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ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

Hello everyone! EdgE here, and I’ve been planning to write this blog for a few weeks now, but I waited until after WCS wrapped up. This blog (both parts) will talk about a few things, primarily my stance in life/sc2 now, and also WCS as an event with talk of GESC/ACL and the qualifiers for those as well.

Part 1 (Photos courtesy of Various people, primarily Dot)

Now I THINK most of you reading this may know some things about me. I’m a young Zerg (I’m only 3 months older than cutie pie Ninja if you can believe that!) from Adelaide and I have been near the ‘top’ of the SEA scene ever since the WD Psi Storm back in September 2010. I see myself as a seasoned veteran now, but comparatively I’m still very young and have lot’s to learn IRL as well as in SC2. My practice when there isn’t a huge tourney is just ‘fit any games when I feel like it in’ but I’ve always had trouble mass gaming. I’ve improved in 2012, but often in periodic bursts. Making it a consistent thing is my goal, but I am also looking to get a job before years end… so perhaps learning to balance my time better will motivate me to force those extra games out.

Anyway enough random banter, here is a bit of a wrap up of my ACL Melbourne experience.

It was a bit before ACL Sydney started that it was confirmed I wasn’t going. I had immediately been telling everyone ‘ACL Melbourne – I guarantee I’ll be there’. Soon enough, I confirmed that to be true and the arrangements were being made. Initially, I was thinking of flying but a much funner option became apparent – road trip!! The road trip would consist of me, my best mate Jak (TASpider), and 3 sexy online-turned-real life mates - Max (TAKrUnch), Briddles (TekBiGbiRd) and Ash (TekChampi).

The Road Trippers™ (from L to R, Champi; BiGbiRd; Jak; KrUnch; Me
I was putting in sufficient practice for ACL Melbourne. When the regional qualifiers were going on, I had only had my computer back for 5 days after an eye-opening month+ without my PC at all (only had my laptop to check sc2sea/Facebook) and it was ACL Adelaide Qualifier time. This time, it wasn’t just about a nice amount of cash… it was to qualify for ACL and WCS. At first, I never cared about WCS. I didn’t even understand how it worked, but I did know it was important. I went into the tournament pretty shaky and not confident at all. To people’s disagreeance, I felt I was not a favourite for top 3. We had the interstate sexbombs in Light and deth there, as well as the extremely strong and underrated xGKingSatu (SPGsatu at the time) and finally a couple of Protoss heart-throbs in Champi and Bigbird. To be honest, I was more scared of bigbird. I feel bigbird has some insane natural talent and if he had the time to practice coupled with good internet, his WCS performance would have been amplified ten-fold. Never count out Champi either, he’s on the rise faster than ever and is a very hard worker, but historically I just have a mental edge (no pun intended) over him due to him never being able to beat me (we hadn’t played in a fair few months though).

Anyway the tournament went alright. I had a below-average series vs. Ray, where he cleaned me up (when Ray has more practice than you, you are in trouble) and I was knocked down to the losers. After some crafty and sneaky play to take out Satu and a couple of others, It was me vs. Bigbird. I was out of practice, playing my worst matchup with amazing nerves compounded all of that but I gave it my all… and it wasn’t enough. Luke took me out 2-1 in an epic base race finish, but it wasn’t me choking, it was just me getting outplayed. I may harp on about my practice being shortened, but Luke doesn’t have the opportunity to practice much either (although for the first time in SC2 he probably got more than me haha).

Standard computer errors haunted me for a month

I was a bit down but I knew where I thought I might finish and I did, so people were shocked I wasn’t uber-depressed or something. I still had a great day and got to catch up with Ray/Deth and meet Ray’s GF for example, but once I got back to Champi’s place where I was staying it hit me –
I’ve missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime… for now.


