Here's to the next 500.

I just got my 500th 1v1 league win! My opponent must have sensed the momentous occasion and saw fit to bestow his distinguished congratulations. Here's the entire chat log:

00:00:04 - BillyBanana: gl hf

00:08:22 - [name removed]: i think every single faggot ive played today has 4 gate
00:08:26 - [name removed]: good job youre so good

Thank you, sir! Unfortunately I am not quite as good as you suspected, for I had managed to make only three Gateways. I am nonetheless gratified to have earned your accolades.

In all seriousness, I'm glad to say that I'm back in the swing of things. Since Thanksgiving, I haven't been practicing nearly as much as before. I was feeling frustrated about losing to the same things I always have, and I started to feel nervous about laddering. Thoughts of giving up on SC2 started creeping into my head. But those thoughts have not prevailed. I know this road all too well, having let Go become a terrifying specter. This time, I am determined not to give up or to let my emotions turn into thoughts (a phrase borrowed from Day[9], which is to say letting "I am frustrated and sad that I keep losing" turn into "I am bad at this game and should stop trying.") One of the most powerful thought tricks I have found to help me persevere is to imagine how good I could possibly get in one, two, five, ten years. If I let go of every misgiving and just think matter-of-factly about the level of skill I am capable of achieving, my mind boggles. I could become one of the best players in the world, a true master. Now that's an exciting thought.

Ironically, a recent viewing of Day[9] Daily #208 "Live Coaching with DJ Wheat" seemed to actually hurt my play for the day after I saw it. In the video, Day[9] coaches Wheat to play slowly and focus on macro above all else. At one point he even tells Wheat to completely ignore a battle just to make sure he was 100% on top of Larva injections and such. Hint: This is an extreme approach! I think Day[9] knows that's extreme, but his audience was lower league players who pay too much attention to pretty explosions and not enough to macro. In other words, I'm past that point. I honestly don't remember the last time I got behind in macro because of some distraction. Wow, that really is true. I'm just now realizing that as I type. I guess it goes to show that it pays to reflect on how you've improved. Anyway, the other reason that that Daily didn't jive well with me was the slow play aspect. I think he was trying to counter the panic that pervades the emotions of so many RTS players. That certainly applies to me, but in trying to calm down I became detached from the game, which decreased my response time and removed my instinctual rhythms, making my macro worse instead of better. Ultimately the main reason I panic and worry during a game is because I don't have a good enough understanding of the game to know how well I'm doing and how to reasonably maximize my chances of winning. So the answer for me is to become acutely aware and involved with the game but remain detached from the result. Of course I cannot always know what optimal play is, but if I "stay conscious" and make deliberate choices based on best guesses, then it should be a simple matter to do a post-game analysis of the effectiveness of those choices.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the early game, which is a very fascinating and critical part of the game that is so easy to overlook. For example, there is virtually nothing to lose but plenty to gain in sending your first Zealot over to a Terran's base across a small or medium rush distance. Maybe you'll kill a Marine or an SCV building a Bunker at the top of the ramp. If they've walled off, at least you'll get some scouting info. Worst case scenario, you simply have to retreat. It's not like they're going to have Stim or a Marauder with Concussive Shells. Your Zealot is 100% safe! What a revelation. I am seeing the power of knowing timings. And the veil of mystery begins to lift ever so slightly.

p.s. Another interesting area to look at timings is the Zerg fast-expand. They are utterly vulnerable for a while, lulling you into a sense of safety, and then BOOM they've got two Spine Crawlers up and you're being surrounded by twenty speedlings. I'm thinking about posting a little PvZ analysis of that build soon. It's about time I get some real strategy content in this blog.

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Games played: 960
League/points: Diamond/2310

PTR and the Wolf

Like a surprise wild animal attack, Blizzard has shot forth with the release of the new Public Test Region, along with a trial of the big new patch that will be applied to the regular servers at the end of the month. I only won two of my placement matches and got placed into Bronze, so it will be funny to see how quickly I can get promoted to Diamond. I'm SallyBoBally.331.

Overall I love the new patch, but there are a couple things that make me frown. Here's what hit me the most:

Features

•  Battle.net Chat Channels have been added

Cool. Finally, we have the first step in making the new Battle.net feel connected. Now you can hit a button and actually see other people. But they've got a ways to go. They need to integrate the chat with the custom game finder to make it easy to look for a game you want to join. I played Diablo 2 quite a bit back in the day, and that system worked well. You got randomly placed in a room with a certain max number of people, and all the games going on in that room were listed so that you could see a description along with the name, class and level of everyone in it. As has been said many times, it's truly bizarre that the new Battle.net doesn't even include the basic features that have been in many Blizzard games before.

On a related note, I wish they would improve the social experience at the end of each game. You shouldn't get kicked out of the game's chat when you quit to the score screen. It's strange to suddenly get left out in the cold after the game, unable to talk to your opponent(s) unless you send them a PM. They could even make it so that when you surrender a game, you just become a spectator. There's really no reason why "resign" and "leave" need to be married as they are.

