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I finally got around to writing a blog about my experiences up in Brisbane. I'm not just going to talk StarCraft, but also about my life a little bit. So, at the start of the year, ETL was looking like it was doing pretty well. Our manager had said something to the effect of that he would use money from his own pocket to send members of our planned LAN team to ACL events and such until we can pick up sponsors. As of right now we are still sponsorless, but certainly not from lack of effort. He also put in an order for some jerseys, so I was highly pumped for ACL, because not only is it a great experience as a player, but it's also great for the opportunity to meet your fellow StarCraft 2 players/teammates. As it turned out, our manager kinda disappeared, I guess he's busy with his own stuff, and our plans for a big ETL LAN invasion got pushed back to ACL Melbourne. But I had already told a bunch of people including my family that I would be going to ACL Brisbane, so I swallowed the bitter pill and just paid my way over here. Flights cost $400, which is a lot for a 17 year old, but thankfully I had been saving for some time and still am.

I was panicking quite a bit trying to find a place to stay. My clan/teammates who lived in Brisbane were a no go for various reasons after discussing it with them, and hotel are of course obscenely expensive. I thought I may just have to stay with backpackers, much to my discomfort, but I'd like to give a shout-out to my bro Dale (also known as abbadonz) who was able to bail me out by letting me stay with him. Notably he was also helping out with the setup/pack-down of the event so he was going to be there anyway.

But when school resumed at the start of February I faced a lot of StarCraft related difficulties because with school came assignments and with assignments comes doing them (or procrastinating, which for me is just browsing random web pages and not actually doing anything productive at ALL) so combine that with some other priorities and my SC2 time went down to maybe a couple 1v1s a week. I was massively behind on HotS when it came out. I didn't play the beta and after completing the campaign I was a good 2 weeks or so behind in the metagame, which left me feeling quite hopeless against the new shenaniganry such as widow mines. But with a little help from PiG and just solid grinding and determination I was able to pull back in and get to a decent Masterish level.

Unfortunately it was around this time that our manager disappeared and it seemed like he was outright ignoring me on the rare occasion he was on. When I was finally able to contact him it turned out that there was a payment issue with the jerseys and thus we wouldn't have them. That's kinda disappointing. As of right now he's been inactive for a couple of weeks, but that's not really an issue anymore because I've taken matters (jerseys, sponsors and the like) into my own hands.

Anyway, my flight to Brisbane was my first time travelling on my own, which is a big deal I guess. When I landed there was a bit of a mishap where they lost my bag (had my gear + clothes + food in it) but luckily they found it just as I was leaving and chased after me. So, I went back to the home of my lovely host Dale, who kindly had a table and chair set up for me already. I plugged my gear into his laptop and we were ready to go. That night I played something like 30 games, and this ended up being massively good practice for me and significantly improved my skill and mindset. Unfortunately I ended the night on a 6 or 7 game losing streak where I just got angrier and angrier with each loss. I went to bed quite unhappy.

I woke up and Dale showed me the bus route to ACL, since he had been up and about lately and wanted to sleep in, he wasn't going to drive me like I thought. I caught the bus he said to catch, and it took me to a completely different area of the city. That was somewhat of an issue, and I ended up walking through the rain for half an hour. I ended up trying to get directions unsuccessfully, so I walked to the police station that was nearby and asked them where exactly this place was. They pointed it out on a map and told me that there was an area I could catch a cab from just near the station. I told the cab where I wanted to go, and problem solved. I had made it, not without incident, but I had made it. I talked to Linc and was locked into the tournament. When choosing my groups I chose Group D as my first preference, on the freak chance I make groups, I figured that although I may be able to beat Nomad, Alpha, Jambi, etc, it would look bad if I lost to them, and if I wanted to make a name for myself, Group D would be best. If I went 0-10 in that group no one would care, but if I beat even one of the players in that group, I would be talked about a bit if I beat Fenner or a lot if I beat iaguz, MaFia or god forbid, KingKong.

I thought that if I played my absolute best and had a really lucky bracket, I could potentially sneak into groups as 7th/8th. I met and talked with a few people, like NXZ, Alpha, my teammates Daedalus and Azz (Azz was kinda different to what I was expecting), Namakaye, BlueS (who I played Micro Challenge with. Lost T_T, micro was never my strong point), reunited with my Canberran buddy Djvillian and also talked to the other 'wave, ShOckWavE. I just want to divert for a second to talk about the FvR shirts. I like the colour (purple is awesome). I like the name on the back, the logo, etc. But FOR FUCKS SAKE those half popped collars are HORRIBLE. WHAT THE **** WERE THEY THINKING?!

