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All of this is from memory -- I'm not going to fact check any of this. Also, I'd like to say that this event was easily the best event I've been to in SC2. That includes going over to Korea for the GSTL, going to multiple MLGs. This event will easily be a memory that I'll hold closely for years and years to come. Anyway, to begin.

The "weekend" started on Thursday for me -- I (along with all the other players) were required to come in at ~2pm for a runthrough for the event. What was going to happen, what the goals were, who everyone (that we didn't already know) was. It was a good start. We had a tour of the venue, learnt a bit about Inmaniac (his favourite colour, for example, is blue!) and were told what would happen with the event, how it would run, etc..

We then (everyone sans Jazbas, PiG, Ninja and Light -- they were late / not there / didn't show up) sat down at the PCs to playtest / practice. Queue the bo3's, where I trashed techtron in a RvR bo3 on the laptop touchpads. We then began playing around, notably playing one-handed (mouse only) in RvR's when one of us would get our main race.

Eventually, enough time passed (PiG and Ninja had shown up -- Ninja sounding quite sick) that we were starting to be ferried back to the hotel to check in before the player/media/blizzard dinner. My group was the last group taken back to the hotel, so we got there right on 7pm (Sydney traffic, yay!) after some fun in the van (including my tweet "calling out" Mafia).

We decided we'd all just dump our bags/luggage in Legionnaire's room and leave instantly, as we could easily check in later, but postponing the dinner hindered everyone. So, after leaving our bags behind, we trecked over to The Brewhouse -- a "pub" (a damn good one) right in circular quay. After greeting everyone (sans Dox -- his flight was delayed, sadly), we ordered our food and drinks (techtron really loves chicken parmagianas) and sat down. HD joined us at our table (us being myself, EdgE, techtron, Knight, ninja) and sat with us / chatted with us while we ate.

Techtron really likes chicken parmagianas.

After the dinner, Dox finally arrived (basically as we all finished) and we convinced him to get a parma. Well, techtron convinced him. Meanwhile, everyone mingled, chatted, essentially just relaxed and wasted a bunch of time together. All of the casters were really.. I guess the term would be "down to earth"? None of them acted as if they were superior to us. They would happily talk strategy, and if we disagreed, take our criticism on-board.

Eventually, the dinner ran late and we started heading back. This is one of my very few criticisms of an otherwise phenomenal event -- we got back to the hotel at roughly 11;30, having not checked into our room ("our" being myself, techtron, pig, ninja). It took us until 12;30 to have the room issue sorted -- keep in mind, we would have to be up the next morning at 8;30-9am latest to ensure we were ready for transport to the venue.

The hotel itself was really, really good. I can't do it justice, although I was unable to really get any sleep on the beds in part due to both nerve issues and the pillows being about 1/3rd the size of the comically small bed. Friday rolled around quite fast, and all the players were at the venue reasonably early (I believe Yang was one of the first, and had to leave during the middle of a practice game due to a fire alarm).

When I got there, I sat down and started playing some warm-up games. I knew that myself and BigBird were unlikely to be on the feature stage, as there were some really big matches up first round -- notably Glade/Deth, Iaguz/Light and Pig/Ninja. So, I settled in, made sure all of my settings were right and got to it. Time passed quickly and eventually, after our vetos, our games begun.

I won't be doing complete overviews of all the games -- It's still hard to think about my last few games. All I do is think about every error I made.

After a small amount of time (game 1 was fairly straightforward, game 2 was a decent macro game) I proceeded 2-0 and started to walk around to calm myself down -- I was favoured to win, but it didn't help my nerves. I never used to be nervous, playing tennis, or sport in general. However, SC2 tournaments really rattle me.

After the second game finished, I sat myself down right behind techtron instantly. I had helped him leading up to this event -- I gave him 3 replays of myself vs Rossi from the masters cup something in the area of a week before it and wanted to see if he would come out ahead. Everyone was tipping Rossi "by a mile", but I was telling them that it wouldn't be surprising at all if techtron managed to win. The 3rd game, the only one that I saw, was extremely close and techtrn managed to proceed.

I think I walked in and out of the main area and players lounge during the next series (of iaguz and light), however eventually Light proved the victor and we were due to play. This was the game I was looking forward too - I dislike playing Light, as he plays unlike any other Protoss (and is such a damn nice guy..) somewhat what I feel like people feel playing against me. However, I had really worked on improving my ZvP coming into this event, as well as hammering out a few new cheese builds.

