Getting to Gold League – One Gamer’s Climb up Starcraft 2’s Ladder

The brutally competitive, cutthroat, do-or-die Starcraft 2 ladder wasn’t going to claim me but I knew I was no MC. I had started playing Starcraft since its early days ten years ago, but was always afraid of the 1 vs 1 scene. Sticking to barely competitive team games and “arcade” games where the stakes were low – I had yet to overcome my fear of online competition. Somehow, in Starcraft 2, I felt I had to make the leap into the competitive 1 vs 1 scene to be a “real” Starcraft player.  After watching MLG competitions and whencheese fails humorcasts, I knew I was missing something by not playing one on one games.

As I selected the one vs one match icon and clicked the find match button I gulped. Each time you looked for an opponent to start a match, the game stalls as you wait to find an opponent. An ominous sound played as I waited for the computer to look for my first competitor. After what felt like an eternity waiting, I faced a Terran enemy.

“GL HF” he said. Good Luck, Have Fun was the traditional Starcraft greetings between gamers at the start of a game. After 15 minutes my Terran adversary sieged my base and I lost.

“What could I do better?” I asked him.

“Expand earlier.” He replied.

My first ten games on the ladder were brutal - involving relatively unskilled, unplanned tactics against better gamers. Learning through trial and error, I learned to abuse air units against Zerg opponents. Triumphantly, I get my “zealot” portrait after my first ten wins with my chosen race – Protoss.

I would learn, fail and then grow stronger. Every game pitted me against a human opponent making decisions, issuing commands and strategizing. My Protoss strategy had been honed from watching replays of professional players, and Day9 tutorials. Survive the ten minute marine/marauder push by Terrans. Let your nexus tank before engaging, then outmacro and win in the late game. Against Protoss go for 4 gates and then colossi. For Zerg lean on two-base immortal sentry pushes.

I figured the secret to getting good at Starcraft was playing more games. But the nerve-wracking find-game countdown caused me to play no more than one or two games a day just out of anxiety. But I couldn’t get better without playing more. Time for a psychological tune-up, I figured.

“It doesn’t matter what league you are. It doesn’t matter what achievements you have or what portrait you have. Just enjoy the game.” I told myself.

I discarded my zealot achievement portrait in favor of the beginner portrait everyone gets by default -  a partially bearded, vaguely middle eastern man wearing earmuffs and a ballcap. I had to take the pressure off myself if I wanted to play more games and overcome the fear and anxiety of competitive laddering.

The secret to overcoming ladder anxiety in Starcraft is to take the pressure off yourself to win. Karma only uses the “Kachinsky” portrait when laddering competitively.

I started learning unit counters through trial and error. My stalkers were weak against marauders, but zealots and force fields would allow me to prevail. I tended to get four-gated to death by other Protoss, but by four-gating in turn I at least had a fighting chance against Protoss opponents.

50 games in I was winning about half of my games against silver league players and all my games against bronze players.

I needed to improve. I started looking for resources online - using day9 beginner tutorials, reading up build orders on team liquid, asking for help on online forums and watching professionals play in MLG. The most important changes were using pre-determined build orders going into each game. I honed my APM (actions per minute) until I could click more every game. I used hotkeys and kept my worker production up.

80 games in I was starting to win more than I lost against silver players. Now it was back to watching professional tutorials on youtube. I learned about my “mechanics”, how I use the mouse and minimap to efficiently control my game. I started learning about build order counters and started scouting for my opponents’ unit composition.

Suddenly I was winning against gold players. Wow! I kept at it

Macro – that’s how I was going win. Micro referred to the skilled micromanagement and control over individual units during battles. Macro referred to the overall management of your resources, expansions and bases. Drag out the game as you slowly whittle away your opponent and gain an economic advantage. Shut down your enemy’s expansions and protect your own. Shockingly I matched up against a metallically portraited opponent.

“What league are you?” I asked. No response.

After being outexpanded in a 20 minute game by my mystery enemy, I checked my loss screen. Platinum. I was being matched against opponents in higher leagues.

Then another match against a gamer with a bluish tinged potrait. After a rather brutal beat down with dark Templars and even carriers, I was confronted with the sheer skill of my enemy after the game – diamond league! The system was placing me against opponents as high as three leagues above my lowly silver character – and I was consistently losing.

Back to the drawing board.

I learned and anticipated the common "dirty tricks" of Starcraft: Zerg mutalisk harassment from the air, Protoss’ invisible dark Templars, and the dreaded Terran one-one-one. The one-one-one was a triple threat from aerial banshees, ground siege tanks and marine infantry. I was learning about more intriguing dangers from the Starcraft playbook and I was learning how to deal with them.

I started winning about half of my games against gold league players - a little more than half against Terran, and what felt like a lot less than half against Zerg players. I was determined to hone my anti-Zerg skills.

Up against a gold Zerg, I walled my base off. Making a strong ground army on my part, I scouted my alien opponent switching to air. Mutalisks I thought. I cannoned my bases and switched to High Templar. Rapt in attention, I gazed at my oversized monitor. Fingers stretched too far, nervous at the sudden influx of Zerg aerial harassment units. I cringed at the flock of feared Mutalisks entering my base.

Dancing archons, and anti-air units between my bases as I defended against relentless air harassment, I managed to hold for 20 minutes. I conservatively expanded. As the clock hit the 30 minute mark, I started releasing my upgraded ground army against my opponent’s large, but paper-Tiger, forces.

Finally, Gold League in Starcraft 2: My epic achievement in videogames: My 1v1 record is 130 games total with 69 wins. The other 1000 or so games are team games

After a 40 minute endurance match, my opponent surrendered – GG, short for “good game”. The score screen loaded up. I noticed a buttery-yellow frame surrounding my portrait. Could it be?

And then it hit me.

You have been promoted to gold league! A gold hexagon now replaced my meagre silver icon. Taking a moment to finally breathe, I knew this was the real beginning of my Starcraft 2 gaming career. After 130 ranked 1v1 matches and 69 wins I had moved from Silver league to Gold league. Tassadar only knows what I will face out there on the ladder. But, for now, I can celebrate. 

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