No Zergling Left Behind!

Starcraft 2 is awesome! And you are awesome for being on this page! This is my SC2 gaming blog. Pour yourself a tropical drink and imbibe it along with some nerd life skills.

[nozerglingleftbehind]

I'm back baby! >:D

Heyo! I'm back from the rigors of uni... and a break...! I'm gonna put some time and effort into this here zergy blog! :) Probably starting with strats and builds I'm working on now.

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Just dropped from Diamond to Platinum on Kr server...

... After 3 (thats right, 3) 3 pylon blocks at the bottom of my ramp games in row. I'm 14pooling...

If you play protoss and you aren't currently punching yourself in the face I urge you to seriously consider it!

:P

[nozerglingleftbehind]

This blog (metapost for a uni assignment ^^ plz pay no heed)

Phew, it's nice to have changed this blog around and made it my own, without it being totally horrible on the eyes anymore. CSS was a lot easier to work with than I was expecting! Changing Tumblrs divs has given me some trouble though.

Most popular

Would have to be the funny Whitera poster from MLG Columbus, haha the sc2 community loves White-ra and it was from an ongoing event, streamed over the internet.

There's no way to get only that post in a link atmo so http://nozerglingleftbehind.tumblr.com/page/4 the photo near the top.

Overall traffic has been really slow, since I removed my theme I haven't focused on content as much as changing the css, I'm confident I can put out some interesting content soon now though. I'm really happy with the sc2 community I find here in tumblr, everyone's so positive about the game. Depressing posts wouldn't make it very far, I have a few followers, and I'm following several other sc2 sources, it's a keen community and a great place to blog an make friends.

2nd most popular/blogworthy

Would be the coaching one! I was surprised, but a lot of folks contacted me and took me up on it. Seems like a great way to make a name for myself with the blog that people are interested in. If I was a huge site, it definitely wouldn't be feasible to offer free coaching, but I think it'd be a great way to start making a name for myself if I manage to give some more popular bloggers or just friendly folks some help with their gameplay!

3rd most blogworthy

This one got me a fair bit of respect and interest from a few folks! I think there's a popular niche for a decent player trying to go pro on tumblr if said decent player can write well about what they're experiencing. Everyone wants to play like a pro! It's an awesome game! But you have to work soooooo hard for it. The struggles and the viewpoints are interesting!

Traffic

Very low but with a small spike around the White-ra post. 32% of my 111 page hits (since the 21st of April) have been kind enough to return! Understandable since the blog was under construction for a long while.

Grand finale

The technical side of making the blog has been a surprising amount of fun. Some of the tumblr specific css has stopped me from easily making it how I want it to be, but it's now pretty close. The community is awesome, and it's fun to think of things in terms of what'll interest people, and how can I write this to make it more interesting, what I can link in, the interesting posts others have done, compiling awesome starcraft tutorials.

I really haven't had any great success with numbers yet, but I've made several friends. I'm gonna get more regular with this blogging thing and turn it into a popular slickly designed site!

[nozerglingleftbehind]

So the best thing ever is happening...

Additional info can be found here. TL:DR version is it's an Australian qualifier for an international tournament created by Blizzard! (If I were to get top 2 in a statewide and top 2 again in a national tourney I would be flown somewhere in South Asia to compete in the oceanic tournament... and then if I do well there... flown somewhere else for the full international tournament).

But first things first... I have to get top 2 in a tournament in Sydney to get into the Australian qualifiers. The competition compared to my current skill level, is way better than me.

________________

There have been a few comparatively small tournaments in Australia, I never really got into the scene till now so I don't know a whole lot.

What I do know though is that this man:

(pic is a link to his liquipedia page)

Generally turns up to these Aussie tournaments, picks up the cheque and/or prizes and then goes back to wrestling wombats and meditating on top of an Australian mountain (the rest of the world knows of our mountains as smallish hills).

This is Moonglade! From team Invidia. He's the only Aussie I know of who has made serious waves in sc2 tourneys overseas. Definitely a nerding god.

... So I just have to get better than this guy! Till I get to the oceania tourney at least! ^^

I feel excited and frenzied thinking of this competition. I love this game and seeing a serious competition happening like this in my country... FUCK MY LIFE I WANT THIS!!!

I'll crush this tournament and take top spot plz! Brb practicing 8+ hours a day! ^^

(Though, I'm stupidly below the skill I'll need to win even the Aussie tournament at the moment, can't claim otherwise. FUUUUUUUUUUUUU SOMEONE GET ME A MONTAGE!!!!!)

