Hi there good people of the Nexus. My name is ouroboros ("oro" for short) and I am the embodiment of a PlatPleb. I’m not joking - just look at my ranks for every season:





left to right, top row = 2016 s1, s2, s3; bottom row = 2017 s1, s2, s3

Whenever I see discussions about people not being at their proper rank I quietly sit back and think to myself “…I’m probably exactly where I should be.” Here’s the deal, I’m kinda old – 35 to be exact. I can be slow when it comes to recognizing a situation and pushing the necessary buttons for that situation; or as others might say, my mechanical skills leave something to be desired. I rely on macro-game knowledge and a relatively wide hero pool with some comfort picks to keep living the Plat dream.

Cool, what the hell is this post supposed to be about? I’m glad you asked! You see, I recently finished my bachelor's degree in Computer Information Systems. I like computers and stuff but I’ve realized that I really enjoy writing. I’m one of those crazy persons who would prefer to write an essay or thesis paper over multiple choice tests. Now that I’m out of school I have this weird desire to write but nothing to write about. While I’m bemoaning my untapped desires to my spouse, she says: “why don’t you write about that stupid video game you play every night.” Bless my wife. She’s a lovely person, wife, and mother. But her taste in digital entertainment consists of Candy Crush, online multi-player Uno, and watching Korean soap operas. She’s not Korean or of Asian descent, mind you. Not that there's anything wrong with that - It's just not my thing. Maybe we can forgive her for calling Heroes of the Freaking Storm: “stupid”. Or maybe it is, as she says, stupid and we’re the dumb ones. I don’t know. I don’t really want to go down that rabbit hole.

Alright, yeah… writing about HotS. That’s not actually a bad idea. It’s not like I’m going to all of a sudden develop a taste for Korean soap operas. But what do I have to offer? I’m not what you would call a “content creator” by any means. My claim to fame is getting a clip in Heroes of the Storm: WP and Funny Moments #120. I don’t think people are interested in videos made by a PlatPleb on “How to Play *insert hero here*" nor will they care much about my tier lists or first impressions of a balance patch. That’s for people like McIntyre who do this already and do it well. I’m a bit of a math guy with a background in statistics (or the buzzword “data mining”) but I do that stuff at work IRL and it’s not really something I want to do outside of it. Plus, with the likes of CriticKitten and ChaosOS consistently bringing the thunder, I’m not sure what my niche would be. Maybe when an official API drops from Blizzard I’ll revisit that thought.

For now, I just want to write about my experiences. A journal so-to-speak. And maybe, JUST MAYBE, there are some people out there that will find enjoyment, humor, or life-lessons in my thoughts. Maybe “life-lessons” is too ambitious oro, let’s stick with enjoyment for now. Here’s where my focus will be:

HL thoughts from the depths of Platinum Hell

Analysis of drafts and plays from HL matches.

Perspective of the game through the lens of a mediocre player

Life versus Gaming – the timeless struggle

I’m going to write about Life as a PlatPleb. My plan is to share everything - the good, bad, and ugly. This season I've been working on a spreadsheet to keep track of my Hero League matches (I upload all of my replays to HotsLogs & HotsAPI so the spreadsheet is to help me provide contextual information for those matches - my initial thoughts on the draft, key moments that may have swung a match, and random notes like: "holy crap... Alarak can shutdown D.Va"). This is the data scientist in me that wants something that can be qualified and potentially quantified. I’ll be sharing that and maybe people will lend their thoughts to how I can improve this process. I definitely want to talk a bit about my progression as a player and provide some context to the different seasons and my records. I’m also going to be getting some coaching because while the PlatPleb life has treated me well, I really want to break the seal and hit Diamond. I'll chronicle those sessions here. Who knows maybe there’s even room in masters for a slow, old-man like myself? Chill out oro - let’s make it out of hell before we set our aspirations on heaven (it is heaven in masters, right?). My goal is to put something out here every week. This is something I need to do for myself but hopefully there's value to others.

Ultimately, I simply love this game. I love the community. I find some sort of release through writing and thus I’m going to write about Heroes of the Storm. Here I go...