• The game will end in a tie for all remaining players if no players have income, production, or destroyed any structures for three consecutive minutes.

Yay! I approve. This does cut down on some of the rare, hilarious lateral-thinking endgame scenarios that can occur (such as this one, which I originally watched via the replay file, which will always be one of my most memorable Starcraft experiences), but at least people will no longer have to be screwed over by Terrans who float away after a base trade, for which I constantly see QQ threads on r/starcraft and tl.net. And on the plus side, we may get to see a new breed of hilarious endgame replays where people just manage to build or destroy something before the three minutes are up.

• In-game help is now available in Battle.net.

Lolz, I always wondered why this wasn't there before. Maybe I'll actually use it occasionally, instead of always alt-tabbing to Liquipedia.

• When selecting a Vespene Geyser, the number of current harvesters will be displayed in the info panel.

Awww, they really care about us.

• Customizable Hotkey Support has been added.

Haaaaaalelujah! Finally. No more scrambling for the right side of the keyboard (Immortals, anyone?), and no more useless keys like F2-F4, ` and CapsLock. And they save your hotkey settings on their servers, so it will always be there when you log into your account from any computer. The only tiny little worry I have is what if one day in the future I go to a tournament, and I have to play on a special official account instead of my own? Will there be some way for me to use my hotkey setup? Maybe not, but for now I think I'm just going to change everything as I please, and if that day looks to become a reality, I'll just have to change back and get re-adjusted. One step at a time here. I'm not winning any GSLs yet.

• A new Master League has been added.

Huzzah. This will be fun to try to get into. Once I do, it will be nice to be able to just say "I'm in Master League" instead of having to say "mid-high Diamond" or "2200 Diamond" or what have you. That said, there will still certainly be a large spread of skill just in the Master League, even if it only has a few thousand people. I wonder how long it will take for people to start saying how Master Leaguers suck.

Balance

• -- Hallucination research time decreased from 110 to 80.
  -- Observer cost decreased from 50/100 to 25/75.
  -- Phoenix build time decreased from 45 to 35.

Heyoooo. Thank you, sir! Lickety lick, mmm delicious. These all speak to what I consider to be the main flaw in the design of Protoss, their scouting/detection abilities. Protoss is the only race that doesn't automatically get detection. Zerg automatically has access to Overseers after Lair, and Terran automatically has access to scans, but if Protoss wants an Observer, they have to go down a specific tech path (Robotics Facility). Now I am a serious proponent of races having particular deficiencies that make them feel different and lend a specific challenge. But it's not worth it to sacrifice variety of play. Currently it's usually awkward for Protosses to open with Stargate tech instead of Robo. What if a cloaked Banshee suddenly comes coasting into your mineral line? Etc. So I'm glad they're making it quicker to scout with either hallucinated or real Phoenixes. Making the Observer cheaper doesn't really solve anything (but I'll take it!), because as I said, the problem arises when you don't have the Robo Facility in the first place. Maybe it will become more standard to scout with early fake Phoenixes if you're not planning on going Robo, thus allowing you to get an early scout on any Starports with Tech Labs, etc. On that note, why not just make Hallucination cost 50/50 or even 25/25? The 100 Sentry energy is a steep enough cost as is. Alternatively, I like what I've seen many suggest, which is to make Observers be built from the Nexus or the Cybernetics Core, unlocked by any tier-2 tech (Robo, Stargate or Twilight). For now I'll have to try hallucinating Phoenixes more often, which I've never done.

• Void Ray now deals 20% more damage to massive targets. Flux Vanes speed upgrade removed.

Ah ha. I smell yet another plea for Stargates. A new Colossus counter, perhaps? We'll see. As for Flux Vanes... uh... I don't get what the problem was, but whatever. Fleet Beacon is now officially the Carrier Den.

• Repairing SCVs now assume the same threat priority as the unit they’re repairing.

This patch loves me. Repair-Thors are going to be dramatically worse now. The old way never really made any sense anyway.

• Fungal Growth no longer affects air units.

Whaaaat? My initial reaction is this is the biggest balance change in the patch. I really feel bad for Zergs and their poor little Infestors. As if Zerg wasn't linear enough, now it's going to be even more impossible to forego Mutalisks for any length of time. I sincerely hope this change doesn't make it through.

Pure Comedy

• Protoss structures can no longer be powered without a power source if constructed while powered by a Warp Prism under the effects of Neural Parasite.
• Mass Recall can no longer target larva or eggs.
• Fixed an issue where a Medivac would be able to continue healing a unit that was stuck in a Graviton Beam if the Medivac had started healing the unit before it was picked up by the Graviton Beam.
• Fixed an issue with the Ultralisk being unable to attack a row of sensor towers.

Phew!

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Games played: 920
League/points: Diamond/2153 (+31 bonus pool)