SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

Hey all! Swarmstika here.

I got a bit bored tonight so I thought I would give all those interested a bit of a read into my history and how I became the person you know today.


The Interest Begins

It all started one night when I was playing Diablo 3 with a bunch of guys I had met on a stream (And gotten to know really, really well over the course of the year) and someone had brought up RTS' in general, so began a discussion about their history playing many RTS games such as Command and Conquer, Supreme Commander etc etc. This conversation sparked all our interest in RTS games and Starcraft 2 was brought up. We decided that we would try and get into Starcraft 2 and begin a sort of in-group competition, to see who can do the best.

Unfortunately I was the only one who ended up buying the game so this never happened, but that conversation was the start of my Starcraft 2 experience.


Lowly Beginnings

My love for Starcraft 2 began during the WCS EU Season 1 2013 finals between Stephano vs Mvp. Watching that Bo7 unfold, and listening to Apollo and Kaelaris describe the events that were happening in each game, in such a newbie-friendly way really hooked me into the game, and after the series ended with Mvp taking a 4-1 victory over the frenchman, I immediately jumped on battle.net, bought Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm and began that climb up the ranked ladder, beginning with Terran.

My ladder experience started out with me, inspired by Mvp's recent tournament win, playing Terran. A friend of mine referred me to a Gillyweed audio build order clip of a 1 base 5 rax rush, which I did countless times. Not learning anything whatsoever whilst playing but overall just having a blast stomping those bronzies with my 'new and awesome build'.

However my Terran career didn't last very long.. approximately 3 weeks after picking up the race I was informed that if you were to begin playing the game as a Zerg player then your mechanics would develop at a faster rate than that of new Protoss or Terran players... which leads me to:

The Switch

The Switch! Changing from my 1 base 5 rax all inning every game to attempting to learn the game properly.

The switch was the catalyst to my progression I feel as a Starcraft player. Switching from Terran to Zerg increased my passion and determination to strive with Starcraft 2 by tenfold. I began spending most of my days playing Starcraft 2 or watching streams of the various tournaments taking place (IEM's, DH's, WCS etc), and spending my nights in bed on my phone watching various different Day[9] Dailies. One daily that particularly stuck out to me was what I feel is his most popular one regarding Newbie Tuesdays: Day[9] Daily #252 - Secrets of Hotkeys, APM and Mouse Movement.

This Day[9] Daily sticks in my head the most because it addressed something I had not even considered when I played Starcraft 2.. regular use of hotkeys, appropriate mouse movement and APM overall. I ended up watching this particular daily multiple times at night, along with lots of other videos from random players posting their games and giving commentary. Seeing some of the games that the pro players were playing, the amount of different things they were doing at once just dumbfounded me and made me love the game even more.


Progressing up the leagues and finding a (temporary) home


Spending my days playing Starcraft 2 and nights watching it's videos all points towards one goal for me: Reaching that next league.

I feel that I was fairly lucky when I began playing, I had a friend (Steve) who would often watch my stream and backseat game for me, but not in a way that prevented me learning how to play the game, but in a way where he would simply remind me of things i'm forgetting to do such as injecting, spreading creep, taking bases etc. His help provided helped me race through the leagues, going from complete nooblet to Rank 1 silver within my first season of playing, and within my second season I instantly got that gold promotion and moved onto finishing the season rank 16 in platinum league.

During my time playing Starcraft, a lot of major changes took place with those that were regularly around me. Steve had a baby and was unable to be around nearly as long as he and I would like him to be. The Diablo crew that i hung around with split up due to complications within the group, and I found myself playing Starcraft alone for a large majority of the time. This is when I went on the hunt for a clan to not only hone my skills in but to also socialize with whilst i played the game.

That's when I found my first clan: Fusi0n Gaming. This EU based clan was what I considered a second home to me for around 3 months. With a TS Server to use, we would regularly jump on and have chats whilst playing our favourite game, with weekly practice sessions every Wednesday I saw myself improving at a slower rate, but learning so much more about the game, the smaller details that would normally be overlooked by gold/platinum players.

During my time in Fusi0n I learnt a fair few things, met some great dudes and overall had a blast being a part of a clan such as Fusi0n, but alas.. it began to die off.

Fusi0n Gaming was no longer and thus ended up merging with another clan known as HoA ((Heralds of Apocalypse) GamerRichy's old clan if any of you know him). I didn't follow suit, mainly due to a large change about to occur in my life..


A U S T R A L I A

August 24th 2013, I arrived in Australia after a 21 hour flight from London, England. Thus begins my new life in such a strange and unique place.

Upon my arrival in Australia, I took a 3 month break from Starcraft 2, primarily to settle in and get to know my new home. One week after arriving here I was thrown into a completely new school and a half-cohort year group. One of the main benefits of being the new guy in a half cohort is the welcoming presence that everyone gives you. With the group being at that perfect amount with not enough for everyone to split off into groups, but still small enough for everyone to get to know everyone else very well, I settled in really easily and begun to make a numerous amount of friends, whilst also getting to grips with the new schooling system and having to deal with being behind education-wise (Being a year behind everyone else and all).

During my Starcraft break I still prepared for the future, and begun my hunt for a new clan to call home.
My search came to a rather abrupt end after only spanning for a mere week, where I came across a certain persons stream named Doombie, I hung about Doombies stream mainly as a lurker and noticed one particular person who was often promoted by Doombie after his stream ended: Shaynerarma.

I watched Shayne's stream one night when he was still a part of Eternal eSports and he instantly directed me to the website to apply, within a week I was officially an ETL Member and have been ever since. Being a part of ETL has given me some great opportunities as a Starcraft player, not only have I met and gotten to know an awesome bunch of people over the past year, but they helped me progress and develop into an aspiring player that is looking to one day hit that ever so glorious league.
They also were the ones who introduced SC2SEA.com to me (I'm sure you guys have heard of that, right?) which opened even more doors to me, such as Clan Wars, Tournaments etc etc.



Hopefully after coming off such a promising 2014, I am able to carry on the momentum all the way through 2015, achieve that goal of hitting Master league and develop as not only a player, but a person.




Thanks for reading,
Shane / Swarmstika