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Hello ladies and gentlemen. My name is Daniel Fenner and I am going to write some words about my tournament experience over this past weekend. I don't normally do this and I'm bad at writing, so we'll see how it goes.

ACL Melbourne

Pre-Melbourne

So in the last couple of months I have been extremely dissatisfied with my results. As someone who is practicing as much or more than most of the top players in our small scene, I feel like my skill level has not been representing the amount of practice I've been putting in, in the last year. I find it really painful to lose to anyone who doesn't put anywhere near as much time as me into this game. I guess the AVCon qualifiers was the one that made me feel like crap in this way the most, I lost to some unknown Protoss and then in a 3 way tie-break for the qualification spot, I lost to both Kez and Cam. Losing to Cam was really painful, he had barely touched the game at all in the last 8 months and when I practice almost everyday for a lot of hours... It just feels wrong. I'm not saying that any of those players didn't deserve to beat me, I was really happy for Cam qualifying. I just have the mindset that more practice = more skill = should win, but that just hasn't been happening for me.

Anyway, as some of you may know I'm doing this full time and on top of just playing the game I create content for youtube to increase my exposure/marketability and help out my fellow Zergies. The month before ACL Melbourne, I stopped creating content and just solely focused on improving at the game. Why? At every ACL before I have never gotten past the group stages... For someone who puts full time into e-Sports, those are horrible results even just within the SEA scene and my goal is compete internationally. I went into this ACL with the unhealthy mindset that I would quit the game if I didn't get past groups or at least be satisfied with how my games went if I was put into an extremely tough group (last time I got Mafia, Iaguz and KingKong.) So I woke up at 9:15am everyday and practiced until 9:30pm everyday. My practice consisted of a lot of vod watching, a lot of stream watching, a lot of replay watching. In the past I've felt that mass laddering hasn't helped me improve massively so I wanted to take a different approach. Of course I still played quite a lot of games, but watching and analyzing was my main focus. It's quite hard to go into any more detail than that with practice, when you practice so much it kinda just becomes a blur. I remember the last week, practicing some games with Pet and Ninja which helped me a lot. Ninja helped me realize that my goto ZvZ build was pretty weak so I changed my builds, if I didn't change my builds things probably would've gone very poorly at ACL.

This time round I created a spreadsheet with the builds I thought were strong, some information on the players in my group and what vetos I wanted to go for against each player in my group. I think mapping things out like this helped me a lot, whenever I've played in tournaments before I always jumped into games really fast and just played - this time I had a plan, I would select builds before playing a series to which I thought was strongest on each map vs the player and take time between games to allow me to vizualize what I wanted to do in the game so that my mind wasn't stuck in the last game and I would have better focus.

So I guess I should say that my group consisted of KingKong, Kez and Arze. I was scared of KingKong, even though I wanted to win and tried to make myself confident I knew he was going to be tough to beat, but I still really wanted to take him down. Then there was Kez, I feel like I'm a better player than Kez and I'm 100% sure that I practice a lot more than him, so I didn't want to lose to him. Arze... I didn't know anything about Arze going into this, I didn't want to underestimate him but at the same time didn't really think he would be a challenge, once again I didn't want to lose to him. Funny thing is, I had confidence vs both Kez and Arze but I was still scared of them, in SC2 you can always lose to unorthodox strategies or get caught off guard or have a bad day etc. I guess with all the practice I've been putting in, I know I'd be really sad if I lost to either of them, so the fear was there.

tldr; Practiced a lot, wanted to do well.

ACL Melbourne: Friday

Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday. Alright so Friday is the day before ACL. I barely slept at all, probably 2 hours sleep max. This happens to me at almost every LAN tournament I go to, I set my sleeping pattern up perfectly so I should be able to sleep well this time, wake up at about 8am which would've been perfect for the tournament days but it didn't work. Whenever there is a LAN tournament and I'm trying to sleep, all I'm thinking about is the strategy, what is going to happen, how well I will do etc. I think too much and can't sleep because of it.

Got on mah flight in 25C to Melbourne and touched down in a horrible 8C, extremely windy and wet. I was getting picked up by someone I had talked to online a lot and have become close to, Artfulsuer. She couldn't find the pickup area for Tiger so I stood around and got absolutely freezing for about 20 minutes, goddamn it was so cold. We finally found each other and just went to get some food whilst we waiting for Ninja, iaguz and Hut to land so we could pick them up and go to the hotel. Was really nice to meet Sue for the first time, we got some shitty McDonalds fries and nuggets to warm us up then went and picked up the boys who landed a bit later. Haven't seen the other fray guys for quite a while now since I live up in the middle of nowhere in QLD instead of Sydney, so meeting them again was great too, many hugs were had. We went to the hotel, checked in and since I was so tired I decided to have a quick nap, whilst the Fray boys went out to find food and go to a bar.

