ACL Sydney 2015 was, in my opinion, the best ACL yet. The venue was good and not too far away from various food places. For once there were no lag/dc issues for the entire first day (only issues came when the CS dudes unplugged the net not once but twice on day 2 -__-) and most importantly, I had the most fun chilling out and talking with people, especially my SYF teammates. We all cheered for each other and watched each other's games when we could and it was a great experience.
Introductions have always been my weakest part of anything I write, so I guess I should start with getting to Sydney. INSANO (henceforth will be referred to as The Sane) was a boss and booked a hotel for me, Lachlan (aka Phoenix), Big Andy (aka NaMeK aka NaMeL the dank meme camel) and himself. We didn't have to pay a cent for the hotel so that was just ******* amazing and something basically entirely new to me as far as SC2 goes. I had to pay $400-$500 for my trip to ACL Brisbane last year all up (most of which was the flight costs because seriously, **** Canberra flights) so to spend $100ish in a weekend staying in a hotel is honestly incredible.
So I knew Big Andy would be at the hotel about 3-4pmish to check in. I caught a 1pm bus which would get me to Sydney Central Station at about 4:30pmish. From there I just had to catch a train to North Ryde or Macquarie Park Station and it'd be all good in the hood. I was a bit nervous, having never taken one of these trains before. I didn't really know what to do. Just catching a cab was out of the question because it would be $50-$60 and ugh, just no. My Mum actually did refuse to let me catch a train on Sunday evening when I was going to leave so she gave me money to catch a cab then. But anyway, I went to the information desk...booth thingo. I told him I had never caught a train before and basically had no idea what I was doing, and if I wanted to get to Macquarie Park, what train should I catch? He told me platform 16, and so I was off. When I arrived at platform 16, the speaker came on and announced that North Ryde and Macquarie Park were among the destinations for the train from platform 16. Cool, so this is definitely where to go. So I got on the train and chilled out for a while. But I kept looking at the screen that shows the list of stops and started to get a bit nervous when I saw that North Ryde and Macquarie Park weren't on the list. WTF. I spent the next few minutes frantically texting people asking wtf was going on. Eventually, The Sane gave me a call. He asked me if I had got on the train at platform 16, because that was the one I needed. I told him that yes, I definitely got on that train and he seemed a bit perplexed. He told me to get off at Chatswood and then just catch a new train from there, to which I said, sure. Problem was we had already passed Chatswood so derp. I ended up getting off at the next stop, which was Gordon. I was actually quite lucky I guess because it was only a 10-15 minute drive from our hotel, and was definitely within walking distance if all else failed. It was getting dark by this point. I called a cab to pick me up from Gordon Station. After waiting 30-40 minutes I eventually decided that it wasn't coming and called Big Andy to ask him to come and pick me up. Big Andy was able to save the day and save me from the mean streets of night time Sydney. We got back to the hotel at around 7:00pmish I think. I never received any kind of message/call from the cab company so I have no clue what the **** happened there.
Big Andy and I sat around for a bit and discussed life, when Lachlan texted us and we went to meet him at the Macquarie Park Station (aka where I should have been a couple hours ago -_-). We picked him up and walked back to the hotel, then did the same for The Sane when he arrived. We sat and chilled for a while, discussing life, contemplating this or that. We went and grabbed some Maccas and then went up and stayed up until like 2am or so chatting. Considering we had to wake up at 6:30am (Baldie asked The Sane to come in early) this could have been a mistake. The Sane and I had to share a double bed. Big Andy refused to share a bed with another man and thus slept on the couch, which wasn't a real couch, but some weird leaning thingo? Either way it was pretty comfy.
The bed The Sane and I shared
Anyway, I slept pretty shit and kinda lapsed in and out of sleep every 30 minutes, but ACL hype was easily fighting through the fatigue. So we left at 7amish (we were meant to leave earlier but oh well) and what should be a 15ish minute walk became a 30 minute long walk because The Sane didn't have any idea where he was going. I mean, I didn't know where to go either but anyway, it was ACTUALLY SLIGHTLY COLD on the streets of Sydney at 7am. I dunno what you guys were whining about with it being cold inside the venue on Sunday, I rocked those group stage games in my team shirt (kindly loaned to me by The Sane) with no jumper or heat packs and it was a comfortable temperature.
