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Soundwave's 2012 Experience and 2013 Plans
 

I'd like to take some time to tell you a bit about myself and my plans for the future.

2012

I made an account here to promote CanCraft, a LAN in Canberra (2nd CanCraft coming 24/2/2013!) and decided to get more involved with the community. At the time, I was a low Diamond player, and after (unsurprisingly) bad results at CanCraft I was like "Man, I really suck and need to get better." I looked for a clan with the hopes of having consistent practice partners (my only real practice partner at the time was Wehrmacht, a really good Aussie Terran who has unfortunately been stuck without internet/a good enough computer to play SC2 for a few months). So, I looked around and applied for ipr (RIP T_T) but due to a pretty huge delay before getting an email back, I decided to make a pretty huge leap of faith and join Eternal eSports, which had two members at the time (Typhoon and ChowMuddha).

My reasoning for this was I figured I could truly make a difference with this clan and help make it something great, and as you all know by now, I succeeded! But I'll talk more about that later. I saw GPD tournaments and decided "Hey, I might as well play in these!"

So, I play my first GPD. I beat DeathlyJO first round by bane busting constantly for 20 minutes, and pretty much smashed everyone until I got to the finals.

Well, shit.

Not too bad for my first attempt, but unfortunately, FaDeDante (on sR at the time) owned me really badly with mech 3-0. Fortunately for me, I won coaching from PiG in the lucky draw (it was GPD #50!!) and got some lessons about dealing with mech and some general ZvT help. I've had 3 lessons with PiG, and he really has been a tremendous help. Great guy. I highly recommend coaching with him, top bloke.

So, the next week I play GPD, except I've switched to PiG's hotkey recommendations and, still trying to get used to it, get owned by JoFritzMD easily. Oh well. Then I play the dGG GPD Cup, and it is here I have my first encounter with the creature known as ToRSpook, who lifts his buildings and floats to the corners of the map after I win game 2 with a baneling bust (for the record I beat him fair and square macro in game 1). I ended up taking 4th, by the way.

The next week, I play GPD once again, and, holy shit, I actually win. WTF. I beat Spook again in the finals 3-1 in a pretty silly series. But I get $10 and entry into the next dGG Cup (where I came 3rd and won $10 I never ended up receiving). But that's in the past.

Anyway, that sums up my early days on SC2SEA pretty well, and I'd like to think I'm pretty decently recognized now, and that's what I love about this community. It's one of those "Town where everyone knows your name" type deals. ETL has changed quite a bit, and we've become pretty boss. Our GPD is freakishly strong (though with promotions we're losing our strength bit by bit, but we're turning that into strength for the future!) and 2013 will be an AMAZING year for us, I have no doubts.

Other cool 2012 stories:

- 2-0 record against Poker, from killing him with mass speedlings in 2 different wT Weeklies (Hooray Bo1!)

- 5-3 record in clan wars. I didn't play many because ETL's M/GM isn't too great, and only played 2 clan wars while I was in Diamond.

- Story of my first LAN I went to when I wasn't completely ******* horrible at this game (I'm still REALLY bad though): ANU Epic Games Night

So, this was my first LAN as a GM player. None of the really good Canberra players were attending (DanO, Jerry, YoonYJ), so I was really confident I could win it. Was 8 man double elimination, first round I 2-0ed ToRDjvillian and was pretty happy with how that went. 2nd round I 2-0ed a Masters Protoss named Scabe and was REALLY happy with how that went. WB Finals was against mGGTitan, and this was back when I had no idea who the hell he was, he was just some random GM to me, but he beat Santi 2-1 so he's pretty decent I guess. Game 1 is on the terrible map Antiga Shipyard, and I do some 1/1 ling/bane timing that kills Titan's 3rd and all the workers at his natural. I still ended up losing the game somehow, which put me on serious tilt for Game 2, where I reacted to mech far too late and got crushed. Oh well, I can get another shot at him after I beat Santi!

Except I lost to Santi 0-2 in some of the worst ZvT I've ever played. God, something about Santi just brings out the worst in my play, it's really, really strange. Anyway, Titan ended up winning and making a bit of a name for himself in Canberra, so good for him I guess!

2013 Plans

Anyway, let's talk about what I'm going to do in the future. Just me. Well, first of all I gotta get my shit together and make sure I get good grades for Year 12 of high school. You **** up in school you **** up in life. But, SC2 related, since I'm still on holidays until February, I've decided to get pretty serious about SC2. I...well, I guess you could say, fantasize about playing SC2 in front of a big crowd inside one of those booths. WCS Australia/Oceania was the point where, seeing a realistic goal like being top 16 in Australia be in front of me, made my passion and desire to get good at SC2 really explode. When family members or friends ask me "What do you want after school?" I really have no idea. There's nothing in particular I really have any great desire to do, so in my gap year depending on how I'm going in 2012 I might give being pro a shot or w/e, but that's a LONG way off.

Anyway, as I was saying, starting January 2nd I'm going to be adopting a TLO style schedule where I do other stuff for two hours (such as watch movies, exercise, etc) and then practice SC2 for two hours, then go back to other stuff for two hours and then play SC2 for two hours. I should hit 6-8 hours a day doing this, and since right now, it's hard to get shifts at my part time job due to the holiday rush I have TONS of spare time, this is feasible for me. I am NOT an aspiring pro gamer. However, I desire to be among the best of SEA and be able to take out all the top players (PiG, Mafia) in tournaments one day. I'm an aspiring semi-pro, I guess? I'll make the jump if I'm really meeting with that much success.

Anyway, I'm coming to Cityhunter on January 6th, so it'll be cool meeting all you Sydney folk (including tgun, who is my favourite player and huge inspiration) and my clanmate ChowMuddha. I'm not expecting to do very well, winning one Bo3 would make me pround.

After school starts again, I'll be forced down to 2 hours a day max, maybe less if I'm bogged down with assignments, but I'm gonna stay strong and work through it. My studies are so important, and more important than any video game could ever be, unfortunately. They come first (I tell myself that now but I'm gonna be procrastinating when it comes time to do assignments -_-)

But, despite that, I'm going to make an effort to attend an ACL or two this year. Not just for the experience of chilling with my fellow Aussie SC2 players, but as a competitor who genuinely wants to achieve.

Hopefully 2013 is the year where I become a pretty big name, make the jump from SEA joke GM to legitimate GM, and get pretty high in NA Masters at least. Watch out world, because Soundwave is on the rise.

Before I take the time to wrap this up, I'd like to apologize to anyone I've BMed on ladder, whether it's balance whine or personal attacks ("Die in a fire", etc). I feel really bad about it after I do it, and I've said some pretty awful things in the past (such outbursts are very rare these days, so I'm getting a lot better.) and I'm trying to hold my tongue even if you beat me with a 10 pool or whatever.

And now I'd like to take the opportunity to thank some of the people who have this year great for me, I'd like to thank everyone in Eternal eSports (especially Luke for truly believing in me and my ability to achieve great things in SC2. Great motivational speaker, haha) first and foremost for being an amazing group of friends, and like to thank tgun for being a constant awesome stream (he streamed with my playlist for like a month at the start of the year :O) to watch and a big inspiration for me. I want to thank PiG for his coaching, Fenner for his recent videos which have helped me out. And I would like to thank YOU (that's right, you!) for taking the time to read this.

I love all of you.