Back in the day I was afraid of long queue times because that would give me a bigger and bigger chance of being put up against a superior player who could not find someone his level... But now that im in the upper echelons of the "skilled Poxnora Society", I like being in the long queue time because that just means I have a better chance of a free win off of some lowly pleb.(Top kek JK, JK) When did you feel like you truly improved at this game?
I use to play preSOE. First time I beat TinyDragon was a big confidence boost. Though, it was more map advantage than skill. Love me some salty hashshinshin beatdowns. Knowing when you visit the forums, he's already made a new thread.
I was a F2Ppleb all the way through the SP expansion and decided not to try ranked or spend money until I won 100 unranked games with the sample decks. So I did. When DoW came out, I got the 1 month premium membership for the freebie SP warbanner perk so I quickly reached top 20, 10, 5 and finally got stuck at rank 2 because Lixer was a scumbag who afk'd at a ridiculously high exp rating that was deemed unreachable until the next reset. Really, the only way to get better is with practice and it also helps if you find a really broken ass deck like DoW Moga which were easily 70%+ winrate when piloted by a good player. As Moga got nerfed patch after patch, I had to rely on my skills more and more until I got bored of Pox and had other stuff going on IRL which drove me away from the game 2-3 years. I came back with this new Mr. Badguy persona/account around 2011. Like all old exo runes had lost like 90% of their value so I had to spend a lot of dosh and play the market around that time in order to rebuild my collection. With that collection, I started branching out of SP and exploring new territories. But Firk it, FW was so borked I just kept playing it for last 4 years for free elo unless they released something really dumb that would get me easier wins through zerg rush/attrition. TLDR; I got good by just playing a lot and having options.
Probably after winning against tiny after he forgot that he was in que and eventually the server dced him
Basically your first win against tiny is going to be the time you actually felt skilled. Mine just happened to be an actual gg. I ended up activating my shrine on the 1v1 map and using the dmz to slow push his shrine with tomblord and xulous.
They had 5 speed, tunnel Earth 3 so I could move 8 spaces per turn. They had a zero AP relic drop that could contest fonts with a CD of 2. So not only could I get to my side don't a turn early, I could get to the enemy side don't before he could earn from it. Then all I had to do was send units towards middle font with my 12 Nora per turn lead. The only way to get that excavator out of your font was to spend tons of Nora on him or deploy a leaping unit with assault Etc. By that time I would have sent a roughneck into that font which had stealth, combat Awareness 2 and mountaineer. That would allow him to set in that inaccessible spot in Lost City side fonts and you could only uncover him with true detection or flying unit. He also had flashbang and stun so even if you could get to him you couldn't kill him quickly. I also ran EGS as well for added harass.
There used to be games where as soon as I saw certain BGs or factions I automatically felt the game was over. (Even players) I never realised it but it's when I shifted my view to see every game as something I can very possibly win if I play well. Either i improved or my BGs became OP, either way there you go.