Rising in the Ranks of Starcraft II.

How I went from Silver to Platinum in two weeks.

Traveling across the country and selling your computer has it's perks. It also had this bizarre affect that made me stop obsessi... I mean... playing this game I enjoy called Starcraft II. I moved back in at my folks house to help them out in the yard and what is that you're storing in the basement, Dad? Is that a computer capable of running Starcraft II? Turns out, well. the demon is back. But after 1.5 months of absence do you still have a knack for something as tedious and involved as Starcraft II?

Welcome, ladies and gents to the last day of 2012 season 3.

I am a silver league player, that got very lucky near the end of the season. I played for HOURS and HOURS to try and get out of silver league. I even skipped a few classes here and there (which is a huge nono in final year) to try to get to that prestigious gold position. All my friends were in gold, why not me too? So after all this playing, I finally was able to stay in the top 8 for a few days. Everytime I'd log on I'd fall a few spots then go back up. So, it's getting close to Season 3, I'm getting nervous, I log on to battle.net and it tells me that the lock is coming soon. THE DREADED LOCK. I'm in the top 8, spending most of my time between 1st and 5th. But where is that damn promotion?

I took a break and decided to find some motivation somewhere else. I took a look at the series MaximusBlack from Lifes a Glitch TV (great show by the way) and MB's Quest to Masters. As a Protoss player I thought maybe I could use a few pointers. Well... he four gated every single time against a Zerg. It was pretty effective too! What the hell. I log back in to battle.net and I end up going up against a hatch first zerg.

FOUR GATE!

Four Gating is funner when you don't use warpgate.

After some cursing, swearing and generally offensive back and fourth banter my opponent leaves the game and I see the ever elusive gold promotion popup! And I kept all my points too! I started Gold League in 10th! That was great. The next day the lock happens and I'm stuck in Gold. Awesome. I end up finishing the gold league in the top 8 and here comes the next placement match.

I end up playing a Terran for the next game and am able to draw his army out in to the open, while I warped DTs in to his main at the same time. Many consider this to a be a complete dick move. I agree.

But it got me placed in Platinum. What... the shit?

I was in silver a week and a half ago? Well... here we are in platinum and funny or not, but I'm not losing everygame like a chum. The odd game I'm actually doing much better than my opponent. But now it's time to fly across the country and leave my life of Starcraft behind.

Until about a week ago.

I logged in to my account and found out that I was still in platinum league, I had fallen in rank to 60th because I hadn't played in forever. Also, because I hadn't played in forever I had a bonus pool of over 300! That's huge. I made it my goal to use every little last juicy point from that bonus pool to propel me through to diamond. That's right, I want to be a diamond. I sit down, I'm tired, and excited and this fucking game happens. (Click to download). So I get below 50 and I am ecstatic. Bonus pool down by 50 (I won five games) and I'm up to 49 wins!

Being half way through the middle league. I'm exactly average. Hurrah.

Here is the final march to victory, folks. I can taste blood in the water! Well a few games later then I played this guy LiquidSnake, cool name I thought. He must be a wanna be. I was also kind of hammered when that happened and... Well... fuck. This is what happened in that game.

You know what happens when you play with snakes? YA GET BIT!

Well that was humiliating. It's a weird thought thinking you can play two leagues up and two leagues down, second best and second worst. Well whatever playing a mix of platinum and golds with this HUGE bonus pool had its perks. I was winning most of the games I was playing too. Look at this stellar ranking.

9 of 13 also happens to be a relative of my favorite Star Trek character. 

It's also extemely convenient to get twice as many points for a win as you lose for a loss. The next milestone: Breaking into that top 25.

You could fly with wings like these.

With a week of intense evening gaming till 1:00am, I have managed to beat down that bonus pool to a mere fraction of what it used to be and I couldn't be prouder. I had to question some of the ranking methods when I got past that 25 mark. At this point I am playing top 8 platinum players and diamond players more so than gold. And some of the diamond players did not seem like 'diamond' players. If you know what I mean. Case and point in this game here.

Regardless of my thoughts I am now finished playing Starcraft II for season 3 and am very happy to have finished in the top 25. I was able to use all of my bonus pool and now have a whopping 706 points!

"Veni, vedi, veci" - Julius Caesar

I have a sneaking suspicion I will be likely to get back to gold if I lose my placement match when season 4 starts. Perhaps a Quest to Platinum is in order?

Here are all the links to the games.

First game.
Masters.
Diamond.

It's been delicious,

-Rois