Getting better at Starcraft 2

Day[9] and HuskyStarcraft

2011-07-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

Most of you guys are well known with these 2 Starcraft casters. I personally love these 2 casters and I enjoy watching their cast very much.

But there is a different between these two kind of casters. I find Day[9] more educative when to learn things about Starcraft, not that Huskey don't give us good tips, but Day[9] just goes deeper into them. A good example is the "Newbie Tuesday". On those cast he talks about things you can learn. (He is such a good teacher, way better then any of my teachers could)
Day[9] cast everyday different kind of games, Monday he focus his cast on "Monday Funday" and Tuesday its "Newbie Tuesday".

Day[9] also cast big leagues, which he recently did Dreamhack in Sweden, go watch it, trust me it was awesome.

When I played in the early days of SC2 I lacked a lot of skill, didn't played any RTS before (except for Red Alert 1, 2 and a little Generals) but I never thought about tactics. I knew it was needed but really didn't know how to.
Then I start to watch youtube about SC2 and I finally met Day[9]. After a couple of games I start to feel I needed to watch more for my improvement on SC2.
Thats when I saw it, Day[9] The Mental Checklist I watched the whole 1hour 40 min cast TWICE! yeah twice it was that good (and think about it I NEVER watch something twice because I don't have really the patience for it). I recommended it to everyone I knew who played SC and some of them took the advice and some of them, well they aren't really the gamers, skipped it.

There are many more video's from Day[9] cast. I really recommend you to watch those cast if you want to improve your game play and to have some fun.

Here are some links to Day[9]:

HuskyStarcraft, this man is hilarious awesome cool SC caster. He made me laugh a zillion times! THOR IS HERE! and ofc PYLO etc etc all these things made me want to watch more and more! I subscribed to him after the first cast I saw.
If you love SC 2 and want to see some epic battles watch Huskystarcraft.

He mostly cast from his house in LA (use to be Oregon) he done some live cast but not as much as Day[9] (I think) but Currently Husky and Day[9] are casting GSPA at the moment, make sure to watch it, Pro's playing but also none pro players where able to sign up.

There are many more casters but these 2 are the one I watched most although I heard that Ahnaris is quite the man too, but I don't have that much of a time to watch them all. Go and find your favorite caster and enjoy those Starcraft casts!

preparing my matches

2011-07-05T12:10:00.000-07:00

Before I start I make a plan, a "gameplan"as I like to call it. This depend on what I go against. My plan consist of 1 or multiple small things I like to achieve, if I can achieve it multiple times I consider it *learned* those small plans mostly are like:

keep harrasing.
tech to broodlords
my third expansion at the 10min mark

This all can be done in 1 match. It is not as difficult as it may sound. You can take your third while keeping your enemy in his base by harrasing and keep on teching till you got broodlords.
2 points done while only keeping him in his base by harrasing.

This will not always work because they can put up Anti air (if I am going mutalings) or they tech a little faster and harras me first. Even if they fend it off their army is smaller cause of the minerals they need to spend on their anti air, you can make a tech switch and suprise your opponent but thats for later on (not really that good, maybe a point I can put in to improve?). But that's not the point, my goal is to work toward things which eventually when I keep on practicing I will get better at it and make this work.

Make sure if you use this plan to stick with it a couple of matches, that way you can get a reliable conclusion, like: "It worked the first time but then 2 matches it failed hard, but then suddenly it worked again." After you went through a list and might notice "Hey, all my wins where against Terran so its a nice tactic I can use against them".
Don't forget, its your game you can copy the pro players Build Order, but if you are getting killed over and over again it wont make you happy at least thats how I experienced it (reason why I stopped).

So th tip for today is make a plan stick with it and after your match look your replay and decide what you did wrong, what the cause of the bad thing was that happened to you and how to improve.

And remember, always keep up your macro and scouting.

Introducing myself

2011-07-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

My name is Stuart and I am a 20 year old male from the Netherlands.

Currently I am living with my girlfriend in Haarlem. We live with each other for about 9 months now. I study Biotechnology in a nearby city. I have a mother living about 30mins away, an older sister with a little daughter (such a cute little girl) and my younger brother who is about twice the size of me.

My blog is about my improvement on Starcraft 2. I'll write about the games I play, how I experienced it and what my plan is to improve on what and how. I'll try to point it out with screenshots and replays as much as
possible so you all can get a clear view of it. I wont post every game but the once that helped me with my goal as much as possible.

The race I currently play is Zerg, after playing all 3 races the swarm came out as the race I liked the most.
I first starting to playing Starcraft 2 (SC2 for now on)on the release day in the Netherlands. After my crappy placement matches and 55 games played I got in mid Platinum and took a break after from October till July because of school.

Got my placement matches in the new season (with crappy micro AND macro, I somehow lost it all) I got in Platinum (weird huh? yeah thats what I thought)

This doesn't mean its only for high gold/low plat players ,it might help the lower and maybe even the higher level players a tiny bit too.

Sometimes I even play 2vs2 with my brother (Protoss) and a mate of my (also Protoss) so I might get in a few blogs about those matches too.

This is it for now I'll get my first match and improvement as soon as possible.