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GJSmitty

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From Bronze to Gold: A StarCraft 2 Quest: 8/10/11

By GJSmitty 8 Comments

    

Beautiful  
Beautiful  
 Hello everyone and welcome to From Bronze to Gold: A StarCraft 2 Quest (FBTG: A SC2 Quest?), my journey from the bottom of the bronze league to, eventually, gold league.  So, before we get into this, I want to announce that for now on this will be every Wednesday, because I didn't really have a set date before.  But now I do, so it will keep me consistent and force me to keep playing. 
 
Well, I only played four games since the last time I wrote.  I am currently rank 46 bronze, which is quite a jump from the last time I wrote, when I was rank 97.  That said, I still have a long ways to go until I reach Silver league.  So, here's what happened in those games: 
 

Game One

 
Always build Marines. 
Always build Marines. 
This was my first game since being placed, so I was slightly nervous.  It didn't help that the loading screen said that my opponent was favored, which, in my opinion, is never a good sign.    He was Zerg and I was, as always, Terran.   The game started off normally, with me doing my usual stuff.   He tried an early Zergling rush, which I held off with ease.  I was building Marines, Marauders, and Hellions.  He saw this, and started building Banelings.  I decided to start attacking his base, so I sent my army over.  
 
 As I was about to attack, he came from behind and started attacking my base with Mutalisks.  This scared me, making me think it would have to be a race to destroy each others bases.  But I had a few units left there, and they managed to buy me time.  I  destroyed a small group of Zerglings, and went up the ramp, attacking his base.   Eventually, he had an army of Zerglings and Banelings coming. 
 
I quickly split up my army, so I would decrease the effectiveness of the Banelings.  It worked, and they only took out a couple of my
I split up my army. 
I split up my army. 
guys.  He had another round of Banelings come in, but I just did the same thing.  I destroyed his base and won the game.  I exited the game and found out that he had been Rank 12 Bronze, and that  I had shot up to rank 51. 
Overall I think I did very good in this game.  I was proud that I had managed to split my army up, because if I hadn't I probably would have had a much harder time, and maybe even lost to those Banelings. 

Game Two

      
Yeah, you better run! 
Yeah, you better run! 
I started this game right after the first one, feeling slightly more confident.  The loading screen came up, and it told me that he would be Terran.  It also informed me that he was favored.  It made me slightly more nervous, but I had just beaten someone who was favored, right? 
 
So the game started a lot like the last one; I went my standard build order, making marines, marauders, and hellions.  Eventually,  I scanned his base, and saw only a few marines, so I assumed he would be attacking shortly.  I waited awhile, but nothing came.  Once again I scanned his base, and saw three Medivacs leaving his base and going straight towards mine.   I got ready for his attack, posting three groups of units around the perimeter of my base.  He dropped units off, only to meet my units right there.  I quickly had him retreating.  Then I gathered my units and attacked, overwhelming him.  I managed to defeat his army, and win the game.  After the game I looked, and he was not yet ranked for Season 3.  Also, I got up to rank 24.  I was doing pretty good. 
*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 
 Before I move on to game three, I would like to point out some things I noticed while watching the replay for this game.  The first was, this guy wasn't very good.  This, of course, made me feel worse about my victory.  Here, I'll show you.  
After only a little bit of fighting, this was his entire army: 
    
No Caption Provided

 At almost the exact same time, here was my entire army:
 
No Caption Provided
 If you look closely at the top image, you will see that his supply is at 48.  Mine is at 113.  Which makes it even harder for me to say this: 
 
I almost lost.
 
Yes.  I almost lost the game because of my stupidity.  You see, when our armies attacked each other, he was inside of his base, and I was outside of it.  Even though I was still attacking him fine, I tried to force my units up the ramp, stopping them from attacking his units.  I barely had an army by the time I defeated all of his units.   I felt that I did pretty good most of the game, but at that moment I did terrible.  Anyways, on to game three.  