Fast forward to the ACL Qualifier announcement for the final spot. Myself, kez, hut and yang would be fighting it out for the final ACL spot. Hope entered my heart and I was as determined as ever to get this spot and get myself back on track. Who am I kidding I can’t leave such a game as SC2 without giving it one final go, which was my thinking at the time. I went into beast mode practice for 3 days and then the day came. I started off with a 2-0 of my good friend and amazing Protoss yang, and I was as nervous as I have ever been. I then went on to face HuT, an extremely strong Terran who is now my lovable team mate. He took game 1 with some strong play featuring unorthodox compositions, but I was able to stabilize and took 2 strong games after that. I was feeling good, but I now had to face Kez in what was my least comfortable matchup at the time. I won game 1 with the build me and MaFia worked on (I owe Tim a lot for his help) and that actually put me through without me knowing. Kez went on to take the next 2 games with very aggressive builds and I left the third game on Ohana with a ‘Fuck sake GG’. Not a very nice thing to show your frustration openly to a stream but I was too sad to care. A few minutes later, Doximus Maximus told me I had the spot, and surprisingly my first thought was sorrow for my other 3 opponents, who are all ******* amazing players. I often feel I’m a humble person, and hope for most players to get the best out of the game but it was a kill or be killed situation… and I did not want to die yet.

Enter car trip for ACL Melbourne – I had good chats with Luke prior to it, and if it was anyone else that beat me I would be extremely sad, but seeing him get the opportunity of a lifetime gave me some happiness. Still, having my practice shafted and missing out on being able to play ACL and GESC on the trip really shattered me. I’m a player at heart, I love watching but I love being recognized by people as someone with skill... and I felt my time had come in SC2. I wanted to quit after ACL Melbourne.

The trips there and back were insanely fun. We had me, Jak and Champi huddled in the back enjoying cute times and Max with some of the best 1-liner comments you can imagine. It was a really relaxed atmosphere, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

How cute are Jak and Champi!! (On the ride there)

We arrived at deth’s place, where we were greeted by MiLes, deth and were also shown the vomit they both exalted the night before… and then we said hi to Nom :P. It was a great little place they’ve put together, and there was enough room for the 8~ of us to just chill out. We watched some fantastic movies thanks to deth, and I got a bit of practice in. Eventually we all got to sleep at a pretty late time (not before we riced bigbird) and a day of Starcraft awaited.

8:30am. We all awoke at a similar time to some extreme cold (at least for an Adelaide boy) and began our preparations. I waited for Fourby to pick me up for Gigabyte while Champi readied himself for an intense day of open bracket. Bigbird, jak, deth and nom travelled with the Nv boys to gigabyte while this went on. Fourby arrived and was being his usual weird self, and introduced me to his GF Tash who somehow puts up with the intensity filled Sam Tham… what a trooper.

First time meeting GLaDe + 3 Zergs unite.. ft. System

Fwarken Zain!!!!..!!

A couple detours later we arrived at Gigabyte and the event itself was quite cool. Nice atmosphere, my first interstate LAN etc etc. I met mOOnGLaDe, TargA, Yoon, Fourby, Mafia and others for the first time there and it was a lot of fun. It was a very chilled LAN compared to the ACL coming up, and the games were ok on my end. I took out my practice partner Fourby in a team-kill, got taken out by iaguz in convincing fashion and then put up a good fight but got knocked out by future ACL-Melb champion PiG. I was happy enough, and ACL was my biggest focus since the outside chance of a WCS spot loomed. I got to ACL that night and met some people such as Dox, VanzR (very awesome), ChadMann, Techtron, Rogue and HuT for the first time (I’m sorry if I miss people, there were many more that were so very awesome) and was scheduled to play my first game vs Open bracket winter, team mate and British beaut Fenner, but due to many computer issues that follow me around I had my games delayed to the next day.

myself and Fourby playing at the GESC LAN (this sexy bloke gave me his beanie!)

