For this blog I'll just be looking at the goals I set at the start of 2015 and whether I achieved them, as well as the major events (ACL, WCS qualifiers etc) that took place in the year that left a big impression on me.
** In typical Rize fashion this is terribly formatted, not proofread aaaaand probably mostly rambling... and I've most likely missed a lot of things - enjoy! **
Before jumping into events, lets talk about my goals for 2015 ~
My goals were pretty straight-forward, they basically came with "get better", so fairly easy.
:^)
2015 goals:
Get back to 1000 rating on Aligulac.com - Achieved around my birthday! (September)
Top 100 of all kr masters - Topped out at rank 60~ of all kr masters in season 2.
Make it into top 32 for the OSC Global Finals - 29th Seed
Achieved them all! Was a bit hard for a few there, but thanks to the sR boiz for motivating me whenever I wanted to give up.
ACL Sydney
I remember reading this announcement and playing almost 60 game straight after, I was so hyped to try my best, as this was the first chance I really had to represent fray at a LAN... IF I proved good enough in the qualifiers and managed to get over to Sydney.
(Atleast, I thought I had to do really well in the qualifiers, which added a load of stress to practice hard)
The stress was resulting in poor practice, I remember not analyzing my replays enough and not testing more builds out etc due to just wanting to grind more games... such terrible quality of practice, I barely even played any custom games at the time as I was still extremely shy towards my teamates.
I lost to Namakaye in ridiculously poor games from me. (no discredit to Nama, love that guy)
The loss dropped me straight into the lower bracket, where I lost to some mid-masters Protoss I had never heard of before - MysticSecret. He played an incredibly cheesy style, and what made the whole thing worse was the fact I would normally hold his sort've play, but the pressure was just too much and I lost 1-2.
I was shattered, but learned the value of getting good practice instead of mindlessly grinding games on ladder.
The second qualifier was a little better... a little...
This time I was dealing with a lot of personal issues that cropped up inbetween the qualifiers, so I didn't practice much at all.
When I noticed that I had to vs that MysticSecret guy again, I was extremely stressed... for no reason - quick 2-0, my cheese defense was on point this time around.
Kingkong next, can't remember much other than my PvZ was really garbage at the time and I impressed myself even thought I got rekt 0-2. (so couldn't have been too bad!)
Lower bracket was just me being bad at PvZ and losing to Soundwave's early pools.
Due to little practice, I didn't feel too bad this time. But I still felt like I let the fray doods down a bit.
Main event! For some reason I was able to be flown over to have a crack at the Open Bracket! (I was told it was for experience, but I still felt like I didn't deserve it)
I practiced really hard for this of course, I was so excited to have my dream of competing at an ACL come true.
Meeting the fray guys aswell as a lot of sc2sea friends for the first time... nothing short of fantastic. I got to hang out with JunO and Yours for a bit too, which was one of my fondest ACL Sydney memories. (2 of the nicest and funniest guys ever )
somethingsomething more memories somethingsomething (Going to focus more on games/practice/preparation now)
Seeing my bracket (Open Bracket B), I felt pretty relieved to dodge Alopex, NXZ and MysticSecret (They were in Bracket A), but getting MightyKiwi, Phoenix, Chase and HuT was still extremely rough T_T.
First opponent was my old teamate from Syf, Phoenix~ I've always respected him as a strong player even if he hadn't had the chance to practice much, he showed some scary queen macro play in one of the games, but luckily I was able to filth him out 2-1. :^ )
Then it was onto some Zerg called Vivid ~ dirty kid bane busted me both games, my PvZ was still so garbage...
Dropping down to the lower bracket I faced some platinum player, then I played an out of form HuT... who made me shit my pants so fast I couldn't believe it. I got slapped around so hard that it felt like physical harassment. I have a strong feeling that I need to get revenge on that shithead, I don't know why... probably because later that night he cracked a joke to his girlfriend about beating me and everyone in the room laughed at me. T_____T
(atleast Chase rekt him next so that was ok, ily chase )
Aaaanyway, pretty good experience overall at Sydney! Due to my results I seriously felt like I let the team down again, I did so poorly that it really didn't make up for a flight over imo.
Onwards and upwards~!
ACL Melbourne
This was a big one. I felt so much fear that I'd bomb out of qualifiers again, and if I were to be flown over just to get rekt again... I don't know if I'd bounce back from that.
So I needed to work hard.
And that's precisely what I did! More efficient practice, customs, analysis of replays... I was making a lot of progress in developing my skills and generally getting better before the first qualifier kicked off, I knew I had to perform a hell of a lot better this time around.
This went pretty bloody well compared to Sydney qualifiers, as it should have honestly.
First opponent was some diamond zerg named Ace, who left a rather strange first impression tbh. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKzYN-rUsAADivG.png
After getting that 2-0 out of the way, I went on to play against fray`Crimson... Seeing as we'd practiced quite a bit, I got slapped down by superior play 0-2. He played very well, and following suit of practice vs him - I died to anything and everything.
Lower bracket time! First match against fellow Adelaide brotoss Ice, I knew if I just played my normal game and defended aggression properly I could just muscle him out mechanically - nice series later and I was on to face the meching Terran, Metalcore.
My vs mech was ridiculously garbage at the time, so I was really scared of getting knocked out early in yet another qualifier... But he played really odd (proxy 3 rax with 1 rax at home pure marine? reactor mine into 4mine drop?) so I was able to easily win 2-0. The next series was supposed to be against fray`Pox, but my wrists were too sore to continue, so I gave my teamate the free win and was happy with my placing in the first qualifier.
For this qualifier I had to repeat my previous performance to get the seeding points into ACL Melbourne's group stage... so of course I get HuT first ******* round.
