Learning SC2

Thanks to the guys over are DirectGameCodes.com I’m giving away two copies of Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm! The video below details how to enter:

Entires close March 12 so get in before then!

UPDATE: The giveaway has been drawn! You can see the results below!

Watch this space for upcoming Heart of the Swarm guides, news and discussion videos!

I have been reading The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin for the past few days and it has inspired me to do a number of things, Starcraft related and otherwise. One of these things was to begin writing down my thoughts on each of the games I play. Waitzkin talks about doing this for all of his pursuits and how it helped him in the learning process. At first I thought this was overkill but the more I thought about it the more I felt like giving it a shot.

So far i’m finding that I am thinking a lot more analytically about my games and that making myself write down my thoughts about each game is forcing me to develop my ideas a lot more. It is quite easy to think something, like “Walling off with Gateways and Cannons really helped in that PvZ” and then forget it and not really learn much from the lesson. The act of writing this thought down really helps to solidify this lesson and I am even finding that I will sometimes take another step in the analysis, “The mineral investment in walling off with Gates and Cannons made me quite defensive in the mid-game, but the extra production and counter-attack defence really put me in a strong position in the late-game”.

To give this project the best chance of working I set myself out a few guidelines:

1. My entries had to be simple, no long winded analysis.
2. Make an entry after every game.
3. Read back over the days games when I am finished.

The first one was hard since I am used to writing full length articles, to make this easier on myself I decided to host the journal on Tumblr rather than this site. Doing so gave me a separate place that was much less formal. If your going to start doing this I suggest having a place to write that is separate from everything else, a place that is just for Starcraft.

The second point was easier than expected. It seems that taking the time after each game to write out a few thoughts has given me a break and a chance to think things through. I don’t know if I have been playing better, but I certainly feel like i’m learning a lot more and that is the main goal after all.

To organise all of these entries I am using two things: 

You can check out my Starcraft journal entries at my Tumblr or by following me on Twitter. If you are interested in doing a similar project let me know, I would love to hear about your experiences!

"We require more frosting" Protoss cake courtesy of Hot Blooded Gaming - http://tinyurl.com/3ze35y5

Friday the 15th of July (AEST, 14th of July in the US) is a very special day, it’s my birthday! For some time I have been thinking of what I wanted to do for my birthday and I have finally decided.

Let’s play a heap of Starcraft 2 for my birthday!

What better way to spend the day then by playing a bunch of custom games with my friends/readers/twitter followers?

This works nicely for a few reasons: Firstly, I get back from holidays a few days before the 15th and will be quite rusty from lack of games so it will be great to get back into shape with a full day of practice games. Secondly, season 3 starts on the 19th of July and this will be an excellent way to renew my drive for laddering. Thirdly, I love this game and I love all of you, I can think of no better way to spend a day. And, best of all, my girlfriend approves of the idea!

So I will be free and playing Starcraft 2 all day on the 15th (AEST). I’m going to schedule time for both NA and SEA (sorry to the other servers but I don’t have access to you – yet).

I will be on NA for the Australian morning (AEST) as this ends up being afternoon or evening for most NA players. I will switch over to SEA in the afternoon.

If you would like to have a few games with me for my birthday leave a comment below. Alternatively, contact me via email or add me on Skype (ziggyd[at]learningsc2.com for both) and we will arrange a time to play. Also, If you haven’t already you can add me in game, I am ZiggyD.279 on both SEA and NA.

I hope to see you all online on the 15th for a great day of Starcraft 2!

I was recently invited to do a segment on Hulk Game Critic’s Podcast to talk about gaming in Australia, Starcraft 2 eSports and to discuss the latest gaming news.

Hulk smashes the failures of the gaming industry!

I was pretty nervous starting the show since this was my first podcast but it ended up being a lot of fun. Talking about the gaming industry is something I could do all day!

Head to Hulk’s blog to listen to the podcast (Part: 2)

Thank you Hulk for having me on your show!

Over the past week I have had what I felt to be a few leaps and bounds in the improvement of my play. As if to acknowledge this last night I was promoted to Gold. Please excuse me for a moment:

WOOOOOOOOOooooooooooHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!!!

Now that thats out of my system I thought I might discuss what I have been doing up to this point and what I felt got me into Gold.

My Time In Bronze – Playing Random

A lot of my time spent in Bronze was spent simply trying things out and practicing. Although this meant no real ladder progress for a long while (I was in Bronze for many months) I think it went a long way towards shaping my view of the game now and helped me to create my current style.

In Bronze I played as Random, learning all three races really helped me to understand the strengths and limitations of each. It also had another effect: I never blame my losses on race, imbalance etc but rather my own mistakes. Internalising success and failure in this way has really driven me to improve.

If you are currently in Bronze this is my advice: don’t rush. Spend a decent amount of time trying different races, styles, strategies and just practicing the basics of the game.

My Time in Silver – Discovering My Style

Right before I was promoted to Silver I settled on a specific race to play (Protoss), my choice was based on the feeling that Protoss’ mechanics and army control/positioning best suited the style I wanted to play. Most of my time spent in Silver was spent discovering my style. A big part of this process was watching Pro players like iNcontrol and HuK play and trying out things that they did.

It was also around this time that I discovered the chat channel/group PRACBUD. Having such a large group of people willing to play practice games with me really sped up my progress in Silver.

Getting Promoted to Gold – Learning a Match-Up

As I mentioned earlier, about a week ago I had a leap in my gameplay and this was the result of focusing on learning one match-up. Recently, I played in the finals of PRACBUD’s ‘Baneling Cup’ where I lost to an excellent, macro style Zerg player. It was one of the first times where I actually thought “there is no way I can beat this player today”. This really motivated me to learn all about Protoss vs Zerg.

So I just forgot about the other two match-ups and focused entirely on PvZ. I researched, watched games and eventually I discovered a way that I wanted to play the match-up (iNcontrol’s PvZ Style). After practicing this style and learning the ins and outs of the match-up I started winning a lot against Zerg on the ladders (I was regularly beating Gold and Platinum Zergs as a Silver-level player). In game I actually felt extremely confident and the Zerg players seemed really predictable. Of course I was still getting hammered in my other two match-ups.

After about a week of beating nearly every Zerg I played and going about 50/50 with the other races I was promoted to Gold. I take this promotion as a sign that I am on the right track. So my next step is to learn the other two match-ups one at a time and continue my learning of PvZ.

Hopefully this provides some insight into my progress so far and helps to motivate you to continue improving your game as well. I hope to have another one of these articles to write very soon!

If you haven’t been following me on Twitter or the forums then you may have missed that KingOctavious of Starcraft2n00b.com and I played a BO5 a few months back. The BO5 was to decide who was the king of Starcraft 2 n00b-dom and suffice to say what ensued was some epic n00b-ishness.

KingOctavious recorded and uploaded video commentaries of each of the games to his site, I wanted to wait until all of the games were uploaded before doing this write up. It’s great to look back at how much better we have gotten in only a few months (we were both in Bronze at the time of playing these matches).

To maintain the excitement I have hidden each of the games in spoilers.

Congratulations to:

I look forward to future matches between myself and King as we both progress up through the ranks! I’ll be sure to post them here as well.