I progressed through these games 2-0, playing both a macro game and a much shorter game. I was ecstatic -- I was the first one through to Oceania, day 2 and had a lot of pressure lifted off my shoulders. I walked out, celebrated with Benji and my girlfriend and relaxed for the rest of the day by watching both the main stage games (Legionnaire was playing! Yeah!) and keeping track of the other results.

The rest of the day is a blur, however I remember thinking "man, I should go home to sleep because of these beds.." and going against my better judgement, went back to the hotel at the conclusion of the day with the rest of the players. People were organising to all go out to eat, but I left with ninja, techtron, ash (a kind gentleman doing a behind-the-scenes video of everything), knight and maybe a few others. A few of us got kebabs, the others got subway (there was a chicken parma sub -- however, techtron had went to get a kebab. How dissapointing for him..) and then went back to the rooms. I intended to get into bed as early as possible.

However, I had no key -- I went across to where Champi and PiG were eating, took Champi's key (our room consisted of myself, pig, champi and yang), went up to our room and attempted to sleep.

No dice.

Eventually, I got up, went to the lounge, laid down and watched some television. Honestly, this lounge was more comfortable for me than the bed. I ripped all the cushions off the lounge and slept on the floor (gave my bed to Kez for the night) and got a nice 4-5 hours of sleep before the next day of events.

Waking up, I felt sick in the morning. I just felt off -- as if something wasn't right. I got to the venue early and sat down for practice games, trying to prepare for my games vs PiG. I knew that he would try his roach nydus allin at least once, as he had done so to Mafia. It's honestly, not a great build, however much like all cheese, works due to its shock value -- unless you've played it before, it will hit you like a tonne of bricks.

The games were uneventful (I played poorly) and PiG dispatched of me rather quickly 2-0. I was dissapointed, as I played really poorly. At the end of the day, I'm alright with losing, but not when I play badly.

After falling, I walked into the players area and saw I had to play MaFia -- that was another kick in the teeth. I know that I can trade with MaFia relatively evenly, however, after my performance in the games with PiG, I wasn't exactly too confident in my ZvZ. I walked around for 5 minutes to both clear my head and prepare for my games mentally before we proceeded to do our vetoes and get into the games.

Again, I feel rather uneventfully 0-2, this time in very poor games. I was extremely angry and left the venue early to actually go and sleep at home (after going out to play poker for ~4 hours) in preparation for the next day. The big day -- the one that really mattered. Don't get me wrong, the difference in money in the AUS championship made everyone play their damn heart out -- however, the real prize was the seeding for the world finals. The ability to represent Oceania.

I woke up well rested -- I finally had a good nights sleep before the day and I felt great. When I arrived at the venue, it turned out I was the first player (not from New Zealand) to get there. I greeted everyone and looked straight at Norksman (much love to Norksman -- he doesn't get a lot of credit, but was very helpful and supportive throughout the whole event) asking about the brackets. They were just about to be generated.

Basically, Dox had plugged all the names into the challonge random seeding generator and started hitting "randomize". There were a few of us watching, and just for fun, I said "You have to keep hitting randomize until I get seed 1". Obviously, everything is still completely random, it didn't influence anything, I was just having some fun.

After about 20 randomizations (this was bullshit, the generator hated me!) I was #1 and the bracket was generated. I saw that I had Light again, and then very likely Mafia (I expected him to want revenge versus YoonYJ, as well as Yoon wouldn't have held very much back in their encounter the previous day). When Light arrived, I greeted him with a backrub as he looked at the brackets.

"Oh come on!" was what I heard him scream in Anguish as he saw my name next to his for the second of three times throughout the event. We were playing on the main stage, and I was nervous. I've always said that Light is one of the harder players to play against -- he plays in a very unique way. He doesn't really care about what the metagame is. He goes in with his style and that's how he likes it.

I lost the first game on entombed valley in a relatively decent game from my behalf -- he played phenomenally. I was slightly rattled, but was alright with my game plan. I had spoken to some other players about what we expected him to do and steadied myself for the next two games. They went slightly better, as I correctly read what he was planning to do (got quite lucky with some overlord scouting patterns I believed would work versus him) and reacted to adequately. I progressed as the victor, 2-1, on to face the winner of Mafia v yoonyj.

Mafia progressed, as I expected, and it was a rematch of the previous day. There wasn't a lot of downtime betwee the games for me (right after mafia played yyj, he was set to play me to keep schedule), but I felt much better about the matchup than the previous day.