Watching over my pupil, MaFia

After another fun night with some practice mixed in, I was off to ACL. I was determined to show my worth, and at this time the WCS spot wasn’t even my main focus. I’ll mainly talk about the games only to save some time since this is a huge part 1 already, but I first up went on stage vs tgun (we weren’t on stream, just on stage) and I was nervous as all hell… until I got up there. I loved it on stage, nerves went away and I really enjoyed it. I was very happy with my play, I was close to besting tgun but he was too good for me and eventually outplayed me, but it was a nice start. Next up it was my first streamed game on stage, and for someone like me who suffers from something I’ll mention later, I took it well. I was vsing someone who has become a really good friend in mOOnGLaDe. The first game I got taken down with a 10p drone pull vs my 15 hatch, but I actually heard the commentators say ‘10’ so I immediately knew what andy was doing, but I didn’t go 15p and stuck with my hatch first and alas the lings streamed past my ovie, yet I felt good. After the game I upped my in game sound so that wouldn’t happen again. The next game I did some tricky speedling play and actually had a great advantage, but butchered my baneling/roach attack and subsequently lost to a very nicely timed counter. I was still very happy despite going 0-4, since both tgun and Andy are so so good.

First time on stage


I then took on Fenner on stage after we didn’t play the day before, and I was playing really well + fenner was underperforming, and the games looked way more one sided than they are in practice. I was sad about the team kill, but I said to Dan he could pick any group he wanted and if he wanted group A, that’s fine. I was 1-2 now, and had big open bracket qualifier riiChard and unknown Protoss Pezzaperry up next. I played very strong vs both and went 2-0 2-0, so I went 6-4 overall and didn’t lose to someone I was favoured against, and didn’t beat someone who was favoured against me. It was a strong performance.

An example of a lovely group convo... ft. Richard picking up

After taking down riiChard, I found out I had the WCS spot along with Ninja, YoonYJ and tgun. I think those 4 names were the best there for the spot, although people like Pox and HuT could have easily taken my spot.

The whole downhill into uphill dynamic I faced was great, since I ended on the rise. I snatched the ACL spot which I had a 25% chance of getting, I snatched a WCS spot which everyone was roaring to get and now all that was left was WCS success… so what now?

Supporting Buddy Tim, even after he steals Zepph's Chair

Outside of StarCraft post ACL Melb, we had a huge walk looking for a place to stay going on. After being misleaded by the treacherous Dox, we found a little cozy Pub where a bunch of nerds walked in and soon made the place their own. Great times there, seeing old mate Hocus and saying goodbye to Pinder among other things. Thanks to everyone who went there!

Finally meeting the owner of cREdgE - Simon Dransfield (Hocus)

Thanks very much if you read through all that! I wanted to write a blog, but I’m not a very good writer in that it’s a lot of things put together and a lot of it is just result summary, but part 2 will be better since its fresher in my mind and more… intense . Will also give shout outs in that blog, and also maybe include a lot more pictures (still got a few to add from my phone for this part)
!

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

Awesome blog!

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

I did read through all of it. =) Best of luck in the future! You "are" going to press on with Sc2, right?

edit: also, I loved the photos!

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

That will be discovered in Part 2 mate! Thankyou too !

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

Always a fan of your work and it's a great story you have. Having been at WCS I know a bit of the story already but it's easy to forget the long road you embarked on to get there after being unsuccessful for a direct pass at ACL Adelaide.

See you down the pub sometime soon

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

Nice read ^^ Cant wait for more edgefriend.
gogogoogogo

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

**** you handsome monopoly gogo

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

wtf didn't realise you're so young!

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

The mystery card. lol! =P Hm... guess we all have to stick around then! XD

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

great read i like you

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

I like how BigBiRd is flipping us the Big Bird in the first picture, can't wait for part 2.

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

Amazing blog. Anxiously awaiting Pt2!

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

system always got them in hands in his pockets lol!!!!!!

great read looking forward to part 2

Re: ACL, WCS and Me Pt. 1
 

both blogs are really amazing T.T