Season 4 Goal Results

As eager as I am to start playing in the next season, it's time to review my goals for Season 4!

Since Blizzard changed their seasons to last only 2 months and I started a bit late, I only had about 5.5 weeks during this season (November 11 - December 19).

1. Play 30 ladder games - that's 5 games a week.

• I played 26 games, so that's pretty close (86%).
• Though I suppose since I only had 5.5 weeks, perhaps a goal of 27 games would've been more accurate - in which case I was  96%!
• I didn't play regularly though, which was my main intention. 18 of the games were played in the last week of the season. Regardless, I still think 5 games a week is reasonable.

2. Blog/cast more regularly - shorter posts - maybe 1 cast a week?

• My intention was to post 4 times a week = 22 posts. I did 9 (40%).
• Often this season I'd want to post about my progress, but the longer I'd wait to post, the more there was to post about and then POW! a monster post! I've been trying in the last week to post regularly - even if I have 20 things to say, just post about one - and have enjoyed it a lot :)

• The goal was about 5 casts and I did 1 (20%).
• For my YouTube subscribers this is a real shame (especially since I haven't messaged them about my new channel!). I can only cast in the mornings, so the key here is my sleep/waking schedule - and the key to that is going to bed earlier!

4. I'd really like to play through the single-player of Modern Warfare 1, 2, and now 3.

I'll skip to this one - save the best for last!

• I actually didn't play ANY single-player of any Modern Warfare games - so 0%. Though I did play a few rounds of multi-player and some Spec Ops in Modern Warfare 3 - which is really fun!
• Back in early November, I was overly optimistic about getting up early for SC2 and then playing console games some in the evening. But there's only so much time in a day - and only so much energy! "Not enough energy." ;)

3. Let's try to lose 5 lbs. That's less than 1 lb a week.

• And the big success of Season 4? I started at XX8.6 pounds, and on the morning of December 20 I was XX3.6 pounds - 100%!
• So I made my goal and weighed the lowest I've ever been all year (I was last XX3.6 on March 19).
• Course I won't say how much I've gained back in the last two days since the holiday foods/eating out has started ;)

All in all a good season! I didn't make most of my goals, but there was some over-optimism going on back in early November. I'm very excited to start Season 5 though, and to continue the momentum I've had over the last week!

And of course, I'm very excited to get some time off work, spend time with extended family, eat lots of yummy food, and of course, give/receive some presents - celebrating Jesus' birth is BIG fun!

Season 4 Final Game!

This morning I casted my final game of Season 4, a PvZ against BoZiffer. Nothing earth-shattering, but a nice way to end the season. Hope you enjoy it :)





All in all a fair game, but perhaps more importantly, BoZiffer started a chat with me afterwards and was the guy who asked if he could add me as a friend. So perhaps you'll see more games from BoZiffer in the future!

Season 4 Retrospective

Last night my run in Season 4 of the Blizzard Ladder came to an end after 26 games, just short of my goal of 30 games. I was actually expecting to play an hour or two longer, but my lovely and ever responsible wife would not stand for it (I had already played 8 games that night and it was midnight). Which I'm thankful for - it allowed me to get up early today, which is crucial especially for any SC2 casting to happen!

So with that, here are the results and pretty tables!

After Qualifier Final Standing League Silver Silver Rank 100 51 Rank Points 0 146 Bonus Pool 136 223

Matchup Wins Losses Total Win Rate TvP 3 3 0% TvT 1 3 4 25% TvZ 2 2 100% PvP 1 2 3 33% PvT 2 3 5 40% PvZ 2 1 3 66% ZvP 1 1 0% ZvT 2 1 3 66% ZvZ 2 2 0% Total 10 16 26 38% Green background = best match up for race Race Played As Games Random 26

Map Wins Losses Total Win Rate Abyssal Caverns 1 1 100% Xel'Naga Caverns 1 1 100% Antiga Shipyard 3 2 5 60% The Shattered Temple 2 3 5 40% Tal'darim Altar LE 1 3 4 25% Metalopolis 1 4 5 20% Shakuras Plateau 1 4 5 20% Nerazim Crypt - - Green text = map was added for Season 4 Red background = map is removed for Season 5 Opponent's League Wins Losses Total Win Rate Gold 1 1 0% Silver 7 9 16 46% Bronze 3 6 9 33%

Rank - So I just barely missed the top 50, which was a bit disappointing, but given that I was mostly inactive for the season, not unexpected. I have noticed that my rank within the division has been lowering each season: Bronze 12, Silver 23, Silver 26, and now Silver 51. And as you can see, I wasn't able to keep up with the bonus pool accumulation either.