I don't exactly remember these games, but I remember one thing -- the third game on Antiga Shipyard, I was almost certain he would 15hatch, so I 10pooled. However, he didn' 15 hatch, I 10pooled and proceeded to lose the game. Dissapointing, but happy that I stuck to my guns, I dropped into the losers bracket to play the Perfect human himself, JazBas.

Here is another problem with the event for me. I take basically no time to set up, and very few breaks. I walked into the players room, saw who I had (PiG was also ingame vs Light and I didn't want to set up next to PiG whilst he was playing a gme) and asked for a short break. I grabbed a drink, walked around for about one -- to two -- minutes before I was being told that I needed to "hurry up and set up -- now".

Fair enough, I suppose.. I looked over at the admins and told them PiG and Light were within minutes of completion, and asked if I could wait until their game finished before starting to set up. They begrudgingly agreed (this wasn't something I would easily do -- setting up directly next to a player whilst they are playing is extremely distracting.) and waited for their games to end.

Like I said, I set up very fast. Our vetos had been done, my gear was set up in what was probably less than a minute and I was fixing my in-game settings. Again, the admins were telling me to start my games, I told them I needed at least 30 seconds in a custom to ensure everything was ok, and progressed into a custom game to check all of this.

After all of this, myself and JazBas started and the games ended 2-1 in my favour (most notably in the 3rd game, I lost my spawning pool and still edged out a victory!) and I saw that Light had defeated our WCS AU Champion, Pig. I was playing him for the 3rd time.

Again, I was being rushed -- he was set up on the main stage, ChadMann had very nicely said he would set up my gear while we worked out vetos (he had seen how I had set it up previously). I walked over, Ray looked up and said "Same vetos?". I nodded, walked back and my gear was good. I was instantly invited to a game by Infeza (who is a SICK observer!) and then told him I was taking 30 seconds in a custom game to ensure everything was ok. Again, this is something I wouldn't bend on.

After a 30 second check, I headed straight back in and our 3rd series began. This time however, I took a fast 2-0 (the first game showing a cheese I had devised after reviewing our earlier games) and progressed on to play Mafia for our 3rd time.

The games versus Mafia.. I can't write too much about. I'm sorry, but if you didn't see them, go watch the VODs. After the series completed (I went down 1-2), I walked over to his booth (which was being mobbed by his teammates and TA clan members) and must note something here.

I understand why his friends would rush the stage -- I definitely do not blame them. When I walked over there, I heard a voice -- either Richard or Miles, saying (loudly enough to get them all to move) "Boys, move out of the way for tgun", allowing me to shake Mafias hand, congratulate him and raise his hand to the crowd. Thank you to them -- it's very hard to notice something like that in all the commotion, much respect to the TA boys and his IM teammates, friends, etc.

After this, I collapsed on the ground behind my booth. Dissapointed isn't the word I'd use to describe how I felt then. I think it's about as sad as I've ever been in recent memory -- losing WCG didn't even put me into this position. I wasn't even able to compose myself for at least five minutes. I started to pack my gear up as people came in to help cheer me up -- I can't thank those that did so enough. Even if I didn't show it, it did help a lot. I'd like to name you all, but there is legitimately too many for me to remember.

I started to walk to the back (in search of Mafia and glade, to wish them luck in their match) as I knew they were getting ready for introductions. On the way, as I got just into view, the audience clapped and cheered for me. It felt amazing -- they had done the same as when I had won, but after a loss, it was something that is hard to describe in words. Some people came up asking for autographs, upon which I obliged quite happily, and others would congratulate me, saying that it was the closest ZvZ they'd ever seen.

I believe someone said (I can't remember who) that there was a "Bee's Dick" in it. That made me laugh.

Eventually I got to the back and was able to wish both Mafia and Moonglade luck in the finals, before going into the players lounge and again collapsing, however, everyone had left, so I was alone, thankfully. I was able to just seclude myself and let it all sink in for that moment.

After this, everything sort of blurs together. More autographs were given, the finals were played (however I was mentally exhausted at this stage, so I can barely recall the games) and that was that. All I can remember is my voice was hoarse from my games vs Mafia -- I don't recall it, but I figure that I had screamed so much during our games that it was what had done it.

At the end of it all, Artosis and Tasteless both gave me hugs to cheer me up (both stating that my games vs Mafia were very enjoyable), as did PainUser and HD and everyone was starting to disperse. All of the players, casters and ACL staff grouped up for a big photo before I started walking around to say goodbye to everyone.