My vacation is over: I just played 5 ladder games. Admittedly, they were just 2v2s with Julie, but they, on the whole, went very well. We managed to go 4-1 in placement and are a platinum-level 2v2 team! Here’s the rundown and replays:

1. (replay) These guys were idiots. They both floated to the gold, and with just a few zerglings, they were out of the game.
2. (replay) Sadly, the only game we lost. We had a pretty big advantage with a good engagement at the beginning, but a few mutas took out a bunch
3. (replay) Also idiots. They were double zerg, so I went 10 pool to be safe, but then they went infestors and nydus. They had no chance.
4. (replay) The best played game of the bunch. They (double terran) had an early contain on us, but we managed to break it. I tried to muta harass, but they had a ton of turrets everywhere. Fortunately, we managed to put together a really good composition of banelings and the protoss deathball, kept them on 2-3 bases, and eventually won.
5. (replay) I’m not tremendously proud of this game, but we did a roach/4 gate all-in, and it worked. Had I gone lings, we would’ve been in trouble, but fortunately, one guy was teching to templar, and the other had a bunch of hellions. Pretty simply done.

Personally, my play wasn’t great. I wasn’t macroing well, missing creep spread, didn’t have my tech going, etc. I think there’s a lot to work on. One nice thing that did come out of it, though, is that I’ve realized I’m more comfortable with 1s now instead of multiplayer games. What I think that means is that I’ve finally developed enough of an understanding of strategy that I know how to react and how to play through a 1v1, instead of just mucking around in big games.

Regardless, I’m happy we got into platinum and very proud of how Julie played. I guess the vs. A.I. days are behind us now, as we ladder and keep progressing that way.

Replay Here

I would like to think Destiny and Jimmy Hayes AKA SicKShoT for managing to get me into Diamond League today! If you haven’t seen it, there’s a hilarious video of Destiny coaching Jimmy how to hold off a 2rax as zerg, with the most famous result being the meme, “Jimmy NOOOOOOO!” I watched it last night after seeing another reference to it on /r/starcraft, laughed really hard, and tucked it into the back of my mind that the correct response to a 2rax is 1 base roach. Who would’ve known it would be useful so soon?

On Shattered Temple, I scouted the Terran close by air and noticed that he wasn’t taking his gas. I instantly remembered Destiny’s advice: this either means 1 rax expand, which can be killed with a roach all-in, or 2 rax, which can be defended with roaches. He comes soon enough with a ton of SCVs and marines, and using a roach rush, I manage to hold it off. He GGs soon after.

So here’s to you, Jimmy: after miserably losing 3 games today as I was getting matched up against Diamond league players, the advice you received pushed me over the top.

Replay Here

Just played a ZvZ on Arid Plateau where literally everything went wrong for me. Watching the replay, I was behind the entire game in almost every metric, then managed to win off of a desperate all-in. Allow me to describe in a few bullets:

• He 11 pooled me. I went hatch first, and accidentally built my pool even later than I should have
• Thankfully, I drone scouted the rush at his ramp, canceled my natural, then microed well enough to hold
• He was ahead on workers and went in for a roach push while I was rebuilding my economy
• Thankfully, I saw his roach warren go down with an OL scout and got my units out just in time, with spine crawlers to boot
• Through the middle of the game, he had more units attacking and more workers at almost every moment
• Thankfully, Arid Plateau is really narrow entrances into the natural, which nullified a lot of his advantage. And spine crawlers were good, even though my placement was awful
• He got up a 3rd base while continuing to pressure me and even nydus’ed to force me to cancel my 3rd and scramble to the back of my base
• Thankfully, I had +2 ranged attack and squeezed out a few hydras at the end. And he never transferred his drones from his mined out main to his 3rd

Had he been a little better, I would’ve lost that game very badly. Instead of macroing behind his immediate advantage as he rushed me while I flubbed my build, he tried to go for the kill, and the map worked really well to my advantage to stay on 2 bases.

Lesson 1: upgrades and tech are really good. I’m certain that the +2 was the difference because he had more roaches than I did

Lesson 2: spine crawlers are really good in enclosed spaces, but I need to position them better. The 2nd spine crawler should’ve been in my mineral line, closer to backdoor side