In the Starcraft universe, my world of ass-kicking resides on the International Cyber Cup, a.k.a. ICCUP.  In return for creating a playing field with more functionality than Battle.net, Blizzard Entertainment has recently condemned it as a “pirate server”.  Sorry to hear your Battlecruiser Rush wasn’t cutting it there, Dustin.

The talent level is good.  Damn good.  How good?  I’ve drawn up a synopsis of the letter grade ranking system on the internet’s most Korean gaming server.

Empowered by numerous victories on Big Game Hunters, you’ve chosen to play on ICCUP.  In the grand scale of things, you’re a solid player.  You have little trouble defeating your friends (though they insist they’ll get the better of you after playing the campaign one more time).  However, you’re unprepared for a world where man and Starcraft can wed in matrimony.  Your friends play Halo all the time, but that’s only because of that drinking game where you chug every time someone says the Battle Rifle is bullshit.  By your eleventh straight loss, it should be quite apparent that ICCUP is not for you.

Through dumb luck or hard work, you’ve maintained your default ranking of D or beaten enough D- players to achieve the D+ rank.  For every three games you play against even competition, Bisu will join your game to remind you that you are dog shit.  This will fuel your insecurities, leaving you to compensate by logging onto the Battle.net forums to brag about beating me.

As a C-level player, it’s possible you are very good.  It’s also possible you cherrypicked your only good matchup to make it this far.  It’s also possible you’re a Korean who mocks your opponents for “me kor u noob baka rofl ^_^”.  If you earned this rank on merit, you have mastered Starcraft.  Your skill level is now defined by how many games of Starcraft you can play simultaneously.

In your daily war against Korean pre-teens and the Western World’s sixty remaining Starcraft players, you have earned the respect of the internet.  As a B-Class Starcraft player, there is little doubt to whether or not you are the coolest kid in the school anime club.  You possess all the skill of your paid-to-play peers, but your parents keep disconnecting the router because you won’t take out the garbage.  Too bad you mom can’t see such an endeavor is beneath you.

You are an A-Class Starcraft player.  Your life consists of the horrifying reality that you will play a video game seventy hours a week.  You do this on the hope that Tossgirl will walk into the love letter you wrote in Vulture Mines.  Some of your opponents will be chess computers.  They have already calculated that you will lose the game and will hack your hard drive to make sure you can never play again.  Your lone reprieve will be the occasional game against IdrA.  Just mass Carriers and you should be fine.

Congratulations.  You have achieved what mortals wouldn’t dare.  You have reached the world-class “Olympic” ranking.  If you achieve this ranking, start tearing out the drywall in your room.  You are a secret government project and it is important that you know where the cameras are.  At this level of play, the metagame is for pussies.  Rather than guessing your next move and micromanaging their army, your opponents will telepathically restrain you from pressing keys on your keyboard.  Just don’t bother complaining about it on the internet.  Some D- player will tell you it’s part of the game and that you need to stop sucking so bad.