pressure with blink stalkers while i expand safely. i thought about going zealot/sentry, but i'm trying to experiment with a couple of different builds.

instead of trying to all in, would it be more favorable to match their fast expo with your own? i've been experimenting with different builds to counter it because i try to punish their fast expo, but haven't had much success as a result.

btw, with the zealot/sentry build, do you get +1 weapons or charge at all? or do you just pump units to get out a safe expansion?

 

[Twig]

i'm hoping to keep pressure with blink stalkers while i expand safely. i thought about going zealot/sentry, but i'm trying to experiment with a couple of different builds.

instead of trying to all in, would it be more favorable to match their fast expo with your own? i've been experimenting with different builds to counter it because i try to punish their fast expo, but haven't had much success as a result.

btw, with the zealot/sentry build, do you get +1 weapons or charge at all? or do you just pump units to get out a safe expansion?

When someone fast expos, you have basically two routes: A) Some sort of tech/timing attack or B) Putting down an expo of yourself. Blink stalkers is obviously A).

The zealot/sentry mix is just to get an early expo, and maybe apply a bit of pressure to force them to ling up (waste larvae). You obviously get some stalkers out once your nexus has been placed, and that early 2-3 gate army is pretty formidable, but I prefer to wait until a strong mid-game army to make a true push.

I generally do not get charge until really really late, and if you are planning to do some timing attack with zealots you will need +1 to one shot lings.

If you are going to try and apply pressure, I'd suggest a 3-4 gate strategy as opposed to blink stalkers. The 4-gate push is incredibly effective at either crippling their expo, forcing them to throw down tons of sunkens + ling up (allowing you to expand/catch up). Just my thoughts though, I'm obviously far from the best at giving protoss advice, even on smashboards, but if you want to play some just lemme know (Twig #511).

 

[Zone]

Be careful fast expanding against Zerg I've ha quite a bit of success lately when Protoss fast expands with me and I Instead mass lings and banes with pressure to try and process some early forcefields it sometimes wins me the game or I take their expo and keep mine and go back to droning so obviously check hard on what Zerg is building Zerg can still hit hard even with a fast expand with lings/banes.

 

[Nashun]

Zerg FE doesn't necessarily put you behind on income since they're not necessarily building drones. Play safe and aggressive without overextending and you'll force them to use their larva on non-drone units without losing your army.

Scouting is incredibly important.

 

[terr13]

Have you tried a Forge FE into 6 Gate +1 Attack? It's mostly designed to beat Mutaling, but if they get caught out of position against forcefields, then you might be able to just take down their expansion. At worse you have 2 saturated bases. The FE should be able to hold against most builds if you scout properly, although you need a proper simcity against banelings, and might have to drop a bunch of cannons against Roaches.

 

[ArcNatural]

Nujables, I can play today after 6 possibly, earlier tomorrow, then I'm off work for a week so I can play whenever. Send me a PM when you can.

Still waiting, although I haven't been on lately.

hey werekill! wanna add me on sc? It'll be fun to play someone on the lower level since all my friends are plat-diamond ;-;

We should play!

Something I should point out if you haven't already switched. A lot of issues you may be having is a direct result of practice league allowing really lol builds like mass carriers or mass air or some type of gimicky build that just will not happen as easily otherwise.

I never played RTS before SC2 and after like 2 practice games then I just laddered. I feel like playing on practice maps don't really prepare you for the real games at all.

 

[A Pimp Named Slickback]

yo Sensei hit me up if you wanna play sometime

 

[Lore]

Well, for my last two placement matches, I played against two great Protoss players... And got my *** kicked.

At least I'm in Silver! ^_^

Edit: Victra, what's your name and code?

 

[victra♥]

you got into silver? congrats!

yeah arc add me up too. theasiantemptation at hotmail.com

 

[Lore]

you got into silver? congrats!

yeah arc add me up too. theasiantemptation at hotmail.com

Thanks!

Wait, don't I still need your character code and number? Lol.

 

[rhan]

Played some 1v1's with some friends and tried out a few new builds.

I'm fairly confident in my 1v1 ability now.

 

[victra♥]

i don't think so. I've always just added friends via adding their email 0:

 

[Zankoku]

RealID doesn't need character code.

 

[Overswarm]

Ij ust realized all the zerg players are playing each other. Lawl.

 

[Zankoku]

There are 8 out of 12 Zerg paired against each other and 6 out of 12 Terran paired against each other. It happens, unfortunately.

 

[Overswarm]

Yeah. I could see a race-based distribution system used for seeding a bracket being a useful tool, but unless you were looking for how races were doing it'd muddy the results of actual players up. Happens. :B

 

[Sion]

Be careful fast expanding against Zerg I've ha quite a bit of success lately when Protoss fast expands with me and I Instead mass lings and banes with pressure to try and process some early forcefields it sometimes wins me the game or I take their expo and keep mine and go back to droning so obviously check hard on what Zerg is building Zerg can still hit hard even with a fast expand with lings/banes.

is this assuming that you fast expanded yourself? i usually delay my expansion a bit after zergs depending on what i've scouted. my micro isn't good enough to deal with banelings yet ><

do you play zerg, zone? i need some definite help in that matchup and i've been looking for a zerg to play against. no pressure if you don't want to play a noob though, haha.