Because Linc told us not to do anything else on the computers, I respected his wishes and didn't go on Twitter or anything, didn't check brackets. I saw that Namakaye was my first round opponent. Darn, I thought. I was hoping for someone easy. Oh well. Vetoes and go. Game 1 was Daybreak, basically Namakaye sat back and let me macro up comfortably. I went ling/muta (with corruptors to deal with phoenix) and CRUSHED HIM in that game. I was honestly shocked at how easily I won, it was a real confidence booster. Minor lag issues but nothing serious, just the game would occasionally freeze to do the "CONNECTING TO SERVER" thing. Game 2 was Akilon, but in my head I was freaking out a bit. I crushed him last game, surely I can win just as easily with ling/muta again? NO! Game 2 when you're up 1-0 is a great time to all-in. All-ins ZvP aren't as good with Mothership Core around, but I know some still do work. I decided to do mass slowling after I scouted Namakaye wall a little bit funkily, though in hindsight I don't think anything was really wrong with it. Unfortunately he got the CLUTCHEST of clutch scouts and saw 4 or so lings in my main (the rest were hiding at the back of my main). I wasn't even sure if he would realize it was an all-in. Only 4 lings, right? But unfortunately he got an extra 2 cannons, and combined with a zealot in his wall-in, the all-in failed hard. I tried to transition but obviously it was impossible. Damn it. 1-1. Game 3 was Whirlwind, a perfect map to just sit back and macro. Went for ling/muta again. This was my biggest mistake of the tournament. Namakaye had obviously had enough of dealing with ******* mutalisks and did this weird ass mass zealot mass phoenix all-in that I have never ever seen before in my life. It was the hardest of hard counters to ling/muta I have ever seen. So, that was that, a perfect yet unfamiliar response to mutas from Namakaye meant I was out of winner's bracket. I wasn't too upset, surprisingly, because I played my best, and if you play your best and still lose, you really have nothing to be ashamed of, it just means your opponent was the better man. Shook his hand and moved on.

It actually sucks, because if I had done roach/hydra or something vs Namakaye in Game 3, I'm pretty damn sure I would have won. Then I would have played Djvillian, who, no offence buddy, I love ya, but you're not on my level, though props man, you've been getting really good recently! After that it would have been vs ShOckWavE for groups. I am confident vs ShOckWavE, think I have about a 55-60% chance to beat him at least. It is only now I realize that I HAD that easy bracket I had been dying for. No pro players, no hidden gosus, all people who I am fully capable of beating and I ******* didn't get through. Pretty disapponting when I realized it.

In loser's bracket (I also saw that Rossi was in Loser's Round 1. What the FUUUUUCK! I saw Pezz take him out and do the mother of all fist pumps but jesus that just isn't the place for the Ross dawg) I played against some guy I had never heard of called Otter. Djvillian was able to take him out 2-1, so seeing as how I am better than Djvillian, I predicted a win for myself. Game 1 was on Akilon Wastes, he did a scary roach bane all-in which I only barely held with some gosu micro. He went straight for spire behind it but I killed him with a big speedling attack before I let his flappy plans come to fruition. Game 2 I decided to return the favor and all-inned myself. JERRY TIIIIIIIIIIIIME. It worked PERFECTLY. He didn't even have queens ready to wall his ramp. He GG'ed out and I saw him "pull a tgun" where he puts his head down the desk, hands on back of head. I felt bad for him, even though I had to beat him to keep my tournament chances alive, it must suck so, so badly to go out in loser's round 1, not having won a single Bo3. He was clearly pretty upset, but still shook my hand like a true gentleman. Props to you, dude.

Linc said I had about 2 hours before my next match, so I waited around, talked, and watched games. I got to meet tgun and mOOnGLaDe, my SC2 heroes, which was amazing. I saw Azz play an INCREDIBLY close and intense Game 3 vs ToRfur, where fur had him contained on 1 base for AGES while transitioning to mech. Azz had double forge on 1 base like a crazy mofo (I believe this was a big factor in winning him the game) and did some nice warp prism harass that killed quite a few workers while he slowly got his natural up. He got contained by a massive mech army from fur, but Azz was able to scoot his units around and hit a GORGEOUS flank that cleaned up fur's army, and I couldn't help but clap. I'm serious, I actually started clapping, I thought Azz was dead the moment he lost his natural at the start of the game. Azz ended up winning shortly after.