Game Three

 
What? 
What? 
 This time it said that we were even teams and that he was Protoss.  After two wins, I was feeling very confident.  Now, this game was interesting, and pretty fun.  It once
That didn't work. 
That didn't work. 
 again started off normally.  I sent an early attack, which got quickly destroyed.  He had a good forwards defense, so I decided to sneak around back with some Medivacs, and drop into the back of his base.   It was going pretty good, until an absolutely massive army of Stalkers, Colossi, and Void Rays.  I had no idea how he had gotten such a huge army.  I started turtling like crazy, setting up a big line Missile Turrets, with a bunch of Marine, Marauders, Battle Cruisers, Thors, and Vikings behind them.  Eventually I reached 200 supply, so I upgraded a  lot of my units.   
 
Then he attacked.  It was crazy, two huge armies facing each other.  By then he also   
 Wow
 Wow
had a Mothership to go along with his huge army.  After a large battle, I somehow managed to hold it off, with only a few units left at the end.  I started rebuilding units, and of course go to his base because I had just destroyed his army.  I am greeted by a bunch of Photon Cannons.  I go back to my base, thinking that I would just build more units, but eventually he pushes with another sizable army somehow.  He easily defeats mine and destroys my base.  But, I still had bases on the other side of the map.   I decided to have a bit of fun, and started building about six planetary fortresses.  Unfortunately,  he quickly found them and destroyed them before they were finished.  And so I lost game three.  He was rank 24 bronze, and I was pushed down to rank 30. 
 

Game Four

 
..... 
..... 
The final game was short and weird.  He was Protoss, and the teams were even.  Early in the game, I sent out a small army of Marines and Marauders to do a little bit of damage.  Turns out, he sent out a small army of Zealots and Stalkers to do a little bit of damage to me at about the exact same time.  In fact, and I didn't notice this until
Nooo! 
Nooo! 
 watching the replay, our armies passed each other, except we both went on different sides of a rock, so we didn't see each other.  It felt almost cartoonish.   
 
Well, we attacked each other at the same time, and I lifted my command center off and flew it away, so I wouldn't be completely destroyed.  My army was doing great.  Until the Probes attacked.  I was stupid, and had terrible unit control.  The stupid Probes destroyed most of my units.   
 
Long story short, I managed to destroy most of his building, but then he built a new Nexus in my old base.  I landed a barracks in the middle of the map, and tried cranking out marines.  Eventually I only had a floating Command Center, and he got Phoenix's.  Then my command center was destroyed and the game was over.  I was pushed down to rank 46. 
 

Replays.

 
Here are the replays for all four games if you would like to look at them.  Oh, and by the way, my SC2 username is GJSnoMan, just so you know which one is me.
Game One:  http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MI12B0YD
Game Two: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z8E2FFMR
Game Three: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LYTF3P08 
Game Four: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VSLCB7GO
 

Well, that's all for now

That's it for this week.  Sorry if it was too long, or too short, or had too many pictures, or not enough pictures; I'm new to this.  If you have a problem I would be happy to fix it next time.  Any advice or tips are welcome.  I would also like to give a shout out to Killboy777 for showing me a Day 9 video, which helped me a lot.   
To everyone in Bronze League, remember: 
I believe in you 
..... 
Peace, 
Grant742
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8 Comments

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GJSmitty

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Edited By GJSmitty

    

Beautiful  
Beautiful  
 Hello everyone and welcome to From Bronze to Gold: A StarCraft 2 Quest (FBTG: A SC2 Quest?), my journey from the bottom of the bronze league to, eventually, gold league.  So, before we get into this, I want to announce that for now on this will be every Wednesday, because I didn't really have a set date before.  But now I do, so it will keep me consistent and force me to keep playing. 
 