So we arrived at the venue and DA BOYZ played a couple practice games. Phoenix remembered what it was like to play the game with ping below 400. Anyway, Phoenix and I went to the local shops after a while and grabbed some food for The Sane, who was gonna be having a loooooong day observing. I grabbed some yoghurt (in those squeezy little container thingos cause we didn't have a spoon. Actually, Lachlan if you read this, can you tell me if you ever ended up eating that yoghurt? And if you did, what did you do without a spoon?) to get a little something extra, plus some water. Anyway, I met a few people over the next hour or so, the highlight of which was definitely Chase. I was just sitting down in my chair minding my own business when I spot someone I recognize and my face just lights up. Oh my, it's Chase! We hugged and chatted a little bit before going our seperate ways. Said hello to Pox, DoMo, Probe, and all the regular guys I meet at these LANs. Got to meet Ice, SouL (quiet IRL but still very social) and some other dudes. ETL.ChowMuddha popped in briefly to say hello, and eventually brackets came out. As the #2 seed for the entire open bracket (only behind Chase) I was definitely rewarded with a sick, sick bracket, although I didn't realise that immediately. In fact my first round opponent was going to be Alopex, so now I can talk about the video game of StarCraft 2, hooray.
Anyway, going into the event I hadn't practiced much. If you're thinking "Bro, your ******* hotel got paid for the least you can do is spend a week practicing really hard." then you're totally right, and I was thinking those things to myself as well, and forced myself to play a couple times. Ultimately though I just didn't feel like playing much in the lead-up to the event, but kinda like HuT I got better and better as the day went on.
vs Alopex
G1 vs Alopex was on Echo, and I thought "**** yo shit I'mma put you on the edge immediately!" and 9 pooled him. Alopex went hatch first and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. I killed the hatchery as you'd expect, but then lack of practice showed itself immediately as I didn't fully use my brain to identify that he was just going to ling/bane all-in me in response. I've held this exact attack many times before but this time I only built a couple spines and just kinda played a bit risky and cut corners which I wouldn't normally do, and thus Alopex's desperation ling/bane all-in totally rekt me. So, losing what is usually a build order win isn't exactly a great start to the day.
G2 was pretty embarassing, I played super greedy gasless style and Alopex basically made some speedlings and ran them into my base and killed me. I was pretty upset with this series, and thinking back on it, being as upset as I was was just silly, but I guess I felt in my mind I had a chance to make a huge statement by at least taking a game off Alopex but I completely failed to do so. Anyway, down into the loser's bracket I went.
vs Hydro
Now, Hydro is some Terran dude from QLD who used to be pretty good when he played actively, apparently. He didn't really know much about the maps or anything but even so, over the last couple years I've definitely learned the value of a good tournament mindset and thus don't underestimate anyone anymore. The open bracket score says he took a game off Ryan (NXZ) but I'm not sure if that's true. I only saw a Ryan 2-0 in Hydro's match history but maybe they just happened to hide the game Ryan lost? Anyway, G1 on Vaani Research Station, since all-inning is so difficult on this map I decide to feel this guy out in a solid macro game. Again lack of practice showed as my first overlord never confirmed if he was building a CC at the in-base natural, I just kind of assumed he was. Even so, my 6:30 overlord scout saw his armory and I was already really confident I could hold whatever hellbat shenanigans he threw at me, because I go baneling nest before upgrades/lair for just an occasion such as this. But since I didn't know he hadn't expanded, I actually underestimated how strong this push would be, so I was pretty shocked when like 10 or so hellions rocked up to my base. They drove up my ramp and I panicked because, holy shit dude, hellions in mineral lines and THAT MANY?!!? But nah, he transformed them into hellbats at the top of the ramp and I honestly feel like that was a mistake because hellbats are pretty easy to run away from. It was still a lot of hellbats to deal with and I had to micro drones around the place, make lings and banes and deal with a few hellbats at a time. More hellions were being rallied across the map and it was quite stressful to deal with and at one point I thought I might lose, but fortunately hellbats aren't immortal and eventually they all went down. From there I just macroed and when he did his first bio push I absolutely crushed it with ling/bane and pushed into his base for the win.
