Season 3

I play on the EU servers and Season 3 started on 27 July. The first thing I wanted to do is to play my one placement match.
Season 1 ended for me on high Platinum but after that I took a long break and got back near the end of Season 2 which ended on low Platinum. I started to lose almost everything (which I wrote about earlier).

When I started my SCII I was kinda nervous about the league I would go in. I pressed the button and adrenaline floated through my body. I saw my opponent was a Zerg player (my worst match up ever). Earlier this week I saw a Day[9]'s broadcast about Sen's ZvZ and it learned me a few things I thought I would use.
The worse about it was that I went to play without a plan.....

Allright my first match of the day. ZvZ.

Replay here: http://replayfu.com/r/QZxrdq

As you can see my opponent went with a ten pool and I went for my twelve pool when I scouted his base. This way I could get my queen out on time and a couple of zerglings for the first 6 lings. This idea I saw in one of the video's earlier mentioned. And even if he didn't attacked with the first 6 lings as he shouldn't do in my opinion (because I can have to much defense for that to work).


This part is the first of which made me proud. My Queen got out RIGHT when his 6 lings got into my base. I micro my queen around my hatchery and I could block the lings from picking off my queen. I lost nothing AND picked of his 6 lings. Right after my lings got out and run it straight up to his base, picked off HIS queen (ooh yeah!) and ran away when I saw his roach warren. Meanwhile I made a baneling nest, which wasn't a good idea since he started to make only roaches, but in this cause it was okay. Made 4 banelings and killed 6 drones.

I transitioned into roaches with +1 attack. Since I had 1 base more and double his drones I found myself in a pretty good position. Keep building roaches and speedlings. I didnt forgot to scout (which sometimes happen).
He blocked his ramp tho with roaches so I didn't got an opportunity to run my lings in his main. Then he tried to expand. but my lings could attack it, Send 1 ling in and BAMN he send all of his roaches (major mistake he made there.) So I could run in ALL my lings in his main and pick off his queen, hatch and roach warren all tough some drones escaped It was a big step for me to win. He only just got his expansion up and couldn't make more roaches so I thought! He MUST attack or he definitely lose.
And my guess was right

Luckily I had 3 spinecrawlers up and moved some of my roaches on the high ground, which he had no vision on and massacred him with my +1 roaches against his +0 roaches.

Clean win you think? Yeah definitely but a major win for me. I thought straight made the right decision and won like a boss.

This is not a master league zerg player but a high gold, it would have gone all different if it was a Master/Diamond league zerg player but hey, I am learning aint I?

Back

I'm back from Paris and ready to play some matches!

Holiday

I won't be able to post anything next week since I am going on a short holiday to Paris.
After I am back I shall play more and keep you guys updated on my progress.

For that time being, Keep on playing.

First matches

So Yesterday I played a couple of matches! 5 total because I didn't had much time unfortunately.
Those matches went HORRIBLE! What can I say, Everything went wrong EVERYTHING!. When I am not playing I think, yeah I should do this and do that to counter this. But when I play I am like. wut?

Anyway my first match was against a Zerg player on Scrap Station, so ZvZ which I hate the most. So I started all right building my pool on 14, gas on 14 and right after pool I build my queen and pack of lings. Right after 100 vespene gas I started to get my Zergling speed. Okay so far, scouted him, not getting supply blocked and got my Roach Warren pretty fast. Then I saw his roach count and I though "Hey a long rush distance so why not trow in an expension  (which he didnt had cause I scouted that with my Overlord). But when he attacked me, I forgot everything. My first attack upgrade was nearly finished and I saw that his roaches had +1 attack already. I couldn't build roaches cause I forgot to build Overlords.
At the end I lost cause I had LOADS of drones where build and a little roach count.

Okay and after that it went worse to worse. Lost to a lower level Terran player (My Macro rocked but I never attacked because I was scared or what?) Anyway I lost to a four gate and my net fall out twice (great)

I promised I would upload my matches but I somehow got problems with the upload site, if it is uploaded I can't find it under my account. www.sc2replayed.com. If any of you know how to fix the problem leave a comment please.


Today I play some more matches and I hope that I can win some, yesterday was just devastating to my manlyhood.

On my way

This week I start my trip to become a better player! Since this season is almost at its end (and I heard its even locked now, so no demotion or promotion) I think I might jump up the ladder a bit.
I hope when season 3 starts I can once again start from bronze and work my way up.
Since I did a few matches with my brother I felt like I lost it all. My macro slipped, I got pawned by early rushes because of droning to much..

Anyway we did some matches against A.I and I played random. First random I was Protoss and I digged into my memory and all those learning lessons from Day[9] and HuskyStarcraft I felt like I did pretty awesome. My money stayed low, didn't got supply blocked and my 4gate pawned (lol yeah easy Build Order I know but still).

Then the second match I became a Terran player and look at that I pwned again! Low money. No supply block and I just blew everything away. I had the luck of getting Protoss and Terran a couple times in a row and I felt really comfortable with it and pawned every 2vs2 and 2vs A.I with my brother.
But then I got Zerg again and I dropped on macro again, DAMNIT the overdroning! I hate that, one thing I can improve on.

So this week I hope I can see something better on my drone count.

