SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

TL;DR So, a lot of people have been questioning if I'm leaving SC2 or not lately. The answer is mostly yes. End TL;DR

This is written messily. The pacing isn't what I'd like, and I'm sure I forgot a lot. But this should sum up most things.

When I first started playing SC2, I didn't exactly have a lot of friends in it. I didn't belong to a clan, didn't join a clan, hell I had one friend who played constantly who quit shortly after beta. Once he quit, I was alone. It was tough not having anyone to sort of cheer me on -- you know? Having anyone there to say "unlucky man, you'll do better next week" and whatnot. So I filled that void. Most of you will remember how I came into the scene -- cocky as hell, telling everyone I was the best. That was me compensating for the void of not having a team, or a clan, to back me up. Not a good thing, probably not healthy, but that's one thing I never really cleared up.

Over time, I got better. When I started, hell, I sucked. My ZvZ sucked the most, and that never changed. Eventually, I sucked a little less to the point I got a spot on FXO. I can't really explain just how happy I was at that stage -- mOOnGLaDe was on the team, and he was the one person in the Australian scene that I looked up to. He was my measuring stick. If I could just get better than mOOnGLaDe, then hell, who knows what I could do? So I kept practicing. It was at this time that mOOnGLaDe was taking a bit of time off (he deserved it -- his schedule had been insane up until this stage and he had been very isolated, especially in Korea. He didn't have any teammates there with him), so when I went to Korea, I wasn't able to meet him. That sucked, but I spent some amazing time there with some of the best people in the world who I was proud to call my teammates - QXC, Sheth, Oz, OptikZero, Moonan, SLoG.

It was the chance of a lifetime, and I feel like I got to be the best I could be at that stage. I was beating everyone that I had looked up to (in the Australian scene) when I played on ladder (which, looking back, meant nothing but an ego boost. Anything but tournament wins are pointless.) and was doing well enough on the Korean ladder to constantly hit big names. It wasn't enough though -- I got knocked out in the GSL qualifiers twice (both to the eventual winners, but both games I still regret the way I played to this day) and performed poorly in the GSTL. Meta game issues and strategy issues lead to a huge variance, and it showed. I knew I wasn't better than my opponents going into the match so I tried things that needed to catch them off guard -- it didn't, and we all know what happened.

Oh well.

I also attended a few MLGs. Another amazing experience. Putting faces to names, meeting and relaxing with a lot of the people you simply knew online and the energy at a LAN is nothing that can be compared. Anyone who has attended a local LAN in Australia will know what I mean, but an MLG is on another level. It was amazing, and an experience I will never forget. Eventually I came back to Australia after my time overseas. I was extremely angry at this time due to missing the WCG Sydney qualifiers (which I learned pretty much lied about half of their prizes) and a fiasco with the Blizzard tournament of that year that I don't really want to get into. Oh well. I flew down to WCG Melbourne qualifiers with PiG and ended up qualifying.

Another tournament that I was super excited about. For a lot of people in SC2 WCG is just a joke because of how it was run. Not for me. I had grown up seeing some of the teams I looked up to in CS1.6 -- notably Team 3D, play phenomenally at WCG. It was amazing.

Alas, it was not to be. At the WCG finals in Queensland I lost to mOOnGLaDe -- unsurprisingly to many. That sucked. First got a trip to WCG, second got.. well I think I got a headset? Who knows. I do know that r0cky fought to get me a spot at WCG, and for that I am grateful, but it never came to fruition. A month later I was down in Adelaide for the first time to meet edge, frequency, maynarde and some other Adelaide residents (as well as the infamous tgun fan club consisting of only three people -- three too many, most would say ). I've always wanted to go back to Adelaide, the community there is awesome.

It was my first tournament under the itsGoSu name (with my itsGoSu shirt!) and I had a lot of support. The manager, Scott Ball, stayed up and talked to me over Skype the whole time. He was extremely supportive and it was amazing. The first time a manager had actually sat there for me during a tournament and talked about the games directly after them. Keeping me calm and generally giving me good advice. Hell, when I told him that I wanted to 6pool in game 5 because I expected Iaguz to go CC first on Tal'Darim, he told me to do it. Follow my instincts.

I didn't 6pool. He did 15cc. Needless to say, I lost that game.

Oh well.

Game 6 was an incredible game (he came back from the lower brackets and lost in the finals, 2-1, 1-2) and I ended up the victor, with us splitting it $700/$300, because having $1k/$0 is a very silly prize structure. I was extremely happy, my fanclub was happy and I instantly called my girlfriend who supported me through all the travel and time away from home. I was away for our anniversary at one stage. How I got away with all that, your guess is as good as mine.After Arena, there was a lull when we all practiced for a bit.

The next tournament was SGL #6 -- a recurring lan tournament in Sydney that I had never been to. My brother, however, was going with me and his team were participating in a few tournaments. I've always looked up to my brother. After getting set up at SGL (with a pretty funny experience trying to register at the front desk as team TGUN) the tournament went underway.SGL was weird. The games were laggy due to people being jerks and torrenting at a lan. Seriously, who does that? mOOnGLaDe was knocked out because of Swiss brackets. I think I beat him at this by cheesing him or something.. I don't really remember.