After the nap me and Sue went down to the bar. KK, Chris and Poker where also there along with the fray guys. I love KingKong, he is the friendliest, hpapiest dude around. Catching up with him was good fun. I bought an overpriced cider for $15 which was super tasty, didn't realize it would be so expensive... I'm just a broke ass nerd $15 for a drink is not a good investment. We sang some Wonderwall along with the band that was playing and just enjoyed some drinks/food and catching up with online buddies IRL. Went back to the hotel after this and tried to get some sleep. Should be easy right? I had 2 hours sleep last night! NOPE. YOU SHALL NOT SLEEP BEFORE TOURNAMENTS MR. FENNER. I rolled around once againt hinking about strategy, how the games will go, what the outcomes will be. I think I finally managed to get to sleep around 3-5am. Woke up at 8am. Uuuuugh. This was not a great start but you take what you get. Ignore the bad sleep and play your best regardless.

ACL Melbourne: Saturday

We rock up to the venue. This was the hardest place to find ever, ini the middle of nowhere, no signage, nothing. We drove around the Uni carparks for a good 20-30 minutes before finally finding it. Going inside... Ahhhh nerd heaven. The venue looked small compared to the Brisbane venue, I'm still not sure whether it actually was small or it was just because LoL was taking up a lot of room this time around. Anyway standard stuff, chatted around with all the people I know from online and rarely get to meet IRL, good stuff. Love meeting online pals in real life. One thing I didn't realize is that we didn't actually have to be there until 1pm, I could've slept sooooo much more.

Anyway after lots of talking to online buddies we realized there weren't going to be any computers available to practice until at least 1pm so instead of sit around at the venue Me and Sue decided to come back at 1pm. Get some snacks and water for the tournament and just enjoy some fresh air and sun, since today was actually a nice day. Got myself some bananas, a huge bottle of water and some apples, I wanted to actually eat decently at this tournament since other tournaments are usually MACCAS ALL DAY ERRRYDAAAY. I was all set. Good food, lots of inbetween game snacks, the sun and air woke me up and we headed back to the venue only to find out the groups were delayed because the open bracket was taking an age. Then it got delayed again. And again. By the time the groups were said to be at 4pm, I just went to the back and napped on the couch there. Should've done that way earlier, could've caught up on so much sleep but I had no idea it would be delayed like that. This nap was ******* amazing, I slept like an absolute baby and actually dribbled all over the couch in my sleep (I never dribble, so that's how I know it was good) The nap left me feeling so refresh and awake, I didn't even feel tired anymore.

Finally It's time to play some games! My memory may be a bit foggy here on the order of games and exatly what happened in the games but I'll do my best.

Vs KingKong

First off I was against KingKong. Uh oh. Oh well, I prepared decently. I knew exactly what I was going to veto, I knew exactly how I was going to play on each map. First map was Newkirk. I planned to play my greedy mutas on this map, the first gas would help me against ling bane aggression which KingKong loves and the mutas would allow me to possibly get a lead in a macro game and Newkirk's deadspace is great for Mutas. Early game wasn't very exciting, neither of us decided to go for any aggression. I got my third up uncontested and felt good getting my Mutas up but for some reason I didn't see a mass amount of lings coming out on to the map, he managed to morph some banes near my base and I only saw them at the last second, I did my best to pull lings back and micro my drones but it caught me too off guard, I lost too many drones and had to punch in the GG. Not the best start to the tournament but it didn't really phase me, like I said before losing to KingKong wouldn't be too painful. Game 2 was on Neo Planet and I had a 6 pool gimmick strategy that I think would beat anyone going pool or hatch first, I beat both ninja and Pet with it and practice and was confident that as long as it wasn't a 9 pool it would be a free win for me. I send my lings across the map, get to his base and find out he has 9 pooled, sigh to myself and try to play the game out but it's almost an impossible position to win from so I lose 0-2. Whilst beating KingKong is something I really wanted to do, I knew I was the underdog and it didn't bother me losing to him too much.