HuT, you bully, you actually practiced before this so it felt more one-sided than Sydney did.
Lower bracket my old friend, I am in your sweet embrace once again. u_u
First match in the lower bracket was against DarK (one of my bestest friends ever :3), I've never really had any issue vs him so it was a swift 2-0. My next opponent was Schnitzel(Z), I unleashed so much filth in the series that I felt like giving him the win... especially considering he kept typing "if i don't win i don't think i'm going to ACL"... 2-0'd and onto the next opponent. :^)
Law. One of the Australian players that I fear above everyone else. I snuck a map off him with a 2gate vs pool first, but my luck didn't hold and I got knocked out 1-2.
Decent result again, and this secured my spot in groups at ACL Melbourne!
Main event! Melbourne was lovely, and I got to meet Fourby, Chadmann, Eros and many others for the first time! (Btw, going over in a car if you have terrible motion sickness is a dumb idea~ shoutout to Ice for the lift thought )
Making groups here was a massive relief, I felt like I truly had a place in the tournament and felt deserving of being on fray, kind of.
The group drawing and eventual completion of Open Bracket to fill groups was rather unfortunate, I had Probe in my group... A Protoss I looked up to a lot, I also had MK and Azure who I could never beat in my group... it was terrible. T_T
My games vs Azure were about as one-sided as I had anticipated, the games vs Probe were up on the main stage and being streamed... my god the nerves.
My parents, sister and even grandma were actually watching the live stream haha~ They watched on as I fucked my build VERY slightly and had 1 too few DT's... which resulted in Probe's robo being able to finish (a bit of hesitation from me didn't help too), but the memory of "not ******* up and being 1-0 up vs Probe" is something that still lingers in my mind. It's very, very depressing. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRNZ4XUUwAIW_M7.jpg)
Game 2 was just embarassing, I was rustled so much from the first game that #2 was just irrelevant.
0-2, 0-2 vs the 2 strongest players in my group, expected but still saddening that I wouldn't go through groups no matter what now.
MK didn't show up for day 2 because he was sick (the nuggest worked c; ), I remember the PvZ vs Schnitzel ending in the table being physically damaged (not by me), and my match vs Petrify was just a matter of holding early pools and stuff~ so yeah~ 3rd place in my group felt okay. Chadmann seemed pleased, as did the rest of the fray guys, in my mind.. that's what mattered the most.
Melbourne was a wonderful experience, not only because I got to meet so many more amazing people - but because so much of fray was threre that it felt like I was hanging out with the whole second family. I felt more welcomed this time, and felt a little more deserving of the opportunity too.
After ACL Melbourne they was one more event on the calender before switching over to LotV (beta), this was the Arena LAN #8! I was really driven to win this purely out of the fact I copped a lot of shit after the last lan where I lost 1-2 to Satu after practising purely Mass Effect 3 for a week. :^)
Regardless, this was sure to be fun because I love hanging out with the Adelaide dudes.
It was a rather small bracket, mostly due to exams/work functions that had a bunch of people occupied, but I was still happy it wasn't me vs Zergs only. >_< Kreamy showed up! (And made me try new food, which was lovely, thankyou Kevin for buying food then laughing at my attempts to make sense of what I was eating).
The tournament was a lot of fun, I played Zenabi first and kind of switched off, Zenabi played surprisingly well so I had to wake myself up with coffee to finish the series.
The next match was against Kreamy, my PvT was absolute garbage at the time, so I just did some filthy cheeses on maps I left in through the vetos. It felt bad, but 2-0'd Kreamy. u_u
Upper bracket final was against none other than Satu, followed by the final against him.. so we basically played a bo7.
All I remember is holding cheese and countering off 1 base (it reminded me of Lilbow vs Hydra in WCS), and some other filthy 7gates/immortal allins on specific maps, but I'm almost certain he cheesed me twice. Regardless, the 4-0 felt ******* amazing.
Satu's a very good player, and quite the challenging opponent... So it felt good to win 4-0 and finally win another Adelaide LAN a full year after my last.
Seeing as this meant more to me than any other events in the year, I'd like to once again thank Wally for being the only Zerg online at a certain time to help me sort a build out, thanks to EdgE for cheering for me on Twitter.. thanks to the fray boiz for the prac games, and cheers to mum for making me eat my veggies when i was a little boy so I could grow into a cheesy **** that wins lans.
So those were my experiences with the events I attended/was a part of this year, the games I played, the lessons I learned etc. Overall it was a great year, I can't thank everyone enough for how much they've helped me this year, even if I'm not the best player. I think I've got a long way to go with my mindset(IRL stuff reks this), and for whatever reason... I still don't feel deserving of a team - So just some things for me to work on. ~
There's a lot more to talk about, but nothing that'd be very detailed or interesting;
- SSTL was just me being a useful practice partner for the fray guys.
- WCS Qualifiers went okay, but I didn't have any breakout performances or anything.
- Placed pretty decently in a couple of online cups, took some maps off solid pro players, doing well vs top kr gm's on ladder... nothing too spectacular.
2016's looking really good, I finally feel like I can get to that next level and start winning things, so I'll set some higher goals for the year:
- Get KR GM (legit)
- Raise aligulac points to 1500
- Win atleast 10 online tournaments
- Win another LAN/Place top 8 at ACL event
- Knock HuT out of everything he tries to qualify for (if he does)
- 2-0 a high-level Korean pro
I think these goals will keep me occupied. ^_^
Thanks for reading this gigantic wall of text for some reason
p.s. shoutout to edmond "redemption" lam for being a handsome devil, so hot xoxox
Even the smallest donations help keep sc2sea running! All donations go towards helping our site run including our monthly server hosting fees and sc2sea sponsored community tournaments we host. Find out more here.