Wellplayed

Hey guys, miss me? No, of course you didn't I don't have a viewer-ship! (viewership? viewers hip?)

So I got in contact with some of the wellplayed.org people and they were quite friendly, unless the tone of that email was significantly different from what I perceived it to be, which would be weird.
 Short story long Stong shory lort Long story short, I'm going to be writing an article on, well, pretty much anything. Somehow I doubt they'd like it if I did an article on the manufacturing process of glass though. Just a hunch.

So in thinking up content I asked some awesome people and I got a great suggestion: write an article about the longevity, wow that's a hard word to say, of games and what causes it. This idea is a cool idea to say the least and for now, at least, I'll be sticking to it.

I think the main points that are going to arise are replayability (fuck you red squiggly line that is a word), the skill ceiling, how competitive it is and the community surrounding it. Brands and how widely played will come into it too, I think.

All in all I'm really excited and thankful to the wellplayed.org guys in being so quick to respond and to do so with open arms.

Before I gg out, I've been failing a bit on ladder. I'm down to rank 20 in my division and can't seem to break top 8. Hope I work something out in the end!

GLHF
Grack

One of those days...

You know those days where things just don't go your way?

So this morning I woke up fairly early and, hearing that Duncan was on teamspeak (a VOIP program), I immediately jumped on and jumped into my first game. I lost. I was a bit pissed off but I figured that I should man up and play again. I lost again. this went on for a while and I think I racked up something rediculous like 8 losses 1 win. Somehow I managed to stay cool, calm and collected and in the last games I decided "Censor it, I'm just going to decide to just do my best not to get supply blocked. So I did and I was able to come out of the games saying that I had improved.

It's very difficult to do this and look back and realise that you have improved. The negative connotations that come with losing whisper in your ear, telling you how bad you are and how ashamed of yourself you should be. I refused to listen to the voices (you're jealous cause they only talk to me) and actually managed to become a bit proud of myself. The losses still stung though and, wanting to get into diamond, it felt like such a setback.

This brings me to my last point, unless I have another one. I was reading Duncan's blog tonight and he was talking about how all the pressure, all the desperation to get better and to win was subtracting from the fun of StarCraft and how, having played some random games which didn't really, well, matter, he had a lot of fun and now that he has resumed StarCraft is having more fun as a result.

I thought about this and it's funny cause, frankly, I disagree. In the past few years I have become super competitive as a person. Rowing, debating and now StarCraft, plus my genes, have moulded me into a person who really hates losing to the extent that I just need to become better so I can avoid that. The thrill of winning is so great, gives me such a rush that I can't do without it. I don't think that I could have as much fun in other games as I do in StarCraft purely because who the fuck cares what happens? StarCraft has this amazing ability to let me be happy about my results because they feel like they actually mean something. The feeling off rolling over a Terran is great and I just get happy inside. The ability to have a tangible way of measuring my success has had me so addicted that I've already won 100 games this season in 1v1 alone.

I live for the competition, the ability to be able to get on every night and load up a game to have my mental toughness and brilliance, my hand speed and efficiency and sheer luck thrown against my opponent enthrals me and thus I'm thinking about it 24/7. I'm feeling StarCraft slowly start to be more and more important in my life, taking up more and more time and while some people may see this as a bad thing, some naive menopausal columnist (you guys should go read Duncan's columns.) may decide that I'm throwing my life away, I, on the other hand, find it to be an improvement.

While writing this I think I've figured out why: because I'm actually good at this game. I'm not Noblesse, I'm not Idra, I'm not the best player in South Africa, yet at least, but hell, I'm starting to get some modicum of skill and I like it. I've never been the best at anything I've done, not that I ever really will be, but with StarCraft I can see myself being better than my friends, better than a lot of people and this gives me purpose. It's not an endless tunnel that ends in a bottomless pit which I push myself through only to end up screwed anyway. It's a well that I'm at the bottom of that has a way up and while it might be hard, it might be gruelling and will sure as hell require some work, it's worth the effort and I'm glad I've found something that is.