He forfeited G2 to go and get some pizza, but I didn't wanna win that way and waited for him to come back so we could continue the series.
G2 on Echo I did my sneaky roach build. I did this a lot over the weekend so I guess I should explain what it is and hope a future Terran opponent doesn't read this and know exactly what I'm doing if I ever use it against him. Anyway, you keep all 3 drones on gas, get a roach warren on a low drone count and try your absolute hardest to keep reapers the **** outta your base. I did a good job at this and he was blind until his reapers saw 12 roaches pushing across the map. The transition for this build is into 2 base muta, and it's quite powerful assuming the roaches do any damage. In this case, they did. They didn't end the game but they did a fair whack of damage and Hydro GG'ed as soon as he saw the mutas out to attack the units outside my base.
Now I guess at this point I should address something. Yes, apart from Alopex, my bracket was easy. I had an easy bracket to make it into groups and the group I got was the easiest one. I don't really know what to say regarding this other than hey, nobody really good got screwed over in the open bracket IMO. I mean, some people like Vivid and SouL missed out but eh, I feel the way the open bracket turned out was pretty satisfactory for everyone. On the plus side it was also my first ever time making it through the open bracket. Due to lack of practice I was really worried about how I'd perform so even the easiest group would look like a bit of a task for me, so try and understand my happiness with my results (and I'll talk more about that later, don't really know why I went on this total stream of consciousness tangent in the first place).
vs Slayer
I saw a bit of Slayer vs PressureTested and thought 'Well hey, he's pretty good at making roaches. Always a danger.' I 9 pooled G1 on Coda because I felt like it, and got the hatch despite Slayer's pool first. Slayer really impressed me with how well he macroed to come back though. He was able to produce enough roaches to not straight up die to my 1-1 roach timing follow-up, which was pretty impressive IMO. But I sent 3-4 roaches to kill drones at his 3rd and then got the sickest flank ever and came in from both sides to surround his roach army in the middle. Pox will later show the value of sitting in the corner like an asshole on this map :P
G2 was on Echo and I just played my normal gasless style (I play gasless almost always in macro ZvZ because I don't trust myself to hold TargA banes and such even from a far inferior player if I open with gas) and Slayer tried to ling/bane all-in me. I was a bit confused when I saw lots of slow lings knock on my door (he forgot speed) but I realised the gravity of the situation when the banelings rocked up. Fortunately, I'm well experienced in this kind of scenario (and it's around this time my lack of practice stopped being an issue basically) so I just rocked that simcity, plugged all the potential holes with evo chambers and spine crawlers, and Slayer was completely unable to break through. He complimented me and told me that he could tell I had played some tower defences in the past (it's true) and tapped out.
vs Chris
I played Chris once before, nearly 2 years ago at ACL Sydney. I'll talk a bit more about that later (it'll be called 'Mentality Difference in 2 Years') but basically, it went much better for me this time. G1 was on Iron Fortress and he decided to mech like a bad (albeit intelligent) human bean. I did my standard SH/BL response to mech (which is basically only weak to a certain kind of push. Too strong for roaches and hits before broodlords). I made about 12 SH and did some small harassment, but uh oh, Chris did that certain kind of push. He didn't do it perfectly and from my perspective farted around a bit which gave me enough time to get broodlords out and push him back home. I ended up pushing into his base with BL/Corruptor while SH ravaged his third base and he GGed out. The dudes behind me (don't know who you were sorry) were very impressed by the fact that I was actually using swarmhosts and not only that, winning with them. Made me feel like a bit of a superstar.
Game 2 I did my sneaky roach build on Echo, and it was almost an exact repeat of the game vs Hydro, with Chris GGing after seeing my mutas.
I had now qualified for the groups no matter what, so let's talk about my order preference.
