I've been struggling on the ladder for StarCraft II for the past season. I'm still playing random, but I'm having a heck of a time trying to make it into the top 8 in the Silver division. I'm not sure if the competition is just getting better, or if I'm falling behind because I'm not putting any effort into practicing. I seem to do better when I limit the number of games I play a night - I seem to play really badly after 2 AM or so. I don't think the beer is helping my game, either.

With the passing of my birthday, I have more gift cards to spend on games, but I haven't gotten around to buying any games and playing them. I used $1 of an iTunes gift card to the iPhone version of Scrabble, but other than that, I haven't made any purchases yet.

With the holidays, though, A. has had more time to play video games. She found Sim City Deluxe HD on my iPad (I purchased it a long time ago for $1) and gave it a shot. I really forgot how fun this game was. She was playing on easy, and ended up running out of money. She was building way too much, take out loans, and then try and build more. Her budget was being killed by the monthly expenses of all the infrastructure she was building. I ended up helping her balance the budget and get the cities back in the black. It's intersting, because I've always had money problems, and I was the same way growing up. After having fun playing with her, I ended up making my own city (on hard, where you start $10,000 in debt). My city managed with low-density industrial and residential zones, but limited infrastructure. I didn't even have a water tower for quite some time. The saving grace was that a company wanted to build a mini-mall in my town, and the added income offset the loan payments. I spent some money to start building a water infrastructure. I'm back in the black each month. I'm currently saving up to start building a school and a hospital. I wish that the online help would give more information - it's hard to know how much they would cost to maintain each month.

Finally, I started playing Riven. I had purchased the game on Steam when it was on sale, but I found that I wanted another game to relax and play when I wasn't up to it (mentally) to ladder in StarCraft. I love the art direction, but I had to read up on Wikipedia to remember how Myst ended. I'm not that far into it, but I really like playing it. It's replaced Civ V as my alternate PC game for the time being. I started a war, and my heart just wasn't in it, and it wasn't that fun to play the game anymore. Maybe I'll come back to that later.

There are still a number of games that I want to try out, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I wanted to buy Dance Central 2, but it seems like one of those games that are more for parties. I have a list of shame that I need to go through, too. I want to play Bioshock, Child of Eden, GTA IV, God of War II, and a bunch of others that I haven't gotten around to. I guess I should pick one and go for it.

I haven't had much time to play, but I did watch more videos. When I re-watched the Newbie Tuesday videos, a couple of points stuck out. I decided to try and use them in my games:

1. Don't lasso/box your units. Click directly on the units that you want to select.
2. Use the minimap or the hotkeys to move the screen. Don't scroll my putting the mouse on the side of the screen.

After watching some of the Day[9] dailies, I decided to start working on my mechanics. I upped the DPI on my mouse, since I didn't think it was fast enough at work. It worked well with the second monitor at 4000 DPI without any acceleration. However, that was way too sensitive for StarCraft II. For the time being, I've left it set at 3000 DPI (instead of 2000 DPI) and it seems to work well. I'm overshooting clicking a little bit, but I think I need to give it time for me to get used to it.

I also started using the SC2Gears utility to analyze my replays. It nags at you during the game if your APM is too low. It's always telling me that I'm too slow. It also does this neat thing where it tracks your mouse and gives you a printout afterwards. If you're good, you don't use the edge of the screen to scroll around. It also put big dots when you pause with your mouse. I've noticed that I use the minimap a lot more, and I don't have the mouse on the lower middle or lower right of the screen. That's a good thing, I think.

I started playing 3v3 with Jason and Khai. It's fun, but it's stressful. We won our first match of the new season and were placed in Gold division. We're doing ok in there, but we still lose to stupid things. I had a beer and watched the Sharks-Red Wings hockey game, and was going to go to sleep. Instead, I played some games with them. I had a lot of problems, though. I got cannon rushed once, Jason did once, and we just didn't work well as a team. I think if we were on Skype it would have worked better, but Jason's in Vegas and Khai has to keep quiet so that he doesn't wake anyone up.

Anyway, it looks like my game needs a lot of work.

I ended up playing one late-night game last night. I was Terran on Metalopolis. My opponent was Zerg. He starts messaging at the beginning of the game, saying that he is really bad at Zerg. I chat a bit, but I play normally. When I scout him, I notice he fast expanded, so I start building an army. I drop on him, but it's repelled. I don't lose any of my medivacs, though, because he has no anti-air units. I lift off my starport and build a tech lab. I build a banshee and harass with it. Surprisingly, it gets 7 kills, without really managing it. I didn't really pump out any banshees, but I keep going. Right when I start to push out, he attacks. He swarms around my tanks and my marine-marauder army and kills it with zerglings and roaches. I think the game's going to end soon. He pushes up my ramp, but I manage to hold it off, slowly killing off some of his units. He makes it into my base, but the units that keep coming out managed to finish off the rest of his attacking force. I realize that my siege tanks didn't have siege mode researched, and that I didn't upgrade my units at all.