Well, I only played four games since the last time I wrote.  I am currently rank 46 bronze, which is quite a jump from the last time I wrote, when I was rank 97.  That said, I still have a long ways to go until I reach Silver league.  So, here's what happened in those games: 
 

Game One

 
Always build Marines. 
Always build Marines. 
This was my first game since being placed, so I was slightly nervous.  It didn't help that the loading screen said that my opponent was favored, which, in my opinion, is never a good sign.    He was Zerg and I was, as always, Terran.   The game started off normally, with me doing my usual stuff.   He tried an early Zergling rush, which I held off with ease.  I was building Marines, Marauders, and Hellions.  He saw this, and started building Banelings.  I decided to start attacking his base, so I sent my army over.  
 
 As I was about to attack, he came from behind and started attacking my base with Mutalisks.  This scared me, making me think it would have to be a race to destroy each others bases.  But I had a few units left there, and they managed to buy me time.  I  destroyed a small group of Zerglings, and went up the ramp, attacking his base.   Eventually, he had an army of Zerglings and Banelings coming. 
 
I quickly split up my army, so I would decrease the effectiveness of the Banelings.  It worked, and they only took out a couple of my
I split up my army. 
I split up my army. 
guys.  He had another round of Banelings come in, but I just did the same thing.  I destroyed his base and won the game.  I exited the game and found out that he had been Rank 12 Bronze, and that  I had shot up to rank 51. 
Overall I think I did very good in this game.  I was proud that I had managed to split my army up, because if I hadn't I probably would have had a much harder time, and maybe even lost to those Banelings. 

Game Two

      
Yeah, you better run! 
Yeah, you better run! 
I started this game right after the first one, feeling slightly more confident.  The loading screen came up, and it told me that he would be Terran.  It also informed me that he was favored.  It made me slightly more nervous, but I had just beaten someone who was favored, right? 
 
So the game started a lot like the last one; I went my standard build order, making marines, marauders, and hellions.  Eventually,  I scanned his base, and saw only a few marines, so I assumed he would be attacking shortly.  I waited awhile, but nothing came.  Once again I scanned his base, and saw three Medivacs leaving his base and going straight towards mine.   I got ready for his attack, posting three groups of units around the perimeter of my base.  He dropped units off, only to meet my units right there.  I quickly had him retreating.  Then I gathered my units and attacked, overwhelming him.  I managed to defeat his army, and win the game.  After the game I looked, and he was not yet ranked for Season 3.  Also, I got up to rank 24.  I was doing pretty good. 
*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** 
 Before I move on to game three, I would like to point out some things I noticed while watching the replay for this game.  The first was, this guy wasn't very good.  This, of course, made me feel worse about my victory.  Here, I'll show you.  
After only a little bit of fighting, this was his entire army: 
    
No Caption Provided

 At almost the exact same time, here was my entire army:
 
No Caption Provided
 If you look closely at the top image, you will see that his supply is at 48.  Mine is at 113.  Which makes it even harder for me to say this: 
 
I almost lost.
 
Yes.  I almost lost the game because of my stupidity.  You see, when our armies attacked each other, he was inside of his base, and I was outside of it.  Even though I was still attacking him fine, I tried to force my units up the ramp, stopping them from attacking his units.  I barely had an army by the time I defeated all of his units.   I felt that I did pretty good most of the game, but at that moment I did terrible.  Anyways, on to game three.  

Game Three

 
What? 
What? 
 This time it said that we were even teams and that he was Protoss.  After two wins, I was feeling very confident.  Now, this game was interesting, and pretty fun.  It once
That didn't work. 
That didn't work. 
 again started off normally.  I sent an early attack, which got quickly destroyed.  He had a good forwards defense, so I decided to sneak around back with some Medivacs, and drop into the back of his base.   It was going pretty good, until an absolutely massive army of Stalkers, Colossi, and Void Rays.  I had no idea how he had gotten such a huge army.  I started turtling like crazy, setting up a big line Missile Turrets, with a bunch of Marine, Marauders, Battle Cruisers, Thors, and Vikings behind them.  Eventually I reached 200 supply, so I upgraded a  lot of my units.   
 
