So I managed to get top 5 in my current Diamond division. It's a pretty new division and most good players (at my level) would be in a division formed much closer to our ladder season. I'll secure my place as long as I play enough to use my bonus pool.
Two nights ago I played the best games of my life (as well as flipping out on my stream... embarassing). The night started out badly. I lost a ZvZ where I fast expanded to slings. The next game was a DT rush that I didn't see at all... After that I got another ZvZ and decided to sling myself against the opponents fast expand. He got spine crawlers up in his main base and I decided to lose too many units to it. After that he got blings and owned me while I didn't transition. Lesson learned but I got super pissed after the game and hit my leg on my stream. Hopefully the embarassment will keep me from doing it again.
After that lost another ZvZ where I left early due to not canceling my hatch that was being killed by slings. After that however I played three games vs Protoss where I felt like my macro was ON FIRE. The third game wasn't as much on fire with macro but I actually scouted that he was going all gateway and held off his 6 gate AND his future pushes with hydras and creep all over the map. The earlier games I held off deathballs and VR pushes by actually getting air when I needed it (not before) and over macroing and denying bases. I felt like I was scanning my base a ton. Responding when buildings finished. Scouted more than normal (but not enough). Injects were well timed. I also managed to get a lot of bases and get gas on them and saturate them at the right times which is great!
Last night I went 2-2. Lost to a bunker rush and to a sentry heavy toss push that completely played with my flank. I moved some roaches behind his army to flank when he pushed and he saw it and just killed them first and I lost right there. The two games I won was one Terran that didn't have his macro up to snuff and one toss where I managed to overtake him and get broodlords to seal the deal.
Main notes that I got from all of this? I still need to scout WAY more, and just learn what to do in different situations. Fact of the matter is the other day I scouted 2rax in close positions and made drones... like just lack of experience. I know 2rax is bad, and even though common sense says make units I didn't know that for sure, but now I do. I need to analyze losses more (instead of just blaming macro but that is a key component of course) and make sure to not get pissed when I lose. As far as I see the two main things holding me back from doing better at NE Sc2 lans is scouting (big time) and being able to play games without getting mad (a lot harder to fix). We'll see how it goes this weekend! I'll try to stream every game I play as normal.