This is literally three years in the making. I started playing StarCraft online in August 2012, right at the bottom of bronze league. It took me around 18 months to finally get into diamond league, and since then it’s been a slow climb to masters.

I’ve taken a few breaks along the way, but I’ve always had something of an obsession with the game. I even got a tattoo a few weeks ago:

But I did it!

I fucking did it!

I was really hyped to get into the Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void (LotV) beta.  I happened to be pulling an all nighter when it first went live and I was closing and reopening my Battle.net client like a mad man until I finally got in.  But… that was about it.  I played a few games, kind of enjoyed it, and then got bored quickly.

If I’m completely honest, I don’t think it had anything to do with the gameplay.  So much has changed that it’s like a new game, and there’s so much less downtime in the early game that it just makes the game that much more fun.  The new units are great, and the meta is all over the place which results in some fun and interesting games.  I think the biggest factor that bored me was the lack of ranked play, since it was unranked only for a long time.

They added an actual ladder into the beta yesterday, and I decided to give it a go… And now I’m not sure I want to go back to Heart of the Swarm.  But I kinda feel obliged, because of the whole “I want masters before LotV” mindset.

I don’t even care that the LotV beta ladder is so skewed by mostly being the top 20% of players.  I won all 5 placements and ended up in silver league, but that just makes me want to get promoted all over again.

I’ve been told that there are a number of pro players in platinum, so I guess I shouldn’t be aiming much higher than gold.  But who knows?  It seems to be going pretty well so far since my return:

I’ll be streaming a lot of my beta games, please feel free to pop a follow on my Twitch channel if you’re interested in seeing some experimental gameplay!