A > D > B > C
Nothing too confusing I think. Group A has 3 Zergs (ZvZ is my best match-up) and Frustration. Although I practiced with Frustration a lot prior to the event, I have a couple of sneaky builds I've hidden from him in case I need to play him in a tournament and overall I'm quite confident haha. The 3 Zergs could obviously definitely defeat me, but so could anyone in any group. Group D has KingkOng and one of my nemesi, Pox. Redemption and NaMeK are both definitely beatable though. Group B and C are pretty clearly nightmares, but Group B is preferable to C because I think Namakaye is harder than Eddie and I want to play Law again for sure.
vs Afhrait
Prior to the games Afhrait came up to me and said I had beaten him before and that I was a "very good player." It was honestly kind of touching to be respected like that by someone. Anyway, I didn't use as much effort for these games because I was in groups no matter what and that was basically all I wanted. I played pretty poorly, and ZvT is my worst match-up anyway. G1 on Iron Fortress I took my 3rd base expanding towards him for...some reason. I got absolutely decimated. G2 I did my sneaky roach build but I guess he knew something was up by the gas count because when I got to his base he already had 2 bunkers filled with marauders. Uh yeah. I killed a few SCVs but that was that and from there he just kept his lead and won easily. I was a bit disappointed with losing because I thought I might get Group C as a result of this, but luckily David the Daring picked Group B as his first choice and this helped save me. Afhrait ended up taking a game off Wally and NXZ both so I guess he had some legitimate chops.
I had to wait about 2 or so hours to actually find out what group I was in, by which point the day was dragging on just a bit. My final match of Day 1 was my first group stage match versus Chase, and one of the last series of the day overall.
vs Chase
Although I had never dropped a single game to Chase in Heart of the Swarm, I approached this match with a lot of respect for Chase, both due to his increasingly good results and my own feelings of inferiority due to recent bad tournament results and the lack of practice before the event. G1 I went for my normal gasless play on Vaani, but the sneaky bugger Chase went for the Pratanerarues build (the gasless speedling flood) and killed my 3rd. Since it was Vaani, he couldn't really do more than that. This is a point where I felt like a boss, because I've done this exact build to players like PiG and PandaBearMe and know from losing to them exactly how to respond in this situation. You just take advantage of the small timing window you have and do mass, mass roach flood off 2 base to try and break them. At first it looked like Chase would barely hold and I think I said out loud (though not actually loud enough for anyone to hear) "Are you kidding me?" but eventually I caught Chase droning up his 3rd base just a tad and I was able to push in and take the game. At this point I became aware of Andy, The Sane and Lachlan all watching my game. They told me good job and patted me on the back, which is actually a REALLY great feeling. Such support is lovely.
G2 I decided to stick to the 9 Pool (I am well practiced with it after all) and was disappointed to see Chase had gone pool first. Despite that, Chase didn't bring any drones down to help fight my lings and I was able to outmicro him (though it was probably just luck tbh) and get one of his lings for free and then cancel the hatch. From there I just played normal gasless and crushed him as you'd probably expect. I fistpumped and got to feel the good feel of being congratulated by your teammates. I was honestly doubting if I could beat Chase so to get a 2-0 victory was a really great feeling and gave me a super morale boost for Day 2. We went out to Nando's with Eddie, Redemption, Craig Craigerson (or maybe known by his slave name Azure) and a couple other guys. Then I showered and went to bed. This time I slept on the couch and Big Andy slept on the floor. I actually slept decently, although it was only for about 5-6 hours.
So I got to the venue and since KingkOng was slightly late, my games vs Redemption were up first. The previous night I was worried about my chances, since Redemption was Terran I don't really beat Terran these days, but both Andy and Lachlan told me that I was almost certainly the better player and could win. I wasn't entirely convinced, but nonetheless got on with the vetoes.