Hope I made sense with this late night post and didn't seem as cocky as I think I did.


Grack

Fuck this shit. (just off 2 losses)

FUCK YOU TERRANS.*




Yes, at the moment I am pretty angry. I just lost to a bullshit mass marine SCV all in completely viable opening cause mules, lol. I lost because of my own stupidity! I had plenty of time to plan it and get ready but instead of doing the logical thing and lining up a perfect FF, I botched it, allowing a flood of SCVs to come in my base and with the over 9000dps of marines I was eventually owned.

But that's not all folks! Today I have some more bullshit to rage about! Terran units counter everything. I'm pretty sure a hellion can 1 on 1 an immortal if this race holds true to form! The terran comes with an army, quite high marauder composition and of course I get charge-lots and should roll this army. Through magicks I haven't quite worked out I only barely survived each time, my drops in the back of his base were futile because I forgot, a Terran only needs 6 SCVs to saturate an expansion. I ended up getting beaten in a game I shouldn't have lost by all logical reason.

Fuck everything about this.

Grack


*I'm a scum who doesn't want to lose vieweres any viewers of My StarCraft Story do not apply to said group, be they Terran or what have you

Daily number 341

Hey guys.

For any of you that don't know: I censoreding love Day[9]. Not only is he incredibly handsome (lawl), but he has also truly made me a better gamer. Day[9] is the guy who got my to Platinum league, obviously it was a bit of me too but I don't believe I could do it without him. I watch every daily to my knowledge. I haven't missed one in months, unless I am sadly mistaken. I've even watched some of his dailies live, which is difficult in SA because even if it is Euro week I get censoreding lag.

Why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because I need subject matter and am too lazy to come up with my own I intend to do some writing about specific dailies. I'll be talking about the stuff he said and how it affects me. I'm probably not going to write about funday Mondays because that's just a barrel of laughs which you have to watch.

In this daily, number 341, which is a newbie Tuesday, Sean talks about multi tasking and takes a look at some games where people consciously prioritize certain, slightly less vague, concepts like creep spread and probe production as opposed to broad things like macro and map control. The basic thing he is trying to drill into our heads is that we must overcompensate and over prioritize certain things so that in the future we do then without even thinking. He gives a hilarious example where as this guy/girl's losing his/her whole censoreding base he/she spreads creep across the map and says something along the lines of "gg but look at my creepspread! top that!"

This daily got me thinking about my play and how I can better it, what I can focus on and the truth of the matter is I don't really know. I'm going to play a few games and watch the replays. Hence I will find something to work on and will probably keep you updated on that. Thinking about it, however, I'm not so sure what I will be able to find. I feel like my probe making is good and that my macro is fine but that's probably the point: that we're not sure of what we're doing that is so bad.

Before I finish this, for those of you who don't know, Funday Monday is that you may only make drones, queens, spores, spines, overlords and overseers as Zerg. Newbie Tuesday is you must have perfect lava injects and then still lose (don't try to lose, just submit one where you do even though your injects are 100%)

TLDR; Day[9] is awesome, watch him, I'm gonna be writing about dailies, 341 is about prioritizing tasks, I'm not sure what to prioritize and CENSOR you, I'm not shortening the Funday Monday/Newbie Tuesday rules.

GLHF
Grack

Sup son

Hey guy's, sorry I haven't been posting much but I've been under the whether of recent and only just starting to get better I'm lazy as fuck I'm posting now 'cause fuck yeah antibiotics! just shut up, I'm posting now, okay?

So apparently Day[9] is starting up newbie Tuesday again. This is awesome news, especially for Nirv, but I'm wondering if newbie Tuesday will really help me that much, am I beyond it or am I still enough of a newbie to appreciate it? To be honest I couldn't give a fuck, I watch all the dailies and I think that even if I only pick up small things then that's fine too.

