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Exile 5, AVCon and ACL!


This is the first blog and post of any substance I've made on any kind of forum. I've been meaning to do this for quite some time and have finally got around to it! With AvCon concluding just a couple of weeks ago and ACL Melbourne around the corner I thought this would be a great time to give you some insight into me as a player, a recap of AvCon and my goals for this upcoming ACL.


For anyone who doesn't know who I am, my ID is MegaFonzie, I am a protoss player and last month I joined Exile5. I think I'm probably considered a relative newcomer to the scene, I first started participating in online cups in the second half of last year and since then have grown into a more competitive player. I live in the unofficial eSports capital of Australia, Hobart, so attending live events was a bit difficult in the past, but now with the support of x5 I am able to do a bit more travelling around, starting with getting the chance to compete at AvCon in Adelaide two weeks ago.


I had a blast at AvCon. The convention itself was really impressive, I'm not really an anime fan but just to see that amount of people gathered to share their passion was awesome to see. Some of the costumes were pretty awesome too! Except for the blokes dressed as Sailor Moon. Despite the fact that lingering in the back of my mind was the knowledge that somewhere in the anime part of the building Jessica Nigri was wearing skimpy clothing, most of my time was of course spent over at the Starcraft area. While it was disappointing that the stage didn't really work out for Starcraft, it was still cool to see a really large and vocal crowd gathered to watch some eSports. You won't find someone who is more clueless about League of Legends than me but with the help of Satu I was able to follow with some semblance of what the hell was going on when the Exile5 boys were up on the main stage, and it was hard not to get caught up with the rest of the crowd yelling when something flashy happened.


I wasn't there to revel in cosplay or League of Legends though, I was there to play some Starcraft. I practiced hard in the weeks leading up to AvCon as it would be my first event in an Exile5 shirt and I wanted to have a good showing. Sadly, things didn't go 100% as planned there. LANs are still a bit of a foreign environment for me and my lack of experience was definitely a hindrance at both ACL Brisbane and AvCon, which were the first two live events that I've attended. I didn't realise how difficult it would be to replicate my own setup, and found myself feeling uncomfortable and jittery while playing my games. Thankfully this feeling gradually wavered with each game I played, and I'm confident with more experience I will only grow more accustomed to playing at events.


From the surface, my results at AvCon weren't that great. Going 0-4 in maps obviously doesn't sit particularly well, and the way that I lost some of those games was incredibly disappointing. Despite this, there were things that happened in the games that I found very promising. I was able to play to a level much closer to what I am capable of in comparison to my first performance at ACL Brisbane, and had stretches in my games where I felt entirely in control, and forged strong advantages over my opponents with some good early and midgame play. Sadly, I surrendered my leads in the same fashion; horrible army management leading to me getting trashed in major engagements.


The fact that I lost games due to overall carelessness really hurt, but after a bit of time to relax and reflect back over the games with a clear mind I found myself extracting a lot more positives than negatives from the matches overall. Having Jared sitting behind me as I played my games against Ninja was fantastic and something I am very thankful for. That immediate feedback from someone with the mind of his – particularly in the pvz match up – was awesome and helped me discover some of the glaring flaws to my play that I had glossed over. I probably learnt more from those 2 games against Ninja than I did in a month of hard practice preceding the tournament.


ACL Melbourne presents a fresh opportunity to break through and achieve something at a live event, something which currently sits at the top of my priorities. I know I'm still quite some distance away from the frontrunners of our scene, but I feel that I am moving in the right direction towards closing that gap between myself and the highest calibre of SEA players. ACL will be a fantastic opportunity for me to assess where I actually am at currently with regards to the players around me. I'll be aiming to turn a few heads and conquer some of my offline demons at this event.


The groups were drawn tonight and I found myself with Petraeus, Petrify and Phoenix. Both Pets are obviously great players and while Phoenix is a bit more of an unknown I'm sure he knows his stuff so I won't be taking him lightly. The open bracket will certainly be a major factor for us, but regardless of who joins this group my goal will be the same; to advance to the championship bracket. While PvZ probably isn't my most confident matchup at the moment, I'm blessed to be given a group full of one race, and there's a pretty high chance whoever will be coming up from the open bracket will also be a zerg. It's comforting to know I have two of the best zerg players in the country as team mates so I look forward to picking their brains over the next two weeks to try and get myself as prepared as I possibly can for this group.


That's pretty much it for now, cheers for reading! Shoutout to my team Exile5 for all the support, I've only been a part of the team for just over a month now and it's been a fantastic experience so far, I couldn't be happier. Thanks to all our sponsors Western Digital, Nvidia, CM Storm and Cooler Master for getting me over to AvCon. Finally, feel free to follow me on twitter @x5_MegaFonzie! I plan on actually using it a bit more in the future Hopefully I'll see many of you in Melbourne next weekend

~ Fonzie