In this 'How to Improve in Starcraft 2' series part 9, I will be talking on Preparing for Tournaments. Whether you will be joining your first tournament online or offline or you are already a constant tournament competitor, this article will give you a better idea on how to improve your games and winning more games in tournaments.
I have personally only played one online tournament couple of weeks ago. It feels different generally when I am in a tournament. As compared to ladder games, I don't really care about the outcome as mainly to improve my own play style and for practice reasons. However, in a tournament, there will always be pressure. Sometimes immense pressure from your first tournament can be too great which will probably affect your gameplay. Wanna know the outcome of my first online tournament? I lost my first round best of one game. T_T. During that game, I seem to be under some pressure as it feels weird to be playing my first tournament. Most people probably been through this. This pressure seems to come from lack of experience and nervousness which in turn affects my general micro and macro gameplay strategy.
I will be entering my second online tournament soon and I hope that I will do better this time around. You may be wondering how do I practice currently and ways to prepare myself for my next tournament I'll outline the general guide and strategy for tournament preparations.
1. Practice partners
Practice partners are generally very crucial during your practice matches before tournaments. In general, ask your friends to play with you as many games as possible. It is advisable to practice against a better or good players. Playing against better players will give you a sense of your strengths and weaknesses in your overall strategies and gameplays. It is always better to compare yourself to someone who is better at Starcraft 2. It is best to have one or more persons for a specific race. This is due to different playstyle and strategies by player preference. Some player opt for more one to two basing all in aggressive strategy while others prefer a longer macro game style. It is best to have more experience against a wider range of playstyle as our future tournament opponent will be random.
2. Practice against a Specific Race
The necessity to practice against a specific race. If for example, Zerg vs Protoss is your weakest match overall, practice more on the specific ZvP match. Followed by your second weakest match. Finally, your best matchup can come up last. You need as much practice for your weakest match to gain your more experience and idea of the specific matchup.
3. Practice with and against a specific strategy over and over
It is best for you to practice on performing each of your own specific strategy over and over again. For example you have three types of main builds consisting of; 4 Gating, 2 Gate Robo, 2 Gate Stargate. Then , divide your practice time performing the same strategy over and over against different opponents. Familiarizing and mastering each of your personal strategy is utmost important.
4. Get your practice partners to perform a specific strategy over and over
If your focusing on the PvZ match, you would want your practice partners to perform the same strategy over and over until you are familiarize the same strategy performed by your opponent. Take an example where your Zerg opponent only does a 14 and 15 hatch build for a few games in a row. After playing against the same build over and over you will become very familiar with his build such as expansion timings and timings for Speedlings, Lair tech etc. Do practice against a wider range of strategies.
5. Practice on different maps
The same argument as the above two points will be used here. As every tournament has a range of map pools, familiarizing yourself on each and different maps can be an advantage. Some tournaments allow map vetos where others do not. Please refer to your tournament details for more information.
6. Psychological Factors
Psychological factors seems to be a great influence during your tournament matches. For example, a lot of pro Gamers perform wonderfully on ladder matches but failing to perform well in their offline LAN matches. This scenario occurs a lot on GSL players as they are not used to play infront of a camera and audience. The best psychological guide I can give here is try to relax and play more custom games with observers watching your games. You may get used to being watch and play tournaments after a few tournaments.
7. Best of one, Best of three and Best of five games factors
Another aspect that you should take into consideration is the tournament formats; whether is it a best of one, three or five series. In a best of one match, players generally play a safer and less all in strategy as most players are reluctant to risk the game due to build orders alone. On a best of three or five matches, do prepare your self with a few different build orders. As players generally want to be as unpredictable as possible to your opponents. If you are up a game in a best of three series, you can always consider to cheese and perform a riskier strategy. Even performing a cheese and all in strategy in your first match can create a psychological effect on your opponents. Try out for yourself.
8. Just to add the final and one of the most important way. Download and watch as many replays and cast possible for each matchup particularly focusing on your weakest. For eg watch 10 PvZ in a row to analyze the Pro gamers gameplay.
Finally, I hope the above tips and guides will helps you to prepare for your next upcoming tournament and I hope I will perform better this time around.
Cheers.
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