Then he attacked.  It was crazy, two huge armies facing each other.  By then he also   
 Wow
 Wow
had a Mothership to go along with his huge army.  After a large battle, I somehow managed to hold it off, with only a few units left at the end.  I started rebuilding units, and of course go to his base because I had just destroyed his army.  I am greeted by a bunch of Photon Cannons.  I go back to my base, thinking that I would just build more units, but eventually he pushes with another sizable army somehow.  He easily defeats mine and destroys my base.  But, I still had bases on the other side of the map.   I decided to have a bit of fun, and started building about six planetary fortresses.  Unfortunately,  he quickly found them and destroyed them before they were finished.  And so I lost game three.  He was rank 24 bronze, and I was pushed down to rank 30. 
 

Game Four

 
..... 
..... 
The final game was short and weird.  He was Protoss, and the teams were even.  Early in the game, I sent out a small army of Marines and Marauders to do a little bit of damage.  Turns out, he sent out a small army of Zealots and Stalkers to do a little bit of damage to me at about the exact same time.  In fact, and I didn't notice this until
Nooo! 
Nooo! 
 watching the replay, our armies passed each other, except we both went on different sides of a rock, so we didn't see each other.  It felt almost cartoonish.   
 
Well, we attacked each other at the same time, and I lifted my command center off and flew it away, so I wouldn't be completely destroyed.  My army was doing great.  Until the Probes attacked.  I was stupid, and had terrible unit control.  The stupid Probes destroyed most of my units.   
 
Long story short, I managed to destroy most of his building, but then he built a new Nexus in my old base.  I landed a barracks in the middle of the map, and tried cranking out marines.  Eventually I only had a floating Command Center, and he got Phoenix's.  Then my command center was destroyed and the game was over.  I was pushed down to rank 46. 
 

Replays.

 
Here are the replays for all four games if you would like to look at them.  Oh, and by the way, my SC2 username is GJSnoMan, just so you know which one is me.
Game One:  http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MI12B0YD
Game Two: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z8E2FFMR
Game Three: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LYTF3P08 
Game Four: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VSLCB7GO
 

Well, that's all for now

That's it for this week.  Sorry if it was too long, or too short, or had too many pictures, or not enough pictures; I'm new to this.  If you have a problem I would be happy to fix it next time.  Any advice or tips are welcome.  I would also like to give a shout out to Killboy777 for showing me a Day 9 video, which helped me a lot.   
To everyone in Bronze League, remember: 
I believe in you 
..... 
Peace, 
Grant742
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NickL

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Edited By NickL

Don't lose faith! I am in gold now and I used to be in bronze. You can do it!

I only watched game 3, but just a few tips I noticed watching it at 8 times speed. (Not including the common improve your macro kinda tips)

When you dropped at the back of his main that was great, but you should have loaded up and left as soon as you saw the first stalker. It is better to do a little damage for no losses then to do a bit more damage and lose half of your army. A medivac can escape from any protoss unit except phoenix and blink stalkers (or normal stalkers if there is no safe air only area nearby), use that to your advantage!

When you reach 200 supply, start investing into a lot of unit producing structures, this may seem counter-intuitive, but you will probably lose most of that army in a head to head fight and at that point it is all about who can get back up to 200 supply faster. Ten more reactored barracks (since you had a lot of minerals but not a ton of gas, base what extra structures you make on your mineral/gas ratio at that time) would have given you an addition 20 marines every minute after that battle and could have been the difference between winning and losing that game.

Making more barracks won't come cheap though, which brings me to the third point, you should have expanded to your third much sooner than you did.

When someone creates that many cannons, it screams out that they are not going to leave their base for a very long time, leaving you to take the rest of the map. I would have liked to see an expansion at every corner and your army somewhere in a better position in the middle of the map (those turrets kind of backfired and blocked your units from effectively attacking)

And lastly (and possibly most importantly) upgrades, upgrades, upgrades.