vs Redemption
Game 1 was on Echo and as always on this map I did my sneaky roach build. Redemption was ready for it and I killed like...5-6 SCVs? and I basically thought I had lost the game. I seriously did almost no damage. Redemption then scanned my spire, denying me a surprise muta follow-up to get me back into the game. But then I thought to myself, wait, if he sees I have a spire and I just DON'T make mutas, what happens then? He builds a few turrets and probably plays really defensive, while I try and get back in the game. It seemed to have worked well. There was some reaper/mine harass at my third base, which was slightly annoying to deal with with only slow lings, but I already had a lair so queens + slowlings with an overseer was enough, and I dodged the mines insanely well. I started producing tons of ling/bane and got my 4th base up relatively easily and basically just played one of the best ZvTs of my life and was able to come back from behind. Redemption had a hard time moving out, with lings going into his 3rd and mutas constantly killing the SCVs at his 4th, eventually I was able to win and I fistpumped pretty hard. Definitely one of my best ZvTs ever gameplay wise, except for my creep spread. That was still shithouse. Good mine dodges, good macro, good engagements. Was very happy.
Game 2 was on Vaani and I figured well hey, I came from behind to win last game so let's give normal macro a try here. It started out very well, as I held his hellbat/banshee and took no damage, but I kept massing ling/bane and it wasn't until much later that I actually scouted he was following up with mech. I know I'm really bad, but I'm sure every Zerg has experienced this before, right? You don't overseer scout or whatever and just assume you're playing vs bio so you see mech and you're like "welp I got all this ling/bane so uhhh". I did a bane bust to try and kill him before the mech got out of hand, and with 3 or so banshees being annoying at my 3rd base this felt like the best option. It actually went okay, but unfortunately my banes only killed like half the hellbats. He had a handful of hellbats, a couple of unsieged tanks and a thor. If I had 5 or so more banes I would have killed all the hellbats and maybe been able to win the game, at least completely resetting his army. Anyway, I was a bit tilted from this game because being ahead and then just not scouting mech is such a dumb way to lose.
Game 3 I channel my inner NoRegreT and did his baneling bust build. Despite Redemption's reaper harass being really on-point and making me pretty worried that he'd realise what I was doing, he got caught off guard by the speedling flood and his first couple of hellions got surrounded and picked off which I shouldn't have to tell you is HUGE. I had a whole inject wave of lings not hotkeyed so they missed the fight and I thought after the first wave got cleaned up with only a few SCV kills that I had lost, but I knew from experience that you could kinda just keep headbutting his wall until one of you died with this build, and the next wave was much more successful, as I kept flooding lings into his base for a dirty Game 3 win.
vs Pox
At this point I was 2-0 in my group, and I was fairly confident in my chances at beating Andy. Beating KingkOng was out of the question, but I could just beat Pox, I could make the Championship bracket. Last time me and Pox played a macro game was on ladder during dream pool, and I won (albeit Pox failed a 9 pool). Although I have an insanely bad winrate vs Pox, beating him and making the Championship Bracket was POSSIBLE and I was pretty pumped to play Pox. I gave myself a 20-30% chance or so.
G1 I played really badly on Echo, and did a 9 pool vs his pool first and he defended basically perfectly. I tried to play really greedy to get back into the game, but Pox killed my 3rd with a +1 roach push (was a really perfect timing) and from there winning just wasn't possible.
G2 was a confusing game. I played greedy and did a very powerful Pratanerarues build which did sick damage, taking out his 3rd (whilst mine was already up) and a few roaches. I should have basically won the game from this point, but I made a few key mistakes. I didn't drone up my 3rd base very quickly at all, as I was scared of losing in the same manner I had defeated Chase, with lots of roaches. This was silly, because due to my greedy play earlier I seriously had SO many lings, and any attempted move out from Pox could be squashed pretty easily, at least until he built up a bigger army. Either that or I'd do an absolutely crippling counter attack with my lings. The next was when I went to engage him for my 1-1 timing. I pushed in a bit too far and upon retreating, my lings ran the wrong direction and basically all got killed for free. Despite this, my army was much bigger than his and Pox had fully droned his 3rd base to try and make up for losing it earlier, so I pushed in hard. Too hard. Although I didn't realise it in game at the time, I took a REALLY bad fight and combined with defender's advantage, my huge army lead plummeted and the game became even. My morale was basically shattered after I realised I had managed to throw this game basically, and I tried to do harassment on his third base, and flank his army the same way I had with Slayer, but Pox stayed in the little corner between the natural and the third and I absolutely couldn't get him to come out, so every single engagement was dictated on his terms. I GG'ed and was pretty upset with myself, because if I had won this game, who knows what would have happened in Game 3? Maybe I'd be in the Champ bracket, but maybe not.
vs KingkOng
KingkOng actually said hello to me this ACL. Usually I approach him and say hi but this time it was the other way around.