Then... Nothing. I message him, wondering why he's not attacking. Meanwhile, I'm frantically trying to build up my army again. I build another command center (behinds the one at my natural) to try and get back in the game. Finally, when he does attack, it's with a massive zergling army and a huge amount of... queens? They funnel into my base, and they get worked because they are so slow. While the zerglings are dealt with by my tanks, the queens start melting under the tank fire while attacking the marines and marauders. His army evaporates. He messages, "I can't take this seriously. This just shows how easy Terran is." Then he leaves.

I win my 42nd game, but I'm at a loss why. Maybe he really didn't know how to play Zerg. I checked the replay, and I guess he was sort of floundering. Weird.

Well, I tried to play while I was on vacation in Europe. I did notice the lag, and the conditions were less than optimal. I was doing okay, though... Until I dropped eight games straight. On the last two, the screen didn't even load. The game just paused and I lost. After that, it dropped me down to Bronze. I did play more over the vacation, trying to fight my way back to the top of the Bronze division, but it just wasn't as motivating. I also had other things to do in Paris and London. :)

Recently a patch came out that made it easier to move between divisions. The first game I played, I won. Immediately, I was promoted to Silver. I feel like I am playing better than my opponents, even though one of them was "slightly favored." I am on a four-game winning streak, and I'm currently 3rd in Silver division. The last player I beat was a low-level Gold player.

Maybe, with the new patch, I might be able to make it to Gold division. I have not used up my bonus pool yet.

They ended season 1 today. My final record as random was 421-430. I was 1st place in the Silver division. I guess I should have been happy that I maintained first place, but it was sort of anti-climactic. I was way ahead of the second place (over 300 points) so the last week of games didn't really account for much.
 
The good news, though, is that with the beginning of season 2, the ladder's been reset.
 
I played one placement game and won. The other player played Zerg and did a fast expand. I countered with pressure. I don't think I did a great 4-warpgate build, but I was able to attack with enough units to take out his expansion. He didn't scout for my proxy pylon, so I was able to reinforce rather quickly. He did manage to micro well and kill of some of my stalkers, but I basically overwhelmed him. It turned out he was a gold division player. After winning this game, I was placed in Silver division.
 
I played one more game. This time, I was Terran against a Protoss opponent. I scouted him soon after my barracks, and saw that he wasn't doing anything special. I started my "normal" build as Terran, with two barracks and going for medivacs. It's probably not the most common build, but I don't know any others that well. I usually keep getting MULEs, but this time, I used a scan to see what he was up to. I saw two stargates. It's sort of an odd build, since void rays have been nerfed by recent patches. I already had started researching stimpacks, so I switched my barracks to start producing more marines. I upgraded infantry weapons and armor, as well as started research on combat shields when the stimpack finished. After I had a pair of medivacs, I switched to making a couple of vikings. I managed okay - his first wave of void rays took out a lot of units, but I also knew they were slow to build. I threw down three more barracks and added reactors, so that I could build more marines simultaneously. I added more vikings, and moved out.
 
He attacked my base while my army was en route to his. I pulled back and fought it off, but lost my command center in the process. I was out of minerals, and I couldn't build another. Since I didn't stand a chance if I waited, I pushed with all my units, including the SCVs. I was able to walk over his photon cannons (since I had so many units, they couldn't kill all of them.) His expansion fell. I walked up his ramp and met little resistance. He couldn't build more void rays fast enough, so he lost. It turned out he was a silver player. I am now 2-0 in season 2, and 10th place in Silver division. Note, however, that the ladder isn't completely filled yet, so it's likely that my rank will be volatile until there are 100 people in the division. I also leave for vacation on Saturday, so I don't know that I'll have much chance to play.

They locked the ladder, so I can no longer be promoted to Gold division. I'm #1 in Silver, and I'm ahead by over 300 points. I'm 9 games under .500.
 
I haven't been practicing or trying to improve, but I've just been playing. It's been fun, though.
 
Using the SC2Gears utility, I figured out some statistics. My strongest race is Terran, where I win 53% of my games. I do almost as well with Protoss, where I win 53% of my games (fewer wins, though, so that's why it's my second best race.) My weakest race is Zerg, where I win only 39% of my games.
 
For each of the nine matchups:
TvT 55%
PvT 55%
TvP 55%
PvP 54%
TvZ 50%
PvZ 50%
ZvZ 46%
ZvP 36%
ZvT 35%
 
As you can see, my Zerg play is horrible. I think I need to figure out specific build orders as Zerg for the different matchups. I also think I need to start trying to refine build orders, since my builds are still haphazard.

I haven't had as much time to blog or play. I did learn some things, though. First of all, I started trying to use the camera controls in the game. I changed the hotkeys from using the Ctrl+Fn keys so that I can use the Ctrl+Fn or Shift+Fn keys. I also moved them over so that I could use F2-F8 as camera controls, instead of further to the right on the keyboard. This is the first time that I'm modifying the keyboard setup, but it seems to work. I set F2 to be my main base mineral line, F3 to be my expansion, and F5 to be my ramp. The idea is that I can build something with an SCV or probe, then hit F2/F3 and shift-click back to mining. It also lets me warp in units in a useful location. Hitting the 'w' key, F5, then warping in whatever units seems to be faster.
 
