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Hello again everybody!
If you haven't been living under one of Dustin Browders destructible rocks since sc2 was released you might have realised ACL Melbourne happened last weekend, and it was a huge success!
If you have never been to an ACL you seriously have to get your pennies together and get your but to one of them. They are amazing. Period.
Every time I get nervous butterfly's on my way to the event, to have my breath taken away when I walk through the doors and see the cavernous halls with everything a nerd could want. The first time I saw it was at Gold Coast and after all 3 ACLs it still hasn't lost its effect on me. After walking in and gathering my bearings and senses again I proceed to look for my team mates and other various friends. After speaking to Dox initially to make sure I'm not to late to enter the open bracket I spot a gorgeous rugged Englishman by the name of Dan Fenner and Hut, we start talking about what to expect in the open bracket. You could cut the excitement in the air with a blunt psi-blade.

After waiting an hour or two the bracket commences and my first opponent is TaXant, which was unfortunate since playing a fellow clan member (or gang member if you've ever seen how many fkin people are in TA) in the first round is never cool. Xant played well but he still has a lot to learn about the game but was a really cool guy!
So next up was Pezzaperry, a Melbourne protoss player who has atteneded a few lans and done pretty well but is still below the radar as he's not very active from what I've seen on sc2sea. Non the less I was sort of worried as he is good and also happens to be protoss, which only further exacerbates his potential. Not knowing how he played I assumed we would go into 3 base macro-oriented games which is where I'm strongest. Apparently I was wrong. His 'n' key must have broken after he forge-fast-expanded because a very strong 2 base timing ensued which I dun goofed and over-roached/under-prepared for and lost after having a pretty good lead. How very maddening. Shaking it off knowing I had at least put myself in a good position to take the first game, I would do better in the second. I was to be wrong yet again. Similar 'n' key breaking ensued as he went for a 7 gate +2 blink stalker build which was executed nicely with good blink micro and myself forgetting speed which is rather unfortunate, and I was quickly shunned to the lower bracket after having felt extremely confident to place well in the open bracket after a few games. I didn't just count my chickens before they hatched, I counted my chickens great-great-great-great-great grand chickens too. Oh btw my rendition of how the games went isn't to insult pezzaperry, the all-ins he executed were very well done and are made to take advantage of people playing to greedy which is how I lost. At this level we are of course playing to win.
So, storming of stage after my defeat I went outside to cool my bald head as I was quite mad (LoLuMad bro indeed), I thought long and hard for a good 5 minutes about wtf had just happened. Mentality is something I need to work on. In many various games throughout my sc2 I have dropped games, particularly to protoss, after gaining an advantage or recognizing what strategy is coming my way, and over or under-preparing for it, leading to my ultimate demise. It's a weird ******* mental thing I have, but once I scout something I feel like its no longer a threat. Anyway this blog is taking way to long and if you have as short of an attention span as I do you've probably stopped reading by now.

The next game of note was to be against Richard. Fellow gang member and gang leader no less of TA. At this stage my mentality was kinda shot, but still thought I had the advantage. Wrong for the third time that day. After going for gasless 5-6 queen on Daybreak, he managed to run some hellions by and they did what they do best, roast drones. Being extremely behind he managed to take game 1. I was fucked. Mentally thrashing myself, I created game 2 which was to be on Antiga. Not falling for hellion run-by shenanigans I opened gas to go for early speedling agression which did ok damage, but isn't the crux of the build. I managed to take map control, a 3rd base, and lair, getting exactly to where I wanted to be against him: The mid game. Realising he was going bio I did what I do in practice and go for 1-1 muta timing which did a massive amount of damage and with my advantage was able to take a retardedly long extremely close late game. Hands shaking the countdown begun on Shakuras, a map I despise late-game vs. Terran. I forget how I opened and what else happened other than I went for 1-1 muta timing again after taking fairly heavy econ damage, it failed, he counter-attacked and won. I was out.
Words cannot describe what was going through my head at this stage. No literally, I can't describe it, I don't remember what happened for about 1 minute. The only thing I felt was someones hands on my shoulders soothing me. After some period of time I realised someones hands were on me and that it was still my clan mate Richard who had bested me. Snapping back to reality (oops there goes gravity) I got up and shook his hand, and said well played. I turned around and realised it was Champi who had been consoling me, and here is a testament to how much of an amazing dude Champi is. After getting knocked out of the open bracket himself and being crushed himself, he put it all aside so he could comfort me after my loss. Serious, Serious props to him, I know I could never do that. Now came the time when I realised everything I had practiced, trained for, hoped for, wished for, was gone. I walked around aimlessly and talked to a few people about the loss but my concentration was shot. So I packed up my gear and walked out, crushed.

Driving home that night was certainly interesting. After nearly crashing once or twice because I simply couldn't focus on the road I started to think about what I was going to do with sc2. Going over about how I could quit and what else I would do with my life. But you know what the first thing I wanted to do when I got home was? It was ******* watch Starcraft. This game is probably one of if not the biggest part of my life, followed closely by the people I play with and talk to about it, which just so happens to be just about everyone, from girl friends to friends to my parents. However starcraft had also recently broken my heard so I didn't watch it at that point in time so decided to get fucked up with mates. A grand idea indeed.

Sunday I went back to ACL feeling much better about myself after a good nights sleep. Time does indeed heal all wounds. The day was great, watching Techtron vs Iaguz was probably the most nervous I've ever been watching a starcraft match. The grand finals with Pig vs Mafia was epicly close. But the real fun began when the IRL TA train left the station to go trolling the streets of Melbourne looking for a bar to engorge ourselves upon. It is a tail of freezing temperatures, drunken leaders, and dox leading us astray down several alleys and we thought he was going to kidnap us. After eventually finding an open bar we got drunk. Extremely drunk, and real bonding began. This is what these weekends are all about. After all the competition, finally relaxing with mates and talking about the game we love, but also just shit talking in general. It's nights like those that will keep me coming back for more.

So, Throughout this stupidly long winded sob story blog I have mentioned mentality a LOT. In my experience, Mentality is half the battle at high levels. Most people are pretty closely matched in skill, and if there's one thing I've learned starcraft2 is not a linear line of skill = winning. How you play, what your mentality and confidence does to your play, and adjusting plays such a huge role in achieving victory, or succumbing to defeat. Learn what triggers you have that enable you to play your best. Get your routine down, and then get it down some more. The 2 previous times I qualified for ACL group stages was not because I was more skilled than the people I beat. Far from it. If you've ever watched my play you'd probably agree with me that my actual game-skills aren't all that great, which does impact me. But I qualified because I was able to 100% use the skills I had, when perhaps my opponents didn't.
This weekend for whatever reason, I wasn't up to it mentally. Practice leading up to it was making builds where I would win straight away, not just improving my over-all play. I was no longer the underdog with no pressure on me to do well, after having decent results leading up to this nationals, and being picked up by a team, I was more in the spotlight. All these factors contributed to me not being able to play my best, and it showed. So do whatever you need to, to understand what works for you, and what doesn't.

Finally coming to a close, this ended up being much longer than anticipated. I'm not going to proof-read this either as who can be fucked doing that lol, so please forgive obvious full-retard grammar problems or goofed up sentences. Chances are I'm going to WCS in Sydney as Dox told me not to miss it which is good enough reason for me. So cannot wait to see everyone and do it all again!

Thanks for reading this blog! (novel)
Until next time,
Kez!