I haven't been laddering so much of late and I've dropped to (as of 2011/08/23 02:28PM) rank 9 in plat. It's not that much of an issue but I still really want to make diamond. I guess the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills (FUCK YEAH WHEEL OF TIME, GO READ THAT SHIT!)

I'm really angry at Puma. I like EG in general. (General dot [HIMYM reference]) The problem I have with Puma is that fucking all in he did vs MC in game one. It's not, if I think logically, his fault but who gives a shit who's fault it really is? The incident in question is doing a 1/1/1 all in (with workers) and being able to do it AGAIN after MC held it off miraculously because of mules. Complete and utter BS. It's not really an issue, if I think logically, but it felt so wrong that he was able to do that. I laughed quite heartily, though, when MC refused to shake Puma's hand.

To all who read my blog and don't read Duncan (TydVirTaal)'s GO FUCKING READ IT. Duncan is such a great writer and focusses on some important stuff. He talks about actual issues in the gaming community and has some actual analysis. He is such an asshole, being good is just not okay, it makes me feel bad, but as the most awesome person evar my older brother told me last night, there will always be those better and worse than you. I'm sure some philosopher said it too, it's half the reason I'm posting now. Go check the asshole Duncan out though, he's great.

Before I'm off I'm just gonna give a shout out to HungryDeer, a guy I met on ladder. He beat me in a good PvP (i.e. it lasted more than 10 minutes) but said, as I had told him that I was listening to the Lord of the Rings sound track, that I was the real winner because of that. It brightened up my day and I wish the rest of the StarCraft community was as friendly as that!

I love you guys all, sorry this post was so all over the place.
GLHF
Grack

Air/Ground Funday monday.

Hey all
This week has been tones of fun. I'm now rank 1 platinum and pushing to try get into diamond. I'm noticing that as I get higher I don't outright hulksmash every Zerg I ever get, which is a pity, but I guess that's how life works. What has been great fun, however, is metagaming some Terran's. My basic strategy at the moment is to hold of the inevitable push that comes from the Terran then transition into carrier-mothership and just destroy them. It has this inane ability to cause me a great deal of laughter and happiness which is an amazing change after the high stress of playing PvP! I feel so sorry for the players that just get destroyed by an oversized pie in the sky and a swarm of flying binoculars!

Before I get into the meat of this article though, I want to share with you some absolute brilliance: one of my very good friends has started StarCraft 2 and all due to my and my friends' influence! I intend for him to be great and hence when I taught him at first I didn't even tell him that he was capable of clicking icons to make buildings, I just told him the hotkeys. I should sign up for Gosucoaching! It brings me so much joy to watch him hotkey his command centre without me even telling him to!

Okay, now that I've bored you with my own joys, onto Day[9]'s niftytastic (that is a word!) Funday Monday theme, namely: one player may only makes air units and one player only makes ground units. In theory that sounds fine but when you think about it you realise that what you're basically doing is crossing your fingers and saying "Please don't early aggression me!" Surprisingly enough that seems to work rather well. Often I would just manage to get out a Voidray as we got hit with roaches and the like, and while roaches may be good they don't fair well against Voidrays, regardless of what TydVirTaal tells you!

These games became epic. Not because there were a lot of back and forths, not because the games were close. The reason theses games became epic is because FUCK YEAH MOTHERSHIP. Carriers and Battlecruisers may be cool too but Motherships take the lie cake.

The best game of the lot, unless I play a game which is better than this in the future, which I doubt I will ever do, has to be a game me and Nirv played in our diamond league 2v2 team as random, because it feels so good to dominate diamond league while playing offraces. We both got our worst race, Terran but we didn't afraid because Terran is designed for twelve year olds (if you are a Terran reading this, and are offended, please submit your complaints to itsaninjokethatyoudontget@gmail.com) I went air and he went for ground and almost completely unopposed we got to fairly big armies. So we attacked with a force of Battle cruisers, medivacs, tanks and other awesome units and we were dominating pretty hard. Then we noticed that we had been ling/ultra dropped and both of my expands had gone down. Due to some terrible micro on our part this turned into an epic game where we were all low on resources, desperately trying to kill off each other's expansions. It came down to the fact that we just had more resources for longer and eventually we  won the game and we were both laughing uncontrollably in shock from this epic game which we had just played. It left me with a slightly hollow feeling, as if I will never play a better game.