I also played more 2v2 games with Jason. He's been practicing the Korean 4-warpgate all-in. We played a game against each other, and I tried to play against him without knowing what's coming. His rush was slow, but it still beat me. He had four zealots into my base when I had three stalkers and a zealot. I should have been able to hold off the rush, but I tried to attack the zealots instead of taking out the pylons. By the time he had 12 zealots warped in, I fudged the micro and lost the game. I did give him some pointers to speed up his rush, though. I don't think the strategy works in 2v2, and I think that's why he's short on zealots in the early game. Now that I know he's doing that build, I realize that we can't wait around when he has units on the way. We need to time the attack with when he can warp in the units.
 
After looking at his build, too, I realized that I don't have a good build order. In a way, I think that's fine... it's been forcing me to get a lot better at macro. I also think this is why I was having problems with certain matchups. Protoss, with a generic build, seems to be the most versatile. I've lost to a cloaked banshee rush, though. My go-to Terran build is a medivac drop, and that seems to be versatile enough as well. Now that I'm getting better at micro when I time the drop, I don't lose the medivacs to something stupid. My Zerg build, however, is the one that needs work. I need to start thinking about the race match-ups and build accordingly. I was defaulting to a zergling with metabolic boost building an expansion, and then going to mutalisks. It seems to work okay against Terran opponents, but I think a roach/hydralisk build is stronger against Protoss. After tailoring my build as Zerg, I started winning more. I'm over 50% with Zerg in March.
 
Finally, I started playing on the new maps that were introduced with the latest patch. They are interesting maps, and they are a lot of fun. The problem I had as Zerg with Lost Temple seems to be "fixed" with the Shattered Temple map.
 
I think that the mutalisk build is strong against Terran on the Typhon Peaks build. I managed to snipe all my opponent's SCVs, but I didn't pressure right and I lost that game when he rebuilt. I think I should have traded units and won with my better economy.
 
Anyway, it's an interesting game. I'm still #1 in the Silver division, but I haven't fought back to .500. I'm 3 wins away from 50%. Maybe I can set my sights on gold when I pass .500.

Well, I haven't been able to blog that much, but I've gotten a few games in. I played a slew of games today, since I had a little time. I played once before work. It was a decent game, but I lost. 
 
After work, I did a little better. I had a bad game in a ZvT on Steppes of War. He rushed (I think it was a proxy barracks) and pretty much killed me off quickly, with a "gg noob.' Dude's in bronze, and I'm in silver. Noob? Really? It's not like he's ranked high either. 
 
I had a game where I tried to use a warp prism, but then when my opponent attacked, I didn't have enough units. The zealots I did have managed to take out a lot of probes, but the warp prism did little to power the four gateways I had. He took his time trying to take out my base, though, and I was able to power up my warpgates again and come back. He spent too much time microing while I just kept spending my money. He did kill a lot of my stalkers, but I was able to pump out a lot more. I won the game with macro. This was the game that got me 1st place. I'll have to see if it stays.

I haven't blogged in the past week. I've been playing often, but I found that I'd rather be playing instead of blogging about playing. :) 
 
I've been bouncing around between 3rd and 4th place in Silver division, but not really making any progress. I actually moved up to 3rd place because the person in 1st place was probably promoted out of the division. 
  
In the past week, I found out a few problems with the different matchups. The first one I ran into was in a Zerg vs. Protoss game. This game was after the 1.2.0 patch was released. The other player rushed to phoenixes, then used their graviton beam to pick off my queens and then attack workers. Since I expanded early, I was relying on queens for anti-air defense. This was obviously bad, since I wouldn't be able to morph enough queens at one time to stave off the phoenixes. In part, the patch allowed this strategy to hit a lot faster - the phoenixes build more quickly than before the patch. However, it sounds like I need to either rush to lair (and hydralisks) or use spore colonies (which he cannot lift with his graviton beam)  for anti-air defense. 
 
I played a Zerg vs. Terran match on Lost Temple. I expanded early and tried to pressure with zerglings. He responded with hellions, so I responded with roaches. He had medivacs and dropped on my main base, but I had spine crawlers to hold it off. I ran into problems when he had siege tanks on the cliffs above my natural expansion. I think this was the first time I saw that I needed to choose a different build order for this map. I think a speedling (zergling with metabolic boost)-expansion-mutalisk build would have worked better. I didn't have a chance after the siege tank was in place. At a minimum, I need an overlord over my cliff. 
 
I found that I have a weakness in Terran vs. Protoss. I don't understand the matchup that well. 
 
I also found that I don't know a good Zerg vs. Protoss build. I had problems on Metalopolis on close positions when the speedling rush I tried didn't work. I went to roaches, but I didn't quite seem to have a good handle on the build order. It's possible my macro was off, though. 
 
I had problems against a fast expand build on Scrap Station in a Terran vs. Protoss game. I tried to push hard, but I don't think I did it well. I think the rush distance was too great, so instead of rushing, I should have just expanded and matched him.

I still haven't viewed all the replays yet, so I'll blog later when I do. I have another 30 replays to go through.