Wish me luck and keep an eye open this week for my first couple of matches.

Day[9] and HuskyStarcraft

Most of you guys are well known with these 2 Starcraft casters. I personally love these 2 casters and I enjoy watching their cast very much.

But there is a different between these two kind of casters. I find Day[9] more educative when to learn things about Starcraft, not that Huskey don't give us good tips, but Day[9] just goes deeper into them. A good example is the "Newbie Tuesday". On those cast he talks about things you can learn. (He is such a good teacher, way better then any of my teachers could)
Day[9] cast everyday different kind of games, Monday he focus his cast on "Monday Funday" and Tuesday its "Newbie Tuesday".

Day[9] also cast big leagues, which he recently did Dreamhack in Sweden, go watch it, trust me it was awesome.

When I played in the early days of SC2 I lacked a lot of skill, didn't played any RTS before (except for Red Alert 1, 2 and a little Generals) but I never thought about tactics. I knew it was needed but really didn't know how to.
Then I start to watch youtube about SC2 and I finally met Day[9]. After a couple of games I start to feel I needed to watch more for my improvement on SC2.
Thats when I saw it, Day[9] The Mental Checklist I watched the whole 1hour 40 min cast TWICE! yeah twice it was that good (and think about it I NEVER watch something twice because I don't have really the patience for it). I recommended it to everyone I knew who played SC and some of them took the advice and some of them, well they aren't really the gamers, skipped it.


There are many more video's from Day[9] cast. I really recommend you to watch those cast if you want to improve your game play and to have some fun.

 Here are some links to Day[9]:

• Cast about a good way to improve your macro, very useful for players that just start
• Day[9]'s website
• Emotional Day[9], made me appreciate things more

HuskyStarcraft, this man is hilarious awesome cool SC caster. He made me laugh a zillion times! THOR IS HERE! and ofc PYLO etc etc all these things made me want to watch more and more! I subscribed to him after the first cast I saw. 
If you love SC 2 and want to see some epic battles watch Huskystarcraft.


He mostly cast from his house in LA (use to be Oregon) he done some live cast but not as much as Day[9] (I think) but Currently Husky and Day[9] are casting GSPA at the moment, make sure to watch it, Pro's playing but also none pro players where able to sign up.


There are many more casters but these 2 are the one I watched most although I heard  that Ahnaris is quite the man too, but I don't have that much of a time to watch them all. Go and find your favorite caster and enjoy those Starcraft casts!

preparing my matches

Before I start I make a plan, a "gameplan"as I like to call it. This depend on what I go against. My plan consist of 1 or multiple small things I like to achieve, if I can achieve it multiple times I consider it *learned* those small plans mostly are like:

• keep harrasing.
• tech to broodlords
• my third expansion at the 10min mark 

This all can be done in 1 match. It is not as difficult as it may sound. You can take your third while keeping your enemy in his base by harrasing and keep on teching till you got broodlords.
2 points done while only keeping him in his base by harrasing.

This will not always work because they can put up Anti air (if I am going mutalings) or they tech a little faster and harras me first. Even if they fend it off their army is smaller cause of the minerals they need to spend on their anti air, you can make a tech switch and suprise your opponent but thats for later on (not really that good, maybe a point I can put in to improve?). But that's not the point, my goal is to work toward things which eventually when I keep on practicing I will get better at it and make this work.


Make sure if you use this plan to stick with it a couple of matches, that way you can get a reliable conclusion, like: "It worked the first time but then 2 matches it failed hard, but then suddenly it worked again." After you went through a list and might notice "Hey, all my wins where against Terran so its a nice tactic I can use against them".
Don't forget, its your game you can copy the pro players Build Order, but if you are getting killed over and over again it wont make you happy at least thats how I experienced it (reason why I stopped).

So th tip for today is make a plan stick with it and after your match look your replay and decide what you did wrong, what the cause of the bad thing was that happened to you and how to improve.

And remember, always keep up your macro and scouting.

Introducing myself

My name is Stuart and I am a 20 year old male from the Netherlands.

Currently I am living with my girlfriend in Haarlem. We live with each other for about 9 months now. I study Biotechnology in a nearby city. I have a mother living about 30mins away, an older sister with a little daughter (such a cute little girl) and my younger brother who is about twice the size of me.

My blog is about my improvement on Starcraft 2. I'll write about the games I play, how I experienced it and what my plan is to improve on what and how. I'll try to point it out with screenshots and replays as much as
possible so you all can get a clear view of it. I wont post every game but the once that helped me with my goal as much as possible.

The race I currently play is Zerg, after playing all 3 races the swarm came out as the race I liked the most.
I first starting to playing Starcraft 2 (SC2 for now on)on the release day in the Netherlands. After my crappy placement matches and 55 games played I got in mid Platinum and took a break after from October till July because of school.

Got my placement matches in the new season (with crappy micro AND macro, I somehow lost it all) I got in Platinum (weird huh? yeah thats what I thought)

This doesn't mean its only for high gold/low plat players ,it might help the lower and maybe even the higher level players a tiny bit too.

Sometimes I even play 2vs2 with my brother (Protoss) and a mate of my (also Protoss) so I might get in a few blogs about those matches too.

This is it for now I'll get my first match and improvement as soon as possible.