So in closing, this week has been epic! I'm getting high up in my leagues, I'm carriering (shuttthefuckupthatisaword) Terrans, my friend has started StarCraft and HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK Funday Mondays are so fun.

GLHF
Grack

Got me some new headphones

Hey guys, I got some new headphones. they're so cool, go awesome sound quality and are so comfortable! Now what you may want to know is "why, Grack, would you buy new headphones when you have perfectly working headphones at the moment?" To you I would blush shyly and turn away.

But this is the internet! So be ready to be regaled told an epic story get your eyeballs amazed by the epicness of the tale I am about to tell you hear some random uninteresting story. I was playing StarCraft and had not been having a very good week, there were a whole bunch of issues that would bore the hell out of you 'cause you don't care about me as a person I don't want to discuss. (Never date anyone, all girls are horrible and icky ><) So I was playing and losing a bunch, getting more and more angry with Gavin on in the background, talking to me, doing what any good friend does when the other is raging: making me rage even harder.

I just came out of a game where I lost to them damn Zerg critters, Jimmy. I was whining like a little bitch about how impossible it is to play and how annoying it is and how hard a time I have playing them and Gav says something along the lines of "No, you're just a bad player" to troll me. Oh boy it works. I would love to tell you how I ripped my headphones out of their sockets, pulling the motherboard with it while a lobster is hanging on and trying to bite my nose but first of all I haven't thrown my computer in the ocean in the past.... well.... ever and second of all that's not what happened. I just threw them onto my desk and stormed off, breaking my headphones. So up until I bought these awesome Sennheisers I've been using earphones. Ow. Luckily the mic from my old set works perfectly so I could buy non-mic headphones!

Before I end off you might like to know that my cupboard is hanging on one hinge after I bumped into it the other day. My bad! Go follow me on twitter @GrackStarcraft! I hope to have a Facebook page up soon so I can have my ego decreased by the low number of fans I have!
Grack

Oh the joy

Sup guys!
So if you aren't one of my personal friends you won't know that I've been trying to get this build that was popularized by MC and a build that day9 talked about on his daily. In this process I've been losing a lot of games and the ones that I've won haven't really been because of me, more because of my opponent fucking up. I finally got it right though!

It opened with me going for this 1gate expo into 3gate stargate build. I scouted his early expo and felt comfortable but then he came at me with a rush. My uber gosu forcefields and my voidrays cleaned it up comfortably.

I tried some of MC's 3voidray harass but had to high tail it out of there lest the hydras raped me! I made sure he hadn't expanded and felt super happy with my large amount of map control. Long story short I got an expand, got some colossus and rolled him!

I'm so happy that this strategy is starting to come together! It's feeling good! It constantly amazes me how much of an influence StarCraft has on my mood. When I'm losing I'm nigh suicidal and visa versa when I win (what's the opposite of suicide?) It's my competitive nature.

Fuck you Casey.The worst thing about having zerg friends, amazing as they are, is that whenever you send them a PvZ they focus on how the zerg was so shit and did x and x and y wrong. It always has this capability of making a perfectly good win by me with solid play feel like a cheap win that meant nothing.

But regardless, I am so happy with how this is going and I am excited to learn and master some awesome new Protoss builds and be a total boss! Happy faces and hugs to all my great readers!
Grack

The problems and goals of our gaming generation.

Hello dear readers

I have been posting, mostly, a lot of bitching about my issues and I have now decided to change from that for at least this post. I'm going to be talking about this ridiculous notion that gaming and StarCraft in particular is a waste of time. I will also be explaining to you guys and girls why my parents are fucking awesome. I apologise in advance to Duncan TydVirTaal (check his blog, it's on your right and far better than mine really good!) for any intellectual property of his that I am using.