Matchups - It may appear that my Terran and Protoss skills are strong versus Zerg, and my Zerg is now strong against Terran - but I just don't think 2 months is long enough (26 games) to come to any real conclusions (compared to 64 games in Season 3). This is likely aggravated by playing Random. I'm considering picking one race for next season, and focusing on it. I think that would improve my understanding of that race's matchup and help me actually develop some skill.

Maps - At first, I didn't veto any maps - but after Blizzard announced that Abyssal Caverns and Nerazim Crypt would be removed for Season 5, I vetoed them in the map selection - and it was after this point that most of my games were played.

It does appear that I really have trouble with mid-size maps like Metalopolis and Shakuras Plateau. Once players establish their natural expansion, they usually move out - and I think I struggle with expanding to a third while increasing production and maneuvering my army. At this level, expanding and keeping production up is likely more important than army handling - at least according to Budha's SC2 Pyramid, which I'll post about later...

League - I was matched mostly with Silver and upper Bronze players this time - which I think is accurate. After I started playing again later in the season, I think it took Battle.net some time to adjust my MMR to my atrophied skills. I wouldn't be surprised if it places me in upper Bronze next season, but we'll see. You never know!

Friends - One thing that was different this season is I encountered a few players who expressed interest in adding me as a friend on Battle.net. I've never had that happen before! So far I haven't gotten any notification that they've added me - though I've never had character friends (all my friends so far are Real ID friends). So it'll be interesting to see if anything comes of it - perhaps I can help someone else get better by using me as a practice partner :)

So all in all, another good season - and a nice experiment with playing Random. But I really look forward to picking a race to play and to play a bit more consistently next season!

4 Down and a Nice Guy

After helping my wife with Christmas cards/letters (while watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey) - I sat down around 11pm (I think?) and played 4 ladder games.

Tonight wasn't all mirror matches - which is nice. I lost the first 3 games, TvP, ZvT, TvP - some of them long - I was sure I had that ZvT, but apparently he had a secret base I knew nothing about!

Not sure if the wine I was drinking had anything to do with my play - thanks to CmdrTallon and his family for the super fun dinner and the Relax Riesling - I'm not a big wine guy, but it was very yummy - I feel so chill now :)

The final game was a PvP, which I won :) I seem to be losing 3 games then winning 1 game lately. He had just bought SC2 last week, so that was a bummer - no fun to stomp new guys. But we ended up playing a 1v1 custom game (best of 3, right?), which I won - and then a few 2v2's - we lost both times resoundingly. Apparently we're both terrible at this game ;-)

I must say though, 2v2 is quite different than 1v1! The maps, the army sizes, etc.

It will be interesting to see if I see this player online in the future - making new friends via SC2 is always fun!

So only 12 more games to reach my goal of 30 games in Season 4! I only have one morning (assuming I can get up early which is doubtful) and one evening to play. It'll be close!

Back vs Bronze!

I played for about an hour Thursday night and got in 4 games - all of my opponents were slightly favored. And to my great surprise, all 4 games were mirror match-ups - ZvZ, PvP, TvT, TvT. I lost the first 3 with a glorious finale (for my opponent).

Time: 34:01 No, these are not my battlecruisers.

Time: 34:11 About 7 seconds later in real time - battlecruisers in large numbers are terrible!

Time: 34:12 This was just a pretty picture :)

Time: 34:29 GG! From the mini-map, you can see that he's on 4 bases - I was on my third, but he had cleaned up my first and second. By maybe 8-9 minutes into the game, he had killed a few SCVs with Banshees and had expanded before me. He had been at a serious economic advantage for most the game - thus, the battlecruiser finale!

That game was versus a Bronze league player - so I was hoping that I had lost enough games (6 in a row) to get the matching-making system to realize I was in upper Bronze rather than mid-Silver. My next opponent was in Bronze league - and the game was quite close, as you'll see.

Time: 8:19 This is probably the crucial moment of the game - both of our armies are passing right by each other outside his base (I'm blue). Neither of them can see each other. I think his is stronger - we both have Stimpack (fire 30% faster for 10 HP), I have +1 armor and he has Combat Shield (Marines +10 HP).

