AjarPosts: 2413
Posted on: 2012-03-06 05:08:23.000
We may have run into EG Machine on the ladder the other day. :shock: His profile showed rank 86 grandmaster, but he was off-racing as terran if it was him. There was a German protoss pro on that team as well, who was cruising along at 150+ APM for the entire game.
They cheesed us, though -- proxy 2gate, cannon rush, and 2rax from Machine. We barely held it off, but couldn't capitalize. They won.
My girlfriend's brother has been in bronze since the beginning, and still seems to enjoy the game. If you follow the game, you know as well as anyone that you can get to at least gold by focusing on macro and not worrying too much about army composition. I got to gold 1v1 by using Spanishiwa's opening, but then I stopped playing. Getting to gold was my 1v1 goal, and the amount of effort you need to get past that level increases exponentially. DrFaulken has been stuck in 1v1 platinum for as long as I've known him (close to a year), and just hasn't been able to break through into diamond.
I actually prefer the team game. I'm a big co-op gamer, I love being on the same team with my friends. And in Starcraft, I'm not a crisp decision-maker -- I theorycraft quite well, but in the actual game I panic big time. I love having allies on Vent of Skype to plan with during the game, so I don't end up double cancelling a hatchery in ZvZ... :o
No one on our team is actually master-level; I peaked at gold, DrF is plat, and wurmr was silver last time I checked. But as a team, we punch above our weight. I've generally been better as a teammate than I've been in 1v1. Blizzard openly doesn't balance for 3v3, but they do balance for 2v2, which was my preferred format for a long time. I actually wish we'd get some 2v2 pro-level play, because I think it would be a lot of fun to watch. Still, even without Blizzard's active management, 3v3 is a lot of fun. 4v4 gets a bit out of hand, though.
One of my former 2s partners, RaveBomb, stopped playing team games last fall to focus on 1v1. He got himself from gold to plat after quite a bit of work, so you can definitely do it. But unless your mechanics are already crisp, be prepared to put in a lot of time if you want to get to gold or above.