So in this modern society we have this brilliant generation of gamers that are faced with this problem the generation before presents to us, because most of us, especially South Africans due to being slightly behind and other more elaborate aspects such as the more macho attitude that we tend to have, have parents, teachers, grannies, uncles, aunts, grandpas, that random bag lady on the street, sports coaches and the like telling us that gaming is wrong, that instead we should go outside and play around in our boring as hell gardens and that we should have no interaction with other people that isn't face to face or over a telephone that still requires you to wind the keys down and hand crank it for the electricity.

These people are, to put it bluntly, misguided. We live in a world which has amazing things such as the spider fishing internet at our fingertips. These archaic ingrates we call our superiors fail to notice that and seem, at the mention of a computer, to go all misty eyed and think back to when they were a kid and they were lucky to even get a branch to play with, hell, sometimes they had to imagine their branches. They don't seem to realise, as I'm sure my amazing viewer-ship should, that just because they were raised like that does not make it good or right, not to say it was bad, but things have changed and in this case change is good.

But really, we all know the problem, what is the solution? Well the solution is simple. We round them all up, ship them off to Haiti and nuke them. Really, though, all we can do is wait for them to die off, presuming they're not related to us. If they are related to us, some more work has to be done, especially for the minors in our midst, else we risk running our lives constantly butting heads with our parents. My first port of call is get your parents to watch this: Day[9] Daily #100. That video is possibly the most inspirational video I have ever watched and if your parents have a decent bone in their bodies they will want to be like Sean's mom, the mother of the leader of the foreigner StarCraft scene. This woman, who comes from a seemingly backwards town, understood Sean and Nick's feelings and did her utmost to help them and support them which brings me onto my parents.

My parents annoy the shit out of me. They're always in my face being caring and loving and trying to make me into a better person. I mean really, the nerve of them! When I stop and think for a second of how bad a person I am to these people it makes me a bit sick. My parents understand when I want to go to huge LANs like OC. They let me play computer whenever I want, to a point of course, one does need one's sleep. These amazing people support me and help me, my mom even made sure that supper was served before 7pm for the whole week just so that I could watch Day[9] during Europe week. My mom is the reason I decided to set up this blog and the one who showed me how to advertise it. They understand that I am a gamer. They understand me and they take an interest. I can go to them and get excited that I made it into platinum, which, by the way, I am super happy about, and to an extent they will understand and they will congratulate me. My little brother plays a lot, not StarCraft quite yet, for whatever reasons and instead of my parents getting angry at him they accept it. Instead of them ripping of his headset and getting angry at him for talking to strangers on the internet they commend him for it and talk about how it is what his generation do. Instead of my parents trying to force what was taught to them onto us they seem to teach this, admittedly it was probably taught to them by their parents, and this only: they accept their child for who he is and love him and support him just the same and that is what we should have.

So disregard the nay sayers, don't shy away when the jock tells you how much of a nerd you are. Don't lie about how much you play and how much you love your identity as a gamer.Argue with the fools who put you down and be proud of everything that you are as a gamer. Climb to the highest brick of your metaphorical tower and scream to the heavens with every fibre of your being "I am a gamer, and I am proud!" Don't fight the mockery, don't shy away from the razor tongues. Stand tall and proud, mighty and brilliant.

We don't need someone to cure us. We don't need to sit every non-gamer down together and give them a talk about how gaming is so brilliant. What we as gamers need to do is be proud. Be proud, don't stand down and embrace how amazing you are as a gamer and how proud you should be of that fact.

Grack

Fuck you battle.net

Hey guys.
So today I was planning on doing a post about the new season, where I want to go, where I placed and all the like instead I get stuck raging about battle.net. It's fucking me around big time, not loading the multilayer screen, telling me I have a starter version and all the like. This shit is getting so annoying.

