There are two major obstacles with the 'pros-above all else' approach. The first is that it eliminates a large portion of gameplay that lower level players will be more exposed to. This occurs due to the very simple fact that pros will not use anything that doesn't work for long, thus removing many if not all available examples of how to play against it. An example would be one base bio ZvT, a poor strategy but something a beginning Zerg might have grave difculties dealing with as they don't have anything to model for beating it. Unless they somehow stumble upon Leta vs Jaedong on Chupung Ryeong1 or another hairpin in the haystack, they're essentially out of luck as many of the games which would show how to decisively win simply aren't available (practice games or are too old and not online). The second problem is that it can be very dificult for a newer player to relate what goes on in a pro game, where boundaries are pushed to their limits, for their own games are the exact opposite.The first problem unfortunately doesn't have any optimal solution and is the chief aw with this ap-proach. Losing to stupid things will happen and there might be a point where you can beat a decent player who plays correctly yet lose to a poor one who uses inferior strategies. This bizarre situation occurs because you are jumping over a large period of growth by rigorously learning from the correct ideas (those by the pros) instead of learning much slower, but more incrementally, by personal trial and error. Thus there will come a point when you have a gap in your knowledge: you understand what is right, but not why it is right, and thus do not have the know how without a direct example of how to defeat inferior ideas. Seeking explanations certainly does help here as the accuracy on solved problems is usually better than for unsolved ones, but on its own it might not be enough. If you have the skill to play as other races, playing from the other side of the eld is a great. Try playing that 1 base bio against a bunch of Zergs and see what happens. It really helps to feel, not just read about, the problems from the other POV. Regardless, this is a problem that will vanish after your understanding grows, but it may make a painful bump in the road. The worst part about the second problem is that due to the inherent nature of learning, the initial periodof growth is always slow and will show little results. A beginning student cannot efectively comprehend the nature of what they are seeing because they have not built the mental framework to place it in: to them an SC game, especially a pro one, is just a series of actions happening for seemingly incomprehensible reasons. They can't understand their own games, so how could they even begin to relate to one played many levels higher? The slow growth during this period can easily lead to discouragement and is a stumbling block for many people; the inability to establish a mental framework is likely the reason why only a small fraction of SC players can ever get above the level of a d/d+ iccup player. The mental framework is a structural glue of sorts that stores and relates every known idea about the subject. It cannot be fully realized until one can, at least at a basic level, incorporate together the patterns that govern the activity. For example, show a typical starleague TvP to a pro and they will be able to e ortlessly evaluate the position at almost any given time, accurately predict at what future point a player might have a timing window, and see what options each side has, among many other things. Their mind has already constructed an accurate model that can t inside the game they are evaluating and, even though the evaluation game is a unique occurence, their overall understanding of patterns will allow them to analyze it as if they had seen the exact simulation many times. On the other hand, show that same player an otherwise impossible scenario of say, a TvT where each player starts o with 30 scvs and a battle cruiser, and their.