How to win 4,000 Starcraft 2 matches

If you’re not Korean, odds are you don’t have (or don’t intend to ever get) some of the harder-to-earn achievements in Starcraft 2. Among the more impossible and annoying are several points and portraits awarded for winning 1,000 games as each race option, with Team Zen Master awarding 20 Achievement points and -20 Having-a-Life points for obtaining 4,000 wins in Team Quick Matches.

For wasting 2,000 hours of your life, you get to show Internet strangers a picture of a cyborg cat. Totally worth it.

Of course, in a year or two it’s likely someone will earn this ridiculous prize. I mean, at 15 minutes a game, that’s just 1,000 hours. Oh, right, that’s only if you win every game.

So let’s say 2,000 hours. If you  played for 10 hours a day you could easily earn Team Zen Master in a little under a year, allowing for holidays and life. But who would devote that much time and effort to this pursuit?

Apparently a gamer known as Monoxide has already completed the majority of these trails. Is he a god? Does he avoid all sleep? Is his APM in the thousands?

No, none of the above. It turns out the secret to his success is cheesing.

Hilarious, lowlife cheesing.

If you’ve played a random 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 and left early for any reason (you were eliminated, you rage quit, your house is on fire), you may have noticed the typical score screen doesn’t issue you a victory or loss. It just shows your score and notes “Match in progress.”

Ultimately, your result is recorded when the game finishes, whatever the outcome. If your teammates ended up losing, so do you. If they won despite being handicapped with your absence, you also get a win.

Monoxide quickly discovered that this system could be used to his advantage.

It’s elegant and (dare I say it?) ingenious, really:

1. Join a 4v4 game
2. Leave the game immediately
3. Repeat steps 1-2

With this method, Monoxide was able to “play” games every 30 seconds or so, depending on search results and load times. What was once a 200 hour quest was now a 60 hour macro. And unlike legitimate gameplay, he could sit there reading a book, pressing just a few hotkeys every 30 seconds.

Now, this is the part where you say, “WiNG, that’s ridiculous. How many wins could he possibly get by abandoning his teammates? They’re screwed!”

A valid point, but Monoxide’s 42% win ratio would like to have a word with you.

That’s right, without playing a single real game, Monoxide was able to have a win ratio similar to that of most mediocre players.

Were his teammates emboldened by their 3v4 handicap, fighting extra hard to win? Was Monoxide so bad that, just by leaving, he actually increased his teams’ odds of victory? Or perhaps in 42% of matches, a member of the enemy team employed the exact same tactic he did.

The world will probably never know. All we can know for sure is… LOL.

Gaze upon these works, ye mortals, and despair.