I was so excited to place and now I get stuck here, twiddling my thumbs waiting for it to work! this is so detrimental to my desk because, having found my Swiss army knife, it is rapidly dwindling. Yes, I am a destructive person. Get over it, the wood deserves it. It sits there looking all cool and varnished being like "I'm so much cooler than you!" while I sit there and slowly cut it apart. Joke's on it!

When StarCraft decides to stop being a whiny little bitch then I'm really hoping to place platinum. Oh, a congratulations to Gavin, he placed gold from bronze which is quite impressive in my opinion!

In other news, I 4gated for the first time in my entire life yesterday. I did a Korean 4gate on slag pits because I hate that piece of shit map. I did manage to win. Just too many zealots, but being the type of gamer I am I won't do this very often because I want to become a good macro player as that, as I see it, is what is important!

Fuck Terran is annoying. I scout, see marauders and presume no banshees.... what do I get? Banshees. Ridiculous. It's not imbalanced, just annoying, but even though I lost I made platinum! So happy about that!

Sorry for the rushed and unorganized post, was more to take up time while I waited for battle net to sort out its shit.

TLDR; B.net is a bitch, Gavin made gold, I did my first 4gate and won and I made platinum

Grack

Friends will be friends

I don't know why I like my trolls friends. They constantly niggle and piss me off and make me rage and yet that's what bringsus closer. Of course I am talking about my StarCraft friends, namely Duncan "TydVirTaal", Gavin "Phoreals", Casey "noobface" "Nirv", and, though he doesn't play much these days, Luke "the Fucking troll" "LntLulzalot" These guys are the guys I probably spend most of my time talking to, we play most evenings and it's strange how we can put up with each other.

Our conversations are 90% tuning me because I'm to only Toss in a chat room of Zergs and yet I eagerly await it. If any of you reading this blog don't have StarCraft buddies, find them. They make the game so much more fun and so much more desirable to play. Half the reason that I am rapidly becoming better is because of said friends. My competitiveness makes me want to be the very best, at least amongst my friends. This competitiveness leads me to watch virtually every Day[9], but I'll talk about that gift to eSports later, it makes me play enough so that I become better, it makes me strive to get into Platinum. Apart from just me being competitive, these gods among men friends of mine are also this brilliant forum that I can come to and talk to about shit that's going down, be it StarCraft related or otherwise.

So now that that love letter is completed, story time. We decide to use our smurf accounts and place in 4v4. We're fucking around and playing random monobattles. If you don't know what that is and don't want to go search Day[9], they are when you announce at the beginning of the game that you are going to be only making one unit. I rolled Zerg and went Mutas, Duncan rolled Terran and went Marauder, Casey got Terran too and went Marine and Gav was left with Zerg and Roaches. Now unless you've been paying as much attention to my blogposts as I would to a 200/200 Colosus stalker ball that I've 1a'd to the back of his base, you will know that Duncan doesn't play Terran and something in his control settings wasn't working nicely, god knows what it was. So he asks for a pause and the stupid fuck we were playing against decides to not allow us to pause.

We really don't like bad manners, so it was incredibly satisfying to absolutely roll them like we did. My Mutariisskkss  sniping his probes made me feel all happy inside. Monobattles are so much fun to do with friends and cause a ridiculous amount of lols. It's also a win win because either you win and it's like "FUCK YEAH WE WON ONLY MAKING ONE UNIT" or you lose and you're like "whatever, we were monobattling!" So yeah, go do monobattles because they are amazing.

So in closing: my friends are awesome, get StarCraft friends, play monobattles and don't BM people you're worse than!

GLHF for life! I love you all, no homo.
Grack

Balance bitching begone

Hey guys!
Sorry about the terrible title. I know its really ridiculous and this is getting astoundingly annoying but bitching brinzmen really annoy me. This game we all play, this superb StarCraft has a great group of gamers furiously focused on trying to generate some balanced brilliance. I'm going to stop this nauseating nonsense, though, because it's making writing wretched.