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Incredible pictures of the ironsquid finals

Ironsquid ran online as a league for months with the top talent from all over the world. Its main production crew was french, and it finished recently with a finals in Paris that had a really unique style. (apparently live music and crazy french casters, Euro timezone didn't let me watch this one XP)

Here are some insane photos nabbed from reddit (and where before that, I don't know, if there's any infringement lemme know! :) )

The line up outside of spectators XP holy crap

Stage

Crowd... Yep. Crowd.

[cruciusoce]

Nestea at Iron Squid

[nozerglingleftbehind]

What an awesome view!!!

[buminabirdcage]

I wanted to see if I could play on the Korean server..

oh

ok

well, being in Australia, maybe I should just stick to the SEA server

nvm, I’ll just play custom games

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Hahahaha the pain of being an Australian or New zealand gamer XP

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Starcraft has provided the empirical example of impotent rage and despair.

From now on, anyone filled with impotent rage and despair shall be compared to a person that holds off a cannon rush but loses the game 45 minutes later, and then gets matched against the same cannon rusher again and loses a 20 minute game after being cannon rushed two more times.

I'm contacting my peeps at Oxford and Macquarie to let them know

[observando]

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Haha offtopic of Starcraft a bit sorry.

Just emerging from the infernal laboratory where I'm welding, sawing, and gluing together a new look blog because I glimpsed this image, which is full of wtf for me personally. And apparently it's been reblogged over 4,000 times. I guess they were saying wtf too.

I've been looking for a competitive girl going on 8 years now. Lol, that sounds bad like I'm only willing to date girls who can beat me at something I'm good at (I also require that they be extremely wealthy and have the body of a supermodel).

Anyways, this slogan is stupid! When my currently 8 year search is over, and I do find a girl I like (friendishly or romantically), that can beat me at competitive games I enjoy I am going to game the hell out of her till we're at 50/50 and then I'm gonna game some more, and hopefully so is she!

Lol but you can't judge people by how good they are at games. It's just a cool fun skill to have. Imo what makes a person truly awesome and sexy as a gamer is an enthusiasm to learn and play more. That's when the game becomes a personal source of pride and joy and torment.

This slogan says "Don't come at me bro!" when it should say

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Beginners rejoice! ^^

Blargh! I really do intend to make this a friendly informative site for people who are total newbies to Starcraft. Hehe though it might shoot this blogs ever rising popularity in the foot somewhat (Hiya my epic 15 followers! >:D).

I really want to teach new people about the game at a basic level. I guess I'll go for some basic stuff after I'm done with the site design.

In the meantime... there are some TRULY epic Beginner Starcraft tutorials that not many have seen that focus on going from bronze to master, and the strategic struggles you face pulling that off.

They aren't from day9 (as cool and friendly as he is) they aren't from Artosis or Mr.Bitter or from some of those terrible sites that charge you for subscriptions to game guides they've created.

Nope. These tutorials, (there is one for each race). Come packed with a sexy British accent from the vastly under-appreciated yet very loved Dignitas_Apollo.

(image sourced from liquipedia)

Game analyst and caster extraordinaire!

For the Zerg tutorial!

For the Protoss!

For the Terran!

The tutorials are really quite long, 1 hour per part, 4 parts per race. Not just for newbies aswell imo. There is solid info in here.

He works his way up through the ladder from bronze while talking about specific game knowledge you'll really want to know and be thinking about as he gets into different situations. He explains things in depth about all the weird plays you may face, and a few solid builds you'll want to use for each race.

If you really want to get better fast and can spare the time, (I watch so much starcraft while I eat or am otherwise messing around, it just never gets old for me lol) Then I really recommend checking those tutorials out! Those and this!

(Day9's episode 252 on hotkeys and mouse movement an awesome thing to learn about that almost never gets talked about).

But! If you're a newbie (and maybe for everyone else too) the thing that has to be at the top of your priorities is having fun with the game! Mess around! Kick that single player with the cheesy storyline's ass. Cannon up and getting 200supply of voidrays vs 7 insane computers. This game is obviously made first and foremost for fun!

If that fun does translate into an ambition and passion to play the game at a higher level, then watching these videos will tell you pretty much everything you need to know to get to a high level. They really are that good. (and they make me question the value of any other site that attempts to teach people the game, hehehe but I'm gonna try anyways!)

Oh and the only thing they won't teach you is the topnotch mouse control and micro these guys have, that you have to practice for! And it takes a long time.

[cruciusoce]

[nozerglingleftbehind]

hehehe that seems like the community reaction.

These changes seem so sensible though! The topmost of players will be getting only competitive matches, while the rest of us will occasionally get the easier or harder ones. Variation for the win!

I wonder if it'll be a tougher gap to bridge between pro and semipro. I doubt it'll have too much impact though.