Time: 8:41 This was a glorious moment, I stimmed the Marines, and ran them up the ramp - CHARGE! I had no idea that he had such a large army - thankfully his army was at the Xel'Naga tower (as you can see on the mini-map). And he had also just started on his second Command Center - so had not used that money to build SCVs or army units.

Time: 9:13 He had two options - go back to his base or go to mine and try to win a base race. He chose the latter. By the time he arrived, I had a small force waiting - and lots of SCVs to repair my wall.

Time: 9:13 Unfortunately for him - by this time, I had killed 22 workers and was going to start focusing on his Command Centers. That's the price of deciding to counter-attack from half-way across the map when your opponent is already breaking down the front door.

Time: 10:40 With all but 2 of my Marines dead in his base, all he has is one Barracks and a bunch of Supply Depots.

Time: 10:40 And in my base, he has broken through the wall and is making his way to the mineral line. But all my Barracks are still running, with the +1 attack upgrade is almost finished. Within moments, he'll lose his army advantage.

Time: 12:06 I've cleaned up his units in my base, and his comment says it all.

Time: 12:17 And with that, he sends his last units (he was out of minerals) for a final push. By the time he arrives, I have enough upgraded units to hold him off. GG!

As he was slightly favored, I got 32 points for that win - making up for about 4 of my previous losses. I'm at rank 65 in my division with 54 rank points. And these 4 games brings me up to 14, which is just about half-way to my goal of 30! I only have a few more opportunities to play - so it's gonna be close!

A Little Rusty

I played 2 ladder games tonight, and as expected, lost both. Interestingly, both were against fairly highly ranked Silver league players, rank 17 and 18 in their divisions.

The first was a Terran vs. Terran on a larger map, Tal'darim Altar LE, and was a long game! After watching the replay (in 8x speed), it was obvious I was far behind by the 12 minute mark.

I'm clearly out of practice - especially with continuing to make workers. Perhaps fast-expanding wasn't such a good idea for someone who hadn't played competitively in almost a month!

The second was a fast Protoss vs. Terran on Shattered Temple. The game finished within 10 minutes. Not much to comment on there - he built a bunch of guys and I didn't :(

I wasn't playing with my nice high-resolution mouse - so perhaps I can blame it on that ;-)

It'll be an interesting week of games - perhaps by the end of it my match-making rating (MMR) and my skill can meet in the middle!

Progress, Difficulties, and Ladder Lock!

Despite my lack of posting over the last two weeks (ugh!), I have made some definite progress towards my goals.

On the casting front, I was able to get a CSL account and now have the ability to post videos on their website! (You only need a student email account if you want to actually play on a school team.) I also got permission to use the CSL logo in my casts as long as I give them and their sponsors a shoutout. I've noticed some casters actually putting the logos of the sponsors in the video - so that may be an option also.

On the hardware side, I finally installed a 100% legit copy of Windows 7 on my new PC and also installed some new RAM. I initially had some trouble with the new RAM working with the existing RAM, so I had to remove the old RAM to make things happy. With being busy with other things at night, that whole trial-and-error experimentation process took much longer than I wanted it to! I'll post some pictures later - my daughter helped me with the final install :)

So all that's left is for me to work on some intro graphics/tools and I'll be ready to start casting CSL games regularly!

On the weight loss side, as of this morning, I've lost 4.6 pounds since I set my goals - thanks to a few sessions with Jillian Michaels (30-day shred), but mostly due to eating lighter in the evenings. Which is great because...

The end of Season 4 is in one week! The ladder is being locked this Tuesday morning - so I highly expect to stay in Silver league - and the season ends a week later on Dec 20 when they do their weekly maintenance Tuesday morning. I've only played 8 games, so I'd have to play 22 games in 8 days to reach my goal of 30 games for the season.

I think it'll be tight - especially if Battle.net keeps having me play Zerg - those games always seem to last forever!

There's so much more I want to post about, so hopefully I can post more often this next week!

More Social, Less StarCraft

It's been almost 2 weeks since I set my Season 4 goals, and here's how I'm doing:

1. Playing SC2 - played 7 games so far, so not too bad - though 5 of those were on one night!

2. Posting/casting - only posted a few times, only 1 cast. Needs improvement.

3. Weight - For a few days I was almost 2 lbs lighter. But today almost a half pound heavier. I see exercise in my future... especially after Thanksgiving tomorrow!

