Feeling Cheated?

Last Saturday, I finally broke a terrible losing streak - 9 games. My winning streak only lasted for 3 games, but I think the Battle.Net matchmaker finally realized I wasn't top Silver material ;-)

After winning 3 times, I lost a TvT, then played a TvP on The Shattered Temple, in close by air positions. I sent a group of marines to the ramp - to find 3 Photon Cannons - I heard a swish - Dark Templars!

I watched the cloaked DTs make their way down the map and towards my ramp...

9:39 minutes - Here they come up the ramp - and straight into my base. They kill one of the marines instantly and then waltz right in.

9:39 - This is all my tech towards detection - a half-built Engineering Bay - and enough energy in the Orbital Command for one Com-Sat Scan. I waste the scan when there's only a few units in range - none of the DTs are killed. I was able to build 1 Missile Turret - 2 others were destroyed while being built. But by then all my army units were dead - so I didn't have anything to kill the DTs.

When the DTs came up the front ramp - I had all my army units in the back of the base staging for a drop into his mineral line. In some ways, I should've gone ahead with the drop - at least put on some counter-pressure.

But the really interesting thing was my emotional reaction - I was sighing and arrggh-ing, so my wife asked what was the matter. I explained that he did something perhaps cheesy, but legal, something valid, and not cheating. She asked "Uh, how can he cheat?" I explained that since SC2 is played via the Blizzard servers, you basically can't cheat.

But her question pointed out something - I felt cheated. Logically I knew it was a fine tactic - and I was irresponsible for not having any detection or at least walling off the front door. But I had this gut reaction that somehow his victory was not earned fairly.

It's hard to lose. And having lost so many games and seeing your mistakes so clearly and having limited playing time makes it worse. But I love this game and it's intricacies - one of which is the meta of cloaked units. Getting better at any competitive sport or game requires losing a few games (losing a lot of games!) and using those losses as learning opportunities.

Now the funny part - the next game was TvP on The Shattered Temple again!

I commented about losing the previous game to DTs. The guy said he didn't like DTs. He proceeded to stomp me - without DTs - and my only recourse was a counter-attack - with cloaked Banshees. He had no detection back at his natural expansion, so he had to retreat. I even destroyed his Robotics Facility so he couldn't make any more Observers - but his deathball still squashed me.

In some ways, I'm glad - cloaked Banshees are so imba* ;-)

(* imbalanced)