Hope these tips help you win your next game when you find yourself in a similar situation!

edit: if you are an NA player feel free to add me, not that I'm that great or anything but I can help you with some stuff if you want.

Governor 826

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Donos

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Edited By Donos

One thing, dude don't even worry about the favoured thing. Take the inaccuracy that is your MMR, multiply it by the inaccuracy that is the other guy's MMR, then run it through an Australian toilet and you get that. For the blog itself, itseems really well written, so gj man. Edit: yay I made a punny.

Edit again: I'm watching game 4, looking at your starting wall. I'd suggest you use supply depot barracks barracks, instead of sd barracks sd. That second supply depot is kind of a waste since you didn't need the supply at the time, whereas you wanted to build a second barracks anyways. A minute down the road, you've got a stronger wall and a couple more marines for the same resources and time.

Double Edit Again: Next thing, you pretty much want to get your orbital command going as soon as your first barracks finishes, because that mule is worth 6 extra SCVs. If you cut that unneeded second supply depot, then you can do everything you're doing now and have 150 minerals for the orbital the moment that first barracks finishes. While the orbital is building, your food growth will slow down (only marine production) giving you time to build the second supply depot without getting supply blocked.

Edit 3: For the watchtowers, try using a marine instead of an SCV. The marines aren't doing anything useful at your base anyway, and that SCV could be mining. And so long as you have marines just standing around, might as well take both watchtowers so this surprise attack doesn't happen again.

Fourth: Some crisis management stuff once the basetrade started, probably more about intuition than strategy so don't worry too much. In general, when an army shows up at your base and you don't have the stuff to kill it, you want to delay as long as possible, while keeping your units alive (so your production can help you), then swarm with your workers and all your units once their army is in your base. In this case, I'm pretty sure you could've killed that army by backing up your couple of units to only fire at the zealots while not getting shot at the stalkers. When your wall goes down, back up further and let their army in. Once they're in open space, surround with your workers and attack with your units. Looking at the numbers, 2 zealots and 4 stalkers vs a couple marines/marauders and 23 workers (plus the units you had in production), you would've won that fight handily. Stalkers are surprisingly bad against worker surrounds, since they're so big they can be attacked by a lot of workers at the same time.

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ikaruga

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Edited By ikaruga

if you want a practice partner feel free to add me on steam and bnet my name is the therabit 931. I'm online this time almost everyday just ping me on steam and I can play 1 or 2 match with you. I'm currently in gold and used to be bronze back in season 1.

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Moztacular

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Edited By Moztacular

why go for gold? go for plat at least! Good luck either way and I'll keep checking in.

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GJSmitty

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Edited By GJSmitty
@Donos: & @NickL:  
Thanks a lot for the tips.  I will definitely keep what you two said in mind for future games.
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tunaburn

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Edited By tunaburn

yea dude dont even worry. i was bronze for a long time. i got to silver and was excited. then got to gold so quick after that! your rank in your league means nothing either man so dont worry about that either. just keep playing. it can be tough i know. also, dont forget bunkers. they are amazing. you can out 4 marines in a bunker then push out. if they do a little counter youll be fine. then you can salvage that bunker and get most your money back!

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baldgye

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Edited By baldgye
@tunaburn said:
yea dude dont even worry. i was bronze for a long time. i got to silver and was excited. then got to gold so quick after that! your rank in your league means nothing either man so dont worry about that either. just keep playing. it can be tough i know. also, dont forget bunkers. they are amazing. you can out 4 marines in a bunker then push out. if they do a little counter youll be fine. then you can salvage that bunker and get most your money back!
league rank means a little more than nothing... I used to be in gold an low gold players are horrible compared to high gold players... the same is true for all leagues.. the higher someone is usualy the better they are and closer to getting promoted... and vice-versa