Zerg FE doesn't necessarily put you behind on income since they're not necessarily building drones. Play safe and aggressive without overextending and you'll force them to use their larva on non-drone units without losing your army.

Scouting is incredibly important.

i see. some people research hallucination for the phoenixes with the zealot/sentry build. is the hallucination worth it? i think it's 100/100. i'll work on being aggressive without overextending myself.

Have you tried a Forge FE into 6 Gate +1 Attack? It's mostly designed to beat Mutaling, but if they get caught out of position against forcefields, then you might be able to just take down their expansion. At worse you have 2 saturated bases. The FE should be able to hold against most builds if you scout properly, although you need a proper simcity against banelings, and might have to drop a bunch of cannons against Roaches.

the only maps i know i can forge fe properly are lost temple and MAYBE steppes of war. i have tried this with much success, though. i've been banelinged/roached/nydus networked, but i've been able to defend them with a gate/cannon/sentry defence.

does it work anywhere else?

 

[Lore]

Oh man, I keep getting ***** in ladder matches.

I'm just not fast enough, and I barely know what build order to use. With Protoss, I never seem to have enough units being produced quick enough, and with Zerg, I always have a ton of minerals floating.

I guess I'll just have to practice.

 

[Nashun]

How to get to Diamond in 4 easy steps:

1. Constantly produce workers. When you think you have too much, you're wrong. Make sure that nexus is producing something at least 90% of the time. You don't want any downtime on it.

2. Spend your money. It doesn't really matter on what you spend it on until you're Diamond. TBPH a lot of lower-level diamond players have horrible macro and they're getting by. This is the most important point. SPEND YOUR MONEY. Don't pay attention to ANYTHING else until all of your production facilities are producing and you're below ~400 minerals/gas.

3. Wait for him to attack you. When he fails (which he will because you've been making more dudes than him), expand.

4. Wait for him to attack you again. When he fails, go kill him.

Follow these steps and I guarantee you'll win 80% of your games (barring cheese that may be difficult for lower-level players to stop) until diamond.

 

[victra♥]

Ankoku is such a boss. Watched a 50 min ffa between me and my noob friends and provided advice <3

 

[Zone]

@Sion: yeah I mean after I fast expand but that's the tricky thing I can decieve you with the thought it's safe to easily fast expand yourself where as instead I'm now making a ton of units for a really strong push. My hatch costs 50 less minerals than a nexus and if I make roaches I can practically build guys w/o a queen and keep minerals low. Just saying keep an eye out for if he's hard building an army or droning. If he is building an army might want to stop double producing probes for a tiny bit to catch up in army supply if needed.

We can play I won't have Internet for a few days just moved into a new place.

Tgwn2000@hotmail.com

Or

Snafu.141

 

[rhan]

I thought a Hatch was 300 min.. and a Nexus was 400.

Against a Zerg FE what you want to do is deny it. It's fairly safe for Zerg to FE. You either want to deny it or cripple it. I can't really think of any ways for Toss to do so but I can give out some Terran advice.

 

[Zone]

I'll post what toss have done to me that works and how I go about trying to counter it so you know what to expect but I'm at work atm

 

[rhan]

I played 6 1v1 ladder matches earlier in the day. Went even but it was mainly to try out the limitations of this build and see if I can change it a little to have it work against Toss (I tried creating my own build)

Hella confident in my ability to play 1v1's again.

 

[Zone]

Rhan you gotta count the sacked drone

 

[Fizzi]

Rhan we have until the 8th to play. I'll be on later tonight?

 

[Pakman]

I haven't seen M@V online in a while. You still alive, bro? I should be good to play tomorrow after 6 EST.

 

[Overswarm]

I want to play my match and get it over with... but Screamer has not been on in foreverrrrrrrrrrrr

D:

 

[Zankoku]

He was around and playing just last night. Seems you missed each other by around 7 hours.

 

[ESOJOSE]

I want to play my match and get it over with... but Screamer has not been on in foreverrrrrrrrrrrr

D:

I am on practically everynight, I sent you a friend request and have not heard back from you. =(

 

[Sion]

zone: that's cool. i just added you.

 

[TheKiest]

So NOW I find out about this thread.....

 

[Scar]

ether beat me 2-1

fun set, he's a cool dude, i'm pumped for next season

 

[Lore]

How to get to Diamond in 4 easy steps:

Well, thanks for the tips, but I already pretty much knew that stuff.

And I'm still getting slaughtered. I know how to wall off my ramp (with protoss), but I still eventually lose when they eventually attack. I can delay it, but I still always lose or get rushed.

Maybe I just need more practice...

 

[Nashun]

Well, thanks for the tips, but I already pretty much knew that stuff.

And I'm still getting slaughtered. I know how to wall off my ramp (with protoss), but I still eventually lose when they eventually attack. I can delay it, but I still always lose or get rushed.

Maybe I just need more practice...

Knowing what to do and having the speed to do it all are completely different things!

Show me a losing rep and I'll help you out.