4. Call of Duty - I've played Modern Warfare 3 twice and installed MW1 and MW2 on my XB360. MW1 has been in the disc tray for the last two weeks - but I haven't even turned on the XB360 since then :(

In other news, I'm using Facebook more and commenting on Fafner's blog, so I'm at least a bit more social than I was two weeks ago.

And big thanks to my co-worker Terry, who pointed out that several of my links were bad - I didn't update them when I renamed the blog! Thanks Terry!

Season 4 Qualifier

As promised, here's a cast of my 1v1 qualifier! This was my first cast as CuePhoenix, my first new cast for my new YouTube channel, and a good example of Zerg harassment. Enjoy!


(And don't forget to watch it in glorious fullscreen 1080p!)

I still have mixed feelings about playing as Random (random race). Although I enjoy the variety, it is difficult to improve at any particular aspect, especially since I only play a few games a week.

If I had to choose one race for this season, I might lean towards playing Zerg (gasp!).

How I'm playing them is fairly active, which is fun to play and cast, and whenever I win I feel like it's an accomplishment.

Of course, maybe that says something about the underdog mentality of many Zerg players ;-)

Long Games!

(I'll attempt a quick post during a late lunch...)

I've been fairly active since my last post - I attempted at least 3 mornings to cast my 1v1 qualifier to my satisfaction (and succeeded this morning!) and have played 7 ladder games. You can see my updated standing on the side panel.

One thing I've noticed is that the lower-level Silver and upper-level Bronze players that I'm typically matched with are not afraid of long games. Besides the turtling that's common at this level, these players are tough as nails and really stick it out if they think they have a sliver of a chance!

Last night I sat down and figured I'd play one game - maybe 15-20 minutes top, right?

Don't freak out - that's in-game time, so in real life, it was only 45 minutes.

But still - 45 minutes?!?!

Now that's not to say I was completely dominating or anything - let's be clear, we were both terrible. But terrible in the worst way - fairly stalemated armies (defensive broodlords vs gateway units w/ no blink) and we were both terrible about expanding to a third - so no resources.

And we were fairly good about keeping it that way - I had map control, killing two (three?) of his attempts at a third base, but while I was off doing that, he rolled a baneling ball into my third killing almost all (if not all) of my probes.

Finally, he decided for a base race, sending most of his broodlords to my main. I tried holding him off, but it was clear his main and expansion weren't heavily defended anymore - so I obliged to the race and won (I had a third and forth expansion at that point).

But yeah, you never know what to expect in the ladder - master league players surrendering immediately or bronze players sticking it out to the last building - one of the reasons I love this game :)

(ok, guess that wasn't so short after all!)

Season 4: Goals

Well, it's that time - time to review the goals of last season and make new ones for Season 4!

Season 3

I had 4 goals: play more SC2, blog more often, continue to cast, and start StarClass - and I accomplished all of them!

I played 64 1v1 ladder games compared to 26 in Season 2.
I posted on average 2 times a week over 12 weeks compared to about once a week during Season 2.
I casted 5 games compared to 4 games in Season 2.
And I started StarClass with 7 casts.

Outside SC2
I wanted to exercise and lose weight, read more to the kids, watch more movies with my wife, and play more PS3/XB360 - I accomplished 2 out of 4 :(

Weight-wise, I'm basically where I was in August - I only formally exercised 6 times and neglected my PS3 and XB360 (course my PS3 wasn't working for some of that time).

I have read more to my daughter - she loves reading books. And now that my little boy's a toddler, I better start reading those Star Wars board books to him :)

My wife and I have had more movie nights thanks to my mother-in-law watching the kids while she was here, and recently, thanks to the Twilight series... and big news, I guess I'm "Team Edward" - a vampire who believes in chastity before marriage is alright in my book.

Season 4

Well, the ladder seasons are only 2 months now - so there's only 6 weeks left in Season 4 - maybe less! And that includes Thanksgiving and Christmas - this is a very busy time of year! So I'll try to keep these goals short:

1. Play 30 ladder games - that's 5 games a week.
2. Blog/cast more regularly - shorter posts - maybe 1 cast a week?
3. Let's try to lose 5 lbs. That's less than 1 lb a week.
4. I'd really like to play through the single-player of Modern Warfare 1, 2, and now 3.

Those seem do-able - very important for goal-setting! (ok, maybe the Call of Duty one might be a stretch...)

Awesome. Now it's time to break open the new copy of Modern Warfare 3 Hardened Edition I've had for 4 days and get on XBox LIVE!