I saw some nice games on stage, and then I saw brackets, expecting to play TCPEros next, who I knew nothing about, then probably Eddie (xGKingDevianT). As it turned out, SC2 is funny sometimes because Eddie ended up losing in loser's round 1 and somehow, Eros ******* beat Pezz. Here is how my conversation with Alpha (and Aiya, who was there too) went.

Me: Hey, do you know anything about Eros?

Alpha: Eros? Oh, yeah. Very cheesy Zerg player. He's okay, I guess.

Me: Yeah, well...He just 2-0ed Pezz.

Alpha and Aiya: WHAT THE **** AWSRAWRTWTRFAWTATFaaJKMNLM<L<MDKJSFHA%*%#()

Alpha: Are you serious?

Aiya: Nah, he's not. This guy is trolling. He's actually trolling.

Me: I'm serious!

Aiya: *Goes over to check brackets*

and now I had to play Pezz. Ugggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh. If there was a list of all the people in the entire open bracket I didn't want to play, Pezz would be Top 3. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Pezz. He 2-0ed me in some IEM qualifiers a few months prior and I remember being super impressed by his play, which doesn't happen often when facing Protoss players. Eros had apparently cheesed him out, and I figured no all-ins would work on a man who had just lost to them (although I heard from people that Pezz one time lost to 8 baneling busts in a row, so maybe I should have cheesed him) so I decided to give it my best and play macro.

Game 1 I was going mutas. My macro was a little off that game, not hugely, but it was off. Pezz opened stargate, so yeah, typical ling/muta ZvP I figured. Then he hits me with immortal/sentry and I die. What. How can a Protoss make like 4 phoenix and then hit immortal/sentry only a minute or two late? Mutas are good vs immortal/sentry but the phoenix REALLY helped out in the engagement. Game 2 my macro was a little off that game, not hugely, but it was off, which I think is why I lost. I went swarm hosts, and he went immortal sentry, so in theory I get an easy win, but Pezz macroed well and I didn't, so I got crushed. Out of the tournament now, and much sooner than I wanted to be. **** my life. Oh well, bad bracket luck, I figured. I stuck around for a while, watching my teammates play, watching Azz make groups. Good day.

I stayed up until like 6am practicing, so I woke up at like 3pm the next day which is why I didn't turn up on Day 2 (a couple people asked me about that). I checked the results from yesterday and saw Azz's results. I was very proud of the run Azz made this tournament. Beating everyone in open bracket (including so called PvP God Xormentor) until he played a REALLY close series with Teddy, which he lost 0-2. Azz made a few tiny macro errors in Game 1, and as he realized after GGing out, should have won. Then he lost 1-2 to NXZ, unsure of how those games went, but taking a game off one of the Top 4 is good. NXZ wouldn't be the only one though because Azz 2-1 Light holy shit this actually blew my mind. Sick run by Azz. He beat Jambi 2-0 but unfortunately lost to ShOckWavE 1-2.

Azz didn't show up on Day 2, and if people are wondering about that it is because he fell down the stairs on Day 1 and hurt his foot. He didn't want to walk on it which is why he didn't show up to Day 2. Shame, because although I saw the 0-2 0-2 against mOOnGLaDe and Ninja before I knew it was a walkover and thought it was legit, I do think he could have taken out Ninja, who was having kind of an off tournament. Azz these days is a far cry from Mr. Confident of 2011, although I think everyone underrates him, including himself.

So, my flight back was completely without incident, and being back in Canberra and thinking about the tournament just makes me want to practice and do better at ACL Melbourne. Like, I want to make groups there and achieve a result which is objectively good. That's gonna be nearly impossible though, because I think the open bracket will be much harder at ACL Melbourne. I am improving right now though, and I can feel that I am improving in every sense of the word, which is a fantastic feeling. I'm only on a short 2 week break from Year 12 right now but I hope I can continue to improve throughout the year and get to a decent level, because in 2014 I want to get to a high level within Australia. That means capable of going 50-50 with the best this country has to offer, capable of winning these kinds of tournaments. I don't want to look up to tgun and mOOnGLaDe and have them see me as just another fan, I want to stand next to them as an equal. I realize that is going to be kind of hard, particularly since I'm not 100% commited to StarCraft 2, but I figure I may as well give it a shot. I love eSports!!

Thank you for reading my blog, I love this community ^^