All I remember was it was one of the first tournaments in a long time where he wouldn't win. After some interesting sleeping arrangements -- interesting being the floor was a good choice, even though I lived ~15 minutes away -- I cheesed out MaFia in the first round and went on to win on my ZvT. Notoriously my strongest matchup since forever. My second tournament win in Australia, and I was pumped. Moreso because my Brother was there.

After SGL, I played a lot of online tournaments. I beat KawaiiRice in a show match, won a Masters Cup over Enderr, another small tournaments and then came the ASUS Pro-Am. This was a big tournament for me. Not only was this tournament one of the biggest prize pools in Australia from an independent (read: not blizzard) tournament. The first prize was a bunch of money and a laptop. My brother was going overseas to Japan in a few months and needed a laptop to take with him, so what better present to get him than winning this tournament? I still remember the day when he walked in and asked me about this tournament. "Hey Brad, you know how the first prize is a laptop? Can you win it for me? I need a laptop.". "Well, sure. Easy."

Not easy.

I got knocked into the losers bracket early on by Targa (I believe it was Targa.. my memory is a little fuzzy) and fought my way back through extremely tough competition to play him again in the grand finals. For anyone who thinks double elimination is boring because the person who goes through the winners bracket always wins, you're wrong and I hate you. I played my ass off against Targas emerging strong style of "Targa Banes" and struggled to a 2-1, 2-1 victory. To say I was ecstatic was an understatement. I sat there in shock for a solid 45 seconds before moving when my youngest sister, who heard me win, shouted out "Does this mean you can buy me a present?".

Sure.

I feel like this was the top end of my "career" in SC2. After this, things fell off. My practice was getting worse, my ZvZ never got back to this level and I struggled with motivation until WCS Oceania was announced. That tournament was a rollercoaster. I qualified through ACL Melbourne (I believe) and then qualified on the first day after beating Light in the second round. No-one picked me to beat Light during that tournament -- rightfully so. Light is an absolute beast to go up against. Way too smart to be playing Starcraft, that's for sure.

The next day was an interesting one. I went home to sleep on my bed because I wasn't able to sleep the previous night in the hotel in the city and got a decent nights sleep. I'll never forget the next day. My brother was there to watch, as was my girlfriend and man.. the crowd was insane. This tournament felt like MLG in Australia to me. I fought my way to the winners semi-finals where I fell to MaFia after beating Light. Oh well, losers brackets weren't a new thing to me. I ended up playing Light again in the losers bracket -- the 3rd series between us that weekend, and eeked out another 2-1 victory by exploiting his weakness of jerks who go mutalisks every game.

The games vs. MaFia will stay with me until I die. I won the first game in a fairly standard macro game and was shaking. One more game and I was going to China with mOOnGLaDe. I didn't even care about the finals of this tournament. To me, this was the finals. The second game, I got hit by an extremely strong -- and smart, timing attack and fell. Damnit. 1-1. One game to go to china.

Most people will remember this game as a close game which could've went either way. Most people will remember the burrowed roaches. I remember it due to all the mistakes I made throughout the game. I could've won it super early if I had poked out a changeling. I could've won it super early if I hadn't been worried about losing the game on a timing attack and backing away. I could go on and on about it. Needless to say, MaFia won the series. I stood up, shook his hand (thanks to Riichard for parting the TA Sea -- I wonder if I would've had friends like that cheer for me if I won?) and walked away to a corner. Or tried to. I collapsed not far from my booth, and that was that.

To come so close -- much like WCG, like GSL qualifiers, like countless other tournaments and fall at the last hurdle was the most devastating thing to me.

After this, I joined Immunity. This had been a childhood dream of me, as they had been the best Australian team in CS1.6 -- which was the game I grew up playing. Sadly, I hadn't had much success since joining them. I continually struggled with ZvZ and wasn't' able to perform to a standard I deemed myself worthy of. It sucked. Immunity had been nothing but amazing to me, and I wanted to prove myself to them. I sadly didn't ever do that.

That brings us to right about now. I have skipped over a few things. ACL, my time in itsGoSu with some amazing teammates there (ViBE, Ostojiy, WBC, among the few). I feel that I'm done with SC2. My passion is no longer there. I'm not as good as I once was, and I really wish I had a high note to go out on. I'll still attend any Sydney SC2 events that I can get myself to, but from here, I won't be playing SC2 much, if at all, anymore.

I want to thank everyone for their support over the years. It means more than anyone could believe. I'll still try to keep myself involved with the SC2SEA community and the greater SC2AUS community in general, but now I'll simply be a spectator.

Thanks to Team Immunity for their support over the past few months. It's a team that I'm happy to call family. Thanks to everyone that I've missed. I'm sure I missed a lot of people over this blog and definitely under-credited a bunch. Don't take it personally. Or do, whatever.

For the first time in my career, that's it. I'm out of words. Bye.