The major issue I have with this rubbish is first and foremost, I am a Protoss. The second I open my mouth about anything to do with balanced I get assaulted with a swell of something along the lines of "HURPEDY DERP TOSS OP DERP!" This is mainly because I am pretty much the only Toss among my close group of friends, who are all Zerg. The thing about Zerg players is that they don't seem to understand that their units need to have counters too.


I'm not saying that balance my never be discussed ever, I'm just so fed up of the constant QQ from all the Zergs i know/ my friends. If you look at StarCraft II, you're not going to find a game that's more balanced, besides Blizard's previous achievements. Now look at the tournament results and you will see the balance reflected there. I know players like Idra  still talk about it still being imbalanced and saying that tournament results don't matter is just ridiculous. We can't just say "well I think this is IMBA and I know that it's never shown to be IMBA but I think it is so therefor it is."


So ye, in a concise closing to this retarded rant, don't be a troublesome troll. The balance is generally gosu and these terrific tournaments are amazingly accurate at credibly conveying Blizzard's balance. Lots of love.
Greg the Grack.

A shout out to my beginnings.

While I may love my parents, this is not a shout out to them. This is in fact a shout out to (mainly) HuskyStarCraft. This man was the first person that I watched a lot. I got hooked on watching StarCraft 2 with a game back in King of the Beta Hill where CauthonLuck played against Idra and Day[9] famously, amongst my friends at least, said, in a voice that at the time was way too shocked for us noobs to understand why it was so shocked, two amazing quotes, namely "That queen injected 10 energy too late!" and "One banshee beats one queen!"

After watching this hilariousness I ended up latching onto HuskyStarcraft. I watched this man for ages. I watched so many of his YouTube clips and he truly started my whole mentality of just watching a lot (relatively) of StarCraft. Now let's get onto my point shall I?

I've heard many people bash Husky, I've heard comments about him which I object to and now I'm going to voice these objections. Firstly the things I've heard about Husky from people, negatively, is that he isn't a good commentator. It has been said that he doesn't make the best analysis and other similar comments. Apart from the fact that I disagree with this analysis of Husky's analysis, that isn't the point. The point is that it is brilliant people like Husky who grow eSports and frankly I cannot think of  a better thing for Husky to be doing.... okay I can, but they involve curing cancer and helping lepers. I can show someone a game that Husky casts and they will find it entertaining no matter how much they know about StarCraft, unless they have the sense of humor of my left toe.

HuskyStarCraft is such a gift to the community. So thanks for all the new StarCraft players who you bring to this fabulous community of ours and thank you for helping us realize the dream, as talked about in Duncan TydVirTaal's blog. This dream, in short for those of you too lazy to go and read his blog, is the dream that eSports becomes mainstream and that gaming can be discovered by everyone.

Now before this turns into a love letter I'd like to end off by thanking Husky and all the other figures who have influenced my relatively short life of StarCraft and grown eSports to what it is and continue to grow it to what it will become.


TL;DR:
Don't hate on Husky, he's really funny and cool. Husky grows eSports which is the dream

Grack.

RAGE

Sup guys and girls..... yeah, i know there are no girls. First I'm gonna rant about Terran, then cannon rushes and then I will give you guys a treat of a story of some epic rage.

Okay so I was playing a PvT and I decided not to go colossus, which was logical in this game because he was going Marine Marauder Medivac with some Thors as well. (All nice to feedback.) This seemed to be going well at first because my chargelots were tearing apart but his drops kept denying by expo. I was quite happy with how i denied drops and banshees early game but in the late game i didn't go deal with them. This was my downfall. He out macro'd me, got some good EMPs off and eventually beat me. I think I would have been okay with losing to this strategy but I was angry because he didn't say GL at the start. Onto the next game.

My pet hate. Cannon rushes. FUCKING HELL. Okay, so this stupid fuck goes forge first and i scout around for the pylon in my base. I don't find it and carry on playing, looking out for a pylon. Eventually he starts warping in a metric, not imperial, mind you, fuck-ton of pylons into my base. I kill these off and then find a whole bunch of cannons on the other side of my base. I double expand to the other corner of the map and make gateways etc. I get a good economy going and feel pretty confident. I gear up for the final attack that will end this bullshit once and for all and this guy had DTs. Fuck.

