SCL End of Beta Skill level status

How have you progressed?
What helped you progress?

-Watching occasional day9dailys have helped me a lot with things I never would have thought of and is the best strategy resource. You can catch his ustream everyday but Fri/Sat, at 7 PM PST
-Tournament matches on youtube
-New hotkeys (I'm a lefty, this has been a huge change for me, if you're a lefty make sure you have lefty hotkey set, went from bronze->gold instantly when they implemented this)
-Practice

I'm very confident as a player now and am at least a top tier player

I feel as I've grown in skill I can appreciate the game more and look deeper into it. I used to think when I was a bronze or silver player I could argue with a plat. player about the game, but now I really see you need to be great to have any input on the game. If you're weak at this game you're not looking at it properly, you're not seeing everything.

Do you guys feel you've gotten better at the game?

Probably frequented boards more often then i played the game. Went bronze to Platinum (diamond) in ~200 games. Most of it can be attributed to just talking and thinking and watching tourneys, and trying to get better whenever I play :P.

Only other online RTS I played semi-seriously was WC3, was ok.

Mechanically I didn't have too much trouble picking up, sure the other games I played don't have macro but they both require a lot of on the spot movements and decision making. Specifically wc3, dota, and gladiator level WoW arena.

But what playtime really familiarized me with is the flow of gameplay and knowing when to push, when to macro, etc etc.

I have improved a lot, but there is a long way to go.

I feel that my tactical knowledge and my multitasking ability's are rapidly increasing, but I still need to use the keyboard a bit more, and I need to be faster at adapting and playing in general.
Ohh yes and I need some more confidence in my play and my plan/build.

Here is what I use to try and improve my game.
-I'm an especially big fan of day9 and his tactical approach, I'm a chess player as well, and if you don't hit his ustream, he got his archive at day9tv.blip.tv
-Watching a lot of Tournament matches on youtube
-And especially looking at my own matches over and over again.
-After the second reset, I joined the practice league, and the slow paste made wonders for my timing.

I first got into beta about a month after it started and placed into gold. I played some games, and got a feel for SC again (I hadnt played BW since 2004ish). A couple weeks later (and about 40 games or so) they reset the ladders and I placed into platinum. I have placed into platinum/diamond since.

I have definitely improved a lot though. My timing and macro are spot on for the first 12-15 minutes of the game, but my micro suffers a lot. Good unit composition and micro are my main drawbacks and the only things that cause me to lose when I do (sometimes expanding too early as well). I only have about 160 games played over the last few months, so I still have plenty of playing to do to catch up even more.

I am currently 5th in my division in the diamond league.

Day9 has provided a LOT of insight that I think I have incorporated into my own stuff as well. Discussing my thoughts on builds/counters and articulating my opinions on balance have also probably helped. I think that taking a realistic step back to look at the balance of the game as it applies to you can help you as well, so long as you dont get into a "this race or this unit is overpowered" state of mind.

started out at rank 67 copper , and finished at platinum league. dodnt play alot of games less than 100. but i dont think ill play ladder much at retail. i found the best analogy for sc2 - its like going to the gym, when u get in form ure great, but if u dont go to the gym (or play sc) for a week or 2 , u suck. it a bit high maintinance game for me.

and btw, LOVE day9. hes funny and a good teacher if u can call him that..

I wish I could tell if my ranking has actually improved since the beginning of beta.... (non-subtle complaint about divisons).

I'm very happy with my current level considering how little I've been able to play. My win ratio is definitely much better than the first week of beta, and before the last reset, when I actually got to play over 40 games before a reset, I was feeling pretty confident and ranking up pretty quickly (not that that's relevant, but my score was getting decent at least).

I regret I wasn't available for more zotacs and craftcups to test myself more often against top tier players. I only did the two first and was knocked out like a spec of dust by guys who went really far, but I couldn't learn much from that since it was just two BO1s.

Probably regressed a lot.. Started out quite good, being top 200 on the server (using starcraftrankings.com) and was so close to 2000 pts, beating people like InControl and LZGamer and etc about 50% of the time I played them. Then I switched to zerg and did alright but kinda sucked, and with all the current issues blizzard is making, I just lost my desire to play because I dont want to spent $300+ for extra copies of the game which will still have divisions instead of a real ladder and everything =/

I might try again next beta phase, but i doubt ill take the game seriously anymore

I haven't played any 1v1s after that patch which enabled map publishing, so it's difficult to tell. I have however, been playing a bunch of 3v3s, which I feel has improved my multitasking. 1v1 and 3v3 are my favorite: I don't really like 2v2 or 4v4.

I went from gold to platinum (pre-diamond).


I became better by practice and looking at what all the pro-zerg players were up to. I looked at IdrA's macro build, TLO's innovative play, etc...

Helped a lot, even though those players are much more skilled than I'll be anytime soon.

Using the current league system, I started as a platinum player and now I'd say my skill level is of low diamond with Terran only. With the other races, I'd say I'm platinum/gold. Of course, I'm talking about skill level here because after the last reset I ended up in silver but I just don't belong there.

I didn't watch a lot of replays to get better. I went on teamliquid.net a couple of times but to get better I simply tried stuff and saw what works and what doesn't.

I was only in Silver at the end, but compared to SC I've greatly improved. My macro is a lot better, I build several unit-producing structures at a time, expand earlier and more often and always keep my mineral lines saturated. Even when I lose a game, the score screen often shows that I collected more resources than my opponent, which I think says something.

I'm looking forward to when the game comes out and I can continue to hone my skills - now that I can keep my resources high, I need to put them to better use.

Yeah I'm better. I've watched a bit of replays. Even watched my own. I watched tournament players, etc... I don't think there was major improvement in my whole week of beta, but if I didn't watch videos of SC2 before hand I would of been much worse. I have a pretty good grasp of what I'm doing. I can't wait to become the best SC2 player once it comes out!

*puts on eye of the tiger*

PS: I'm gold division. I think I could handle my self in platinum.

Using the current system, I'd put myself in Plat :].

I went 5-0 in my placement matches, so I'm there right now, but I don't think I'm really Diamond material :p.

I was a D/D+ player in iCCUP and I've never been anything lower than Diamond (or equivalent) with about a 2:1 win ratio.

I may not be the greatest player and people may make fun of me and tell me to leave because I'm only ever been in Bronze (both before and after the league system change) but I have to remind them that I'm a Bronze player who, when playing team matches, plays at a higher level. I'm also a Bronze player that has pretty much carried many higher ranking players through matches with my unit micro.

So, while I may not be good at 1v1, I'm an excellent team player who is capable of playing at a much higher level.

And more so on topic, I don't think I've gotten better at least not any amount that is extremely obvious. I've always been a team player as my real strength, at least in regards to StarCraft 2, lies in resource sharing and micro (when on a team). I've gotten better in small ways.

Yeah, back when I played 2v2 in BW (about 5/6 years ago) I was even worse mechanically than I'm now but I had some decent strategic knowledge.
The most important thing in 2v2 is knowing when to attack and stuff, so such a skill has a pretty big impact on teamplay.

didnt have time to watch replays, even my own.

After each game, win or loss, I'd examine the resource collection rate graphs and gauge if I was being slow or etc...how big of an impact did my eco raids go...etc..

Stuff like that, just comparing the stats and quickly back tracking critical moments was good enough to boost me from Gold to Diamond very quickly.

I got a lot better. I probably play SC2 better than I've ever played SC1. It's the matchmaking that did it. With the old BNet it was a crap shoot to find players around your skill level, but the random matchmaking system put me up against players I could easily learn from.