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Moar practice! & Korean ladder

Lol I'm so happy with how much better I feel I can get if I just keep practicing like a dog. I felt like I'd hit a bit of a brick wall or my personal "skill cap" not so long ago, and that's bullcrap! Anyone can get better at this game.

I'm hesitant to straight out say how many hours I practiced today. Because it might turn this blog into a place I go to brag and write to myself about how good I am (I'm trying for a slightly broader audience than just me). That said... 7 hours today! Hell yeh! >:D 27 games (I may have miscounted for yesterday not sure). After playing through for a while, (but before my arm got tired) my micro was feeling amazing. I won some ZvZ's I shouldn't have from nice roach arcs and transfuses. (and I'm reinforcing while I'm getting attacked/attacking, like a boss >:D)

I definitely feel like this mass gaming will improve me as a player beyond what I have now, in all aspects. (provided my health holds out, and I keep my grades up at uni)

After a while playing, my mind just immerses itself in the game. Controlling, perceiving, strategic planning, scouting, the mouse becomes an extension of myself, samurai sword style ^^... For frickkkkin hourrrrrrrrrrs! I imagine its not totally disimilar to meditation. But definitely more stressful lol.

As something technically interesting to say, on the Korean server,

ZvZ - at least half the time it was a 10pool spinecrawler rush lately lol. It needs to do damage but it's not quite all in. I don't think I'll be able to hatch first for quite some time. (14gas 14pool speedling expand into banelings has been my go to build since playing on Korea anyways).

ZvP - Protoss are doing good stuff off 2 bases, but at my level they don't seem to be taking 3rds when they have the opportunity, they delay it far too long and I can usually win off 3 base vs 2 or with early 4th base broodlord/infestor. I still lose to a few 2 base pushes though.

ZvT - Didn't get matched up against many terrans, they like their hellions though. The hellion has got to be my most hated unit.

Apologies for the wall-o-text, I shall get my people to work on some images soon ^^

Now it's back to the treadmill to avoid becoming a pile of very strategic minded goo.

God I love my life right now! ^^

[nozerglingleftbehind]

My blog probably hurts your eyes right now. Take some painkillers and keep staring though plz.

Hehe it's soon to be dramatically altered to not look like ass. Stay tuned! (gimme a week or so)

[nozerglingleftbehind]

I practiced starcraft for 8 hours today

And I spent 2 hours more coaching my brother through some single player ^^. This probably amounts to gaming nirvana >:D. I can't believe how much time I can put into this game and still feel like there are new things to discover, practice and perfect. This game never gets old!!!!

I started off rank 60~ diamond and finished rank 8 (Korean server). Having some solid wins against protoss too (usually my worst matchup).

Sorry dear blog for my neglect :(. Been watching a lotttttt of GSL <3 the Tastosis and damn I'm looking forward to Naniwa in round of 8... His builds are brutal and smart! Definitely the way toss should be played. His early attacks vs Terran <3

Argh!!!! Leenock!!!!!! Where are the Zergs :(

*Edit:* 46 games in a day /flex

[bluesander]

Squirtle...D:

I feel sad. T^T. And I hate terran more than ever now.

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Haha don't hate terran too much! :( Alives micro on some of those bigger engagements was insane... to win vs the Protoss army while behind on upgrades is no easy task.

I wish Squirtle had played some of his advantages a liiiiittle bit more passive. The blink play started so awesome, but he just barely overcommitted and things got out of hand XP

Alive doing all that micro and keeping the macro up to barely live. 50/50 protoss pulls off the win.

Hehe the dt vs cloaked banshee game though, I can understand rage at Terran from the build order wins. zomg though, what an awesome finals! ^^

[nozerglingleftbehind]

Hooooooooly crap.... game 4(?) on metropolis

Squirtle had nothing but that 1 colossus for ages!!!!!! HOW DID HE HOLD ZZOMGGGGGGGGGGG BEST FINALS OF ALL TIME!!!!!!

[nozerglingleftbehind]

*SPOILERS* Alive vs Nestea

Arrrrrrrrrrgh... the paaaaain.

Games 1 and 2 were amazing, both players economies were in turmoil the whole time! Losing workers, bases, barely holding attacks, not having enough money to tech. Nestea working zerg mechanics like a god in weird situations.

Alive though, playing absolutely deadly aggressive midgames, he really really well to win, but on games 3 and 4, it was more Nestea's loss than Alives win. He threw away some leads. Alive's TvT must be insanely good to beat MarineKing, (I haven't seen those games yet) but his TvZ isn't quite up to the same level, the games were so close.

Nestea ran out of stamina there I think. He'd said he was feeling really tired. When he was interviewed on State of the Game he said he had troubles sleeping when he went to foreign tournaments. But he's not out of the tournament yet! He has to beat Startale's Squirtle!