Many of us that have played Starcraft and that have a competitive nature reached a point where we struggled to figure out how to progress passed a certain point in our ladder ranking. For the life of us we can't figure out why we were losing game after game and are consequently stuck in the same league. We watch replays to analyze our losses and have a sense that we're better than the person we lost too but can't put a finger on the problem.
The real difficulty is trying to identify the problem areas in our game play so that we may address them efficiently. We may analyze a game and see a shortcoming in one particular game element such as micro or build orders and spend a lot of fruitless time trying to emulate the pros or find bulletproof strategies. The sad reality is that both are losing propositions in the absence of a strong foundation based on sound game fundamentals.
Until we have a structured approach to improving our gameplay we're always at the mercy of the next shiny thing. When we run across a new build order or micro technique we're disillusioned to believe that any one technique can assure us of more wins. We'll bounce around endlessly in search of things that we're not yet ready to incorporate in our game play. Alternatively, we may look for cheesy builds that can help get us some cheap meta-game wins. If we're honest with ourselves though we do find those wins to be less satisfying as a game where we outplay or out-strategize our opponent.
I'd like to encourage you to stop bouncing around and start becoming a student of the game. At a minimum, Watch Day[9] at day9.tv and comb through his archives and watch a couple episodes per week. Be sure to look for episodes that talk about your race, be that Zerg, Terran, or Protoss - I just happen to be partial to Zerg. Take advantage of resources like my blog and twitter feed to provide you daily content.
If you do nothing else, I hope you will heed the below advice on tracking and learning from our losses - it's FOUNDATIONAL. To improve at any meaningful rate we need to know exactly where to improve. At a minimum track the following about your losses:
Matchup: ZvZ, ZvP, ZvT. Which matchups am I worst at and where can I focus my time?
Timing: Turn on and log the game time so you know where in the Early, Mid, or Late game that you tend to lose in each matchup (Timing is a big part of Starcraft gameplay)
Reason: Get the why behind the why for losing (i.e. we don't lose because they had imba units, we lost due to macro issues, lack of scouting, poor preparation, bad engagements etc...)
Ok, make a commitment to start learning more about the game and immerse yourself in daily, or weekly content. Get your HOTS expansion notepad out and start taking notes. You'll be amazed at your progress!
The real difficulty is trying to identify the problem areas in our game play so that we may address them efficiently. We may analyze a game and see a shortcoming in one particular game element such as micro or build orders and spend a lot of fruitless time trying to emulate the pros or find bulletproof strategies. The sad reality is that both are losing propositions in the absence of a strong foundation based on sound game fundamentals.
Until we have a structured approach to improving our gameplay we're always at the mercy of the next shiny thing. When we run across a new build order or micro technique we're disillusioned to believe that any one technique can assure us of more wins. We'll bounce around endlessly in search of things that we're not yet ready to incorporate in our game play. Alternatively, we may look for cheesy builds that can help get us some cheap meta-game wins. If we're honest with ourselves though we do find those wins to be less satisfying as a game where we outplay or out-strategize our opponent.
I'd like to encourage you to stop bouncing around and start becoming a student of the game. At a minimum, Watch Day[9] at day9.tv and comb through his archives and watch a couple episodes per week. Be sure to look for episodes that talk about your race, be that Zerg, Terran, or Protoss - I just happen to be partial to Zerg. Take advantage of resources like my blog and twitter feed to provide you daily content.
If you do nothing else, I hope you will heed the below advice on tracking and learning from our losses - it's FOUNDATIONAL. To improve at any meaningful rate we need to know exactly where to improve. At a minimum track the following about your losses:
Matchup: ZvZ, ZvP, ZvT. Which matchups am I worst at and where can I focus my time?
Timing: Turn on and log the game time so you know where in the Early, Mid, or Late game that you tend to lose in each matchup (Timing is a big part of Starcraft gameplay)
Reason: Get the why behind the why for losing (i.e. we don't lose because they had imba units, we lost due to macro issues, lack of scouting, poor preparation, bad engagements etc...)
Ok, make a commitment to start learning more about the game and immerse yourself in daily, or weekly content. Get your HOTS expansion notepad out and start taking notes. You'll be amazed at your progress!