I made lots of plans in my head but nothing I could think of in my head worked vs the KingkOng in my head. I actually overestimated him (he's obviously insanely good, but I gave him TOO much respect and it made me make sub-optimal choices in game 1) and it cost me G1 in a big way. I went 9 Pool on Echo and to my delight, KingkOng went hatch first. Obviously being KingkOng and having lost to Alopex before, this was by no means a won game. I was still happy though because that's exactly what the 9 Pool player wants to see. I killed his hatch (he did a really sneaky thing with the drone though, making it into an extractor then literally immediately remaking his natural) and since I knew I was playing KingkOng, played greedy to try and keep my lead. It worked well, but I got too greedy and played too unsafe. There was a point where I had 10-15 drone lead that was very solid, and the resource graph after the game was HUGELY in favour of me. KingkOng did a huge speedling flood out of desperation and it actually just completely killed me. This was really disappointing to me, as although getting punished for greed is hardly anything bad, I was actually in a really good position, until my greed got the better of me. There was no reason to turn that 10-15 drone lead into a 20-25 drone lead. The resource graph in the post game was already largely in my favour, so me droning my 3rd (and making the graph go up EVEN FURTHER) instead of actually making a few roaches and just being safe was just ridiculous. If I was playing some random guy on NA ladder I would have done that, basically, and held the speedling attack. But I put KingkOng on a pedestal, and was convinced that the already large drone lead I had was definitely not enough and I needed MORE MORE MORE. It's hard to explain and I dunno if I'm doing it justice, but I was in a really good spot basically and I just kinda lost my head and freaked out and thus missed an opportunity to follow in Chase's footsteps and take a game off KK.
G2 on Expediton Lost, I was also ahead for a little bit, but unlike last game this was won through KK being an insane gosu rather than me screwing up. He opened with an 8 pool, which I immediately caught onto (his lings were just too far across the map for a 9 pool) and since I opened 15 pool 15 hatch I was actually able to save my hatch (The Sane told me that KingkOng told him that he gets the hatch "no matter what") and felt really good. I was ahead for a bit, and scouted 7-8 roaches moving across the map at kind of a random time right as I was getting my gases. I built 5 or so spines at the front of my base and they were actually up in time to hold easily. Then he just went around to the back rocks and started killing those as I kind of sighed internally. **** BACK ROCKS. Smart play from KingkOng though. He broke the back rocks down and sent roaches into my base (and was flooding more across the map) but I held the first wave with lings + queens and 1 spine moved into my main) and when the reinforcements of KingkOng arrived I already had my own roaches. But KingkOng is really good and knows how to get back into a game, so he got burrow very early and just constantly sent 3-4 roaches in my base via the back rocks, and to my 3rd. Burrowing them and unburrowing them constantly, basically completely dissecting me. I decided "**** this noise" and decided to just go kill him, and to my credit I was able to push into his base a little bit, but yeah, reinforcements coming in from the natural and the 3rd crushing me pretty quickly. I went home whilst still being harassed to death and KK mercifully ended it a short while later.
Even though I lost I was happy that I was ahead at points in both of the games. I obviously felt a little annoyed at myself for G1 but that was overcome by the happiness of holding my own against the 4x Champion. The SYF guys watching (minus Lachlan, he was off doing stuff with his girlfriend) complimented me as well, which felt good.
vs NaMeK
Final series was against Big Andy. I played absolutely ******* terribly (made 2 overlords on 9 in G1) but still won pretty easily on Coda and Vaani and got the 2-0. Andy is improving all the time though, he just needs to make more stuff. So overall I went 3-2 (6-5 in maps) and placed in the Top 12, which is my best result yet. As I said before, my open bracket/group was easier, but I am still really proud of how I did on the weekend and it was definitely my favourite ACL yet. For reference here are the power rankings.
