Ranked Anxiety

Hello, there! I hope you are doing well.

So, recently I have been watching Grubby’s videos on YouTube. For those who don’t know, Grubby was a former professional Warcraft III player. Ah, that brings back childhood. Playing Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games such as Red Alert 2, Warcraft III, and so on… I was not that good back then, but I guess in my circle back then I was pretty OK.

So, what is this “ranked anxiety” all about?

Yes, back to Grubby. Grubby streams daily on Twitch, somewhere around night his time, so around 3-4 AM in Indonesia time (GMT+7). It is the perfect time I think since currently Muslims are observing Ramadan, where around these hours we do something called “suhoor”, where we eat and drink to prepare for the fasting in the next 13 hours or so (times may vary per region).

Grubby was coaching people for his $10,000 Warcraft III Melee mini-tournament with competitors from different game backgrounds. There is Dendi, who is an old-school DotA player, he played DotA since it was still in Warcraft III. There is Annie who comes from World of Warcraft and Tyler1 who comes from League of Legends (LoL). I also just learned that Tyler1 has Grandmaster ELO in Chess.com.

The world feels so small because I think 1 to 2 months ago chess videos popped up in my YouTube feed and I enjoyed the content, most especially from Anna Cramling. Coincidentally, she “invented” an opening in chess called the “cow opening” and Tyler happened to “adopt” that opening in his games.

Back to the ranked anxiety. Usually, Warcraft III melee tournament scenes are 1v1 focused. Imagine you come from a DotA or LoL background where the games are team-based. Commonly, you’d hear teammates blaming each other. While it is very possible that you “carry” your team with your skills, it is also possible to shift the blame from yourself to others. We don’t have that privilege in 1v1s. If you lose, it’s because of you and you only.

That fact itself can be pretty intimidating. If you are up against AI, this pressure doesn’t exist, because you shouldn’t feel… what’s the word, humiliation? If you lose against AI, you go again until you win. As simple as that (that’s also the reason I like single-player games nowadays hehe). However, when you play against a real person, things come up. “What if this person trashtalk me?“. “What if I play so badly, then they destroy me and laugh at me?“.

I bought Warcraft III Reforged back in 2019, but I immediately refunded it because it was so not worth it back then. I wish there would be a sale right now because the current price is a bit too high (Blizzard please). Luckily, Starcraft II is free to play and I happened to have a bit of experience playing it then. Before last week, the last time I played it was in 2022 or 2023 perhaps. So, consider myself a “newbie” who re-learns the game.

Ranked anxiety is real

AI grind… was mostly okay. There were times I got humiliated by the AI because either I was too greedy, I did not wall my base properly, I did not scout the enemy base, I screwed up my build order, or not having a clear game plan. But I was still feeling fine. I learned, and then I went on again to another match.

I beat the Elite AI and then I decided it was time to hit the ranked ladder. I should have taken the picture before I took my first league placement match, but this will do (it should be 5 matches remaining instead of 4).

But oof, once the text showed “Finding match…”, I was already feeling the pressure. I actually canceled it a few times. The nervousness was real. Then, I wondered why I did not feel this way when playing other 1v1 games (or games that eventually boil down to 1v1), such as Fall Guys or Hearthstone.

I figured it was because of the nature of the games. RTS games tend to be so much faster and you have not only to micro, but also macro. Micro is a term about controlling your units, whereas macro is a term about controlling your economy. It felt pretty overwhelming and outside of my comfort zone because in my daily job, switching contexts is a bit “discouraged” as it reduces productivity.

How did the first match go?

Finally, I faced my fear and found my first league placement match in 2 years. The game plan that I usually was able to execute against AI? Gone. My opponent played Zerg and I did not wall properly. In the first few minutes, a handful of Zerglings came to my base, skipped past the Zealot and Sentry that I planned to use as the “wall” and I ended up needing Probes to kill the early aggression.

I was on the back foot since then. I did not know what to build because that early aggression set the tone for the entire game. I was afraid. He went with Mutalisks and while I had my Carriers, my opponent countered it with Corruptors and that was the game.

Now, the hard part. In RTS games, usually, there is a Replay feature. Replay is important to see where things go wrong, but again, in 1v1, there is no one to blame but ourselves. So, seeing my own mistakes in the replay and finding where I can improve, sounds simple, but I need to reduce my ego to do so. I can’t improve if I always make an excuse for myself. That said, if you have some unresolved pasts around “having your mistakes pointed out”, this might be pretty tough. It’s okay, but just don’t make it an excuse to not improve yourself. Seek professional help and see if you can work that out, you can do it!

Anyway, what were my takeaways from watching the replay?

• My wall did not work, the early aggression hit my economy and set the tone for the entire game
• I did not know the strengths and weaknesses of every Starcraft II unit, making it hard for me to counter my opponent

By learning from my mistakes, I know what I have to do in my next matches and hopefully, I can do better with more experience.

Life applications?

I think it can also be applied in life. Sometimes what we do doesn’t work, sometimes we make mistakes… and that’s fine. What’s important is that we learn from them and have a desire to do better. Ask people around you. Do you think apologizing after making a mistake is enough? Maybe. But they will appreciate it more if you acknowledge and don’t repeat it in the future. The acknowledging part is sometimes hard because again, it requires our ego to be put down.

Speaking about “not repeating mistakes”… I’m pretty sure that most Indonesian folks will agree that they are all frustrated with the government. They made mistakes, they apologized, and then what? They do nothing to improve and they keep making their mistakes. So, if we are annoyed with that, we shouldn’t be doing the same. Own our mistakes, and do better.

Well, that’s all folks! Hopefully, this post is useful and let’s always aim to be better.