Ok, now that I've had my little rant, I think you dear readers deserve a tale of rage as old as time. Recent time, but time nevertheless. So I was playing some games with my friends Gavin and Cheesey Fucktard Noobhead from previous post Duncan. We were 3v3ing but if I recall properly I was rather tired and fed up. I got cannon rushed. I do not like being cannon rushed. It fucks up my game and makes me mad.

Today it made me more mad than usual. Seemingly calm, I left the game, put down my headset, stood up and promptly kicked my cupboard door right off its hinges. After the moment is passed I start laughing and put my headset back on. "Guys," I said, "I just kicked my cupboard door off." They start laughing and WTFing. I had to walk through to the garage, fetch an electric screwdriver and fix this cupboard before my rents got home. (Yes, I'm a teen to anyone who doesn't know me. If you don't and you're reading my blog, uber ♥s to you!) Luckily it was easy to fix but to this day the cupboard door is still slightly wonky!

On a side note, writing this blog seems to calm me down.

So this game...

Okay guys! looks like this might already be devolving into just raging about shit that happens, but I'm sure you will bare with me.
So I was playing on tal darim and I opened with this cool forge first build because I was versus a Zerg. everything is going great, I see he has some speedlings but I'm not worried. then as I'm building some extra gates or something he steamrolls my units before I can forcefield with some fucking benelings.... well I didn't bother to play it out. gg f10 n. Fucking hell it pisses me off so much when I lose to stuff that comes from silly mistakes as to where I was looking at the time..... must.... focus.... on..... minimap..... eh well. Hope it'll come with time!

The Rage part.

Okay, hi guys this is my first proper post! Hope you enjoy it. It's a little anecdote which relates to how I came by the name Grack.

So my amazing friend Duncan and I are playing. Duncan, especially at the time, was not as good at Star Craft as me. He was a bronze leaguer while I had just had my internet ego grown by being promoted to gold league. So we were playing and Duncan decides to do the unspeakable. The bastard seven roach rushes me.

Now, for those of you lucky enough not to have experienced this complete and utter fucking bullshit strategy, a seven roach rush is where they get 7 roaches really fast and rally them to your door and keep rallying them. While Duncan, the cheesy motherfucker that he is, might say it isn't cheese, it is. Don't listen to his nonsensical bullshit. It doesn't give them anywhere near enough drones to go into the mid-game well...

Now, my dear readers, I am, to this day, not sure how to hold one of those off. I need more sentries or something like that but anyway, being beaten by Duncan as my friends, unforgiving, cruel friends who laugh at me not with me, watched was too much. To let out this absolute rage I walked over to a semi broken office chair with no back so it was basically a stool with wheels, picked it up and flung it across my room. It didn't break itself too badly and I still have it but because all my friends heard this over the VOIP I was using they forever troll me about it.

Thanks for reading. More posts to come!

Hello there!

Sup Guys.
This is my first blog post. I'm starting this blog about starcraft because... well... I fucking love this game! I play fairly regularly and watch a fair amount of the stuff about starcraft. My posts will be varied and we will see where this blog takes me but I will probably end up talking a lot about my life as a gamer and all the wonky stuff that comes with it, broken chairs and all, but we'll come to that later!

My gamer ID is Grack, firstly because my name is Greg and secondly because my friends compare my rage to that of Idra, for whom I have a great amount of respect! Unlike Idra, I play Protoss. I dabble with Zerg on a smurf but I'm not so good yet. As toss I am a measly gold league player, hoping to advance soon so this will not be a blog where I claim to know everything about anything like the great thought hammer, Day[9] for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect.What I can offer is laughs and some funny stories. Hopefully you will all enjoy my blog in the years (I hope!) to come and that you can share my laughter and my tears as i progress as a gamer.

I wish you all the best!
Grack