Best Tier
ACL Sydney 2015
Really Good Tier
ACL Sydney 2014
ACL Brisbane 2014
ACL Melbourne 2013
Solid Tier
ACL Brisbane 2013
Worst Day Of My Life Tier
ACL Sydney 2013
Getting home was pretty easy. The Sane had to catch the same train to Central as me, so that was good. Having a train pro show me the way made things nice and easy. Although my bus ticket was for the 9pm bus, it was a flexi ticket and I was able to jump on the 8pm bus home (I got there at quite literally the last minute).
Mentality Difference in 2 Years
This ACL was also a big victory for me mentally. In the past I've been way too cocky at these events. Back in my ACL Melbourne 2013 blog I said something ridiculous like "I have a 95% chance to beat fur" or ZenAku or some shit like that. Ryan called me out on it back then saying that honestly believing you're that favoured to beat someone is only harmful to your mentality and will ultimately **** you. This never proved more true than it did at ACL Sydney 2013. My first round was against Chris (known as missAsuzy back then I believe. You fuckers and your K-Pop) and nerves just utterly destroyed me. I knew I was the better player and that this was my series to lose, and I was literally almost hyperventilating with how nervous I was, it was ******* ridiculous. I lost G1 in straight up macro because I literally just couldn't think or play straight. I had to take 5 or so minutes to take deep breaths and calm the **** down and went on to win 2-1, but was still a nervous wreck. Then I lost to Livibee and slammed my headset. I'm sure you all know the story. Having an attitude that you're a better player and should win has just never worked well for me, and as this ACL was my 6th one, I finally went into it giving all opponents the proper respect. I mean, I was probably doing that BEFORE this ACL, but being seeded directly into groups both times and playing actual really good people (and ChadMann) wasn't a good test of that. Open bracket was. I never once underestimated Hydro, or Slayer or Chris or whoever and I never once felt a twinge of nervousness. In the past if I've been winning vs a player I know is better than me (for example Alopex or RivaL) I've gotten very nervous in the game, but even being ahead here vs KingkOng or Pox I never got nervous. Very happy to say that there were no problems with nerves or mindset this time around. I treated every opponent I went across as though they were an equal and my mind was always focused. I don't really know what to say here, other than I'm really quite proud of myself, and I kind of cringe if I look back at how I used to be in-game.
Overall, ACL Sydney 2015 was ******* great and the best ACL yet in terms of how smoothly it ran and the amount of fun I had. It was really great socializing with everyone again and there were some really exciting games played. Standing behind Frust watching him vs NXZ was really nervewracking and at points it looked like Frust had done it. Shout-outs to everyone I talked to, shout-outs to the dongers, shout-outs to Pigeon for winning even though he's a dirty Protoss. Ctrl + F tgun Kappa Thank you very much.
I kept looking at the screen that shows the list of stops and started to get a bit nervous when I saw that North Ryde and Macquarie Park weren't on the list
Yeah all the stops don't get listed on the train screen, just means it's one of the later stops, it comes up later. Just check if it's on the platform screen next time and you'll be fine.
Starcraft is a huge mental game and working on bettering that part of your game allows you to harness a little more of that ladder gosu that we wish we could play like on LAN. Looks like you performed really quite well for yourself this time around, perhaps next year is the year of Soundwave?
Good blog all around, I'm a big fan of The Sane so hearing more about him is always great.
I was really happy to see you get your best ACL result to date!
Seems you had a much better mindset going into this tournament, and it payed off
Next step, Championship bracket
I ate the yoghurt with my finger, not doing that again... it felt weird.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fray`ChadMann
Yeah those SYF Jackets are ******* baller.. I kinda wanna get some for fray :S But fray ones, not SYF ones.. >.>
Yeah man, they're really sick. So warm. I was the only one who had one at the LAN but shared it around while people were playing. We're ordering a bunch more for the boys soon hopefully.
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[12:03 AM] Jordan 'Soundwave' Hamburger: "My name is Samuel Anderson and I like to play shooter games." - DTFlames, 2019
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