Vs Kez

Next up, Kez. Me and Kez talked a bit of shit to each other. Ok maybe "talking shit" is an overstatement, but we had some fun little jabs at each other. We're good mates so it was all in good fun and probably didn't put any pressure on either of us. I followed my spreadsheet and did my vetos, got the maps that I wanted aka the maps that cheese isn't as good on. I knew Kez was going to be cheesy/unorthodox, that's how he plays and if he decided to play a macro game I knew my macro game would be stronger. I chose to just pool first Snute build every game before the series even started, if he opens Hatch gas pool it doesn't really bother me as I thought that as long as I hold off any aggression I would be fine. First map I don't remember too well, I know that he went hatch gas pool, so he was trying to meta the fact that he knew I would pool first, thats fine with me. I think he did some aggression, I held it, then killed him.

Second map, Derelict Watcher... Game starts off similar, Pool first against hatch gas pool, once again I'm fine with that no big deal. No aggression this time though, I notice he has double evo up and ispumping a lot of lings so I knew it was double evo ling. He denies my third for a while but It's to be expected against that style vs mine, he committed a lot of lings to do damage but only cancelled my third and never really got any drone kills whilst I was massing up Roaches. finally my Roach numbers get large enough that he's screwed, I get my third up and move across the map with an army that he can never deal with it, get up his ramp and he has no spines - easy win. What happened next really surprised me - Mutas?! I've never seen double evo into Mutas before, why on earth would you do that? I thought to myself. I rolled into his base and killed almost all of his drones whilst dropping spores in my bases. For some reason I didn't drop spores in my Natural and after he cleaned up my Roaches he just flew into there and wiped out all the drones whilst having lings in my main to take down the spores and drones there, then i was left with a third base and a hydra den. He had no drones, but you can't build hydras off 1 base, the Mutas just kill them as they pop and without Roach support they get destroyed by lings. I lost. ****. **** **** ****. I was not supposed to lose that game at all, I started thinking about if I lose to Kez I will be super sad.

Teammates gave me some nice shoulder massage, I took a couple minutes to pull my mindset out of the dumps and hopped into game 3, Bel'shir Vestige. Once again I pool first as I planned, this time he finally breaks out his 9pool which I know he had been urging to do, too bad son I knew you wouldn't be able to resist! I hold off the initial lings quite easily and get a decent amount of spines up, he throws units at it but it's an easy defense, thank **** for that!

Vs Arze

Straight after that, it's time for Arze. Who the hell is Arze? My ZvP is weak at the moment and I know nothing about this guy. People told me he likes to 2 base allin so I was going to play with that in mind. First map was Whirlwind, I don't know why I didn't veto this... I think most Zerg players like this but since my standard style relies on Swarm Hosts, it's not that great. Swarm hosts aren't really viable here, so I decided to go for the fast Viper style which I haven't really practiced. I thought he would 2 base allin, so I overmade Roach ling whilst taking my third but turns out he just wanted to do a little timing whilst establishing his third. Oh, I saw double stargate too, so I thought he wa sjust going to go mass void and I usually deal with that by going Hydra Infestor. I went Hydra Infestor, rocked up to his base to kill a bunch of voids only to realize that he actually had Colo out, that's extremely bad for me. He smashed my army then it was just me trying to hold on all game but not being able to. Jesus ****, I just lost to someone I never wanted to lose to. He played really well, he is a good player and I did not expect him to be so good!

Second game is on Star Station, oh boy this was a good one. Once again very very similar openings, I overbuild units to defend a 2 base allin that didnt come in and he went double star but I knew this time he wouldn't go for just Voids based off of last game, so I went straight for Vipers - Once against this was a bad decision, I'm not sure why I went for it over my normal Swarm Host play, I guess because of the double Stargate... I've never seen this style before - Double Star with Robo too so I was a bit confused. Like I said before, unorthodox styles are often hard to deal with when you haven't played against them. I throw my Roach Hydra Viper into his army and don't do much damage. ****, am I going to lose? I throw another round into him, against not much damage. Shit. He is going to beat me! I go at it again with Ultras this time round and he just rolls it once again. I'm actually fucked at this point. I can't kill his army and his econ is unhindered. I actually gave up in my head for a good 30 seconds until I thought that I am not going to lose without a ******* fight. I chucked down a spire and decided to go Muta Ling base trade as a last desperation attempt. I kept him busy with Lings attacking into his bases whilst I took a lot of bases and got a lot of gas for my Mutas, he could've killed me at any point, his deathball was invincible. The ling runbys kept him at home though, I got my Mutas up. I went into ******* overdrive, my levle of focus has never been this high, my APM felt faster than ever, I was not going to lose this ******* game. He decided to push. I knew I couldn't hold that army, I took more bases and went for base trade. I was shredding his base, he was shredding mine. I got drones down to the bottom right and started to build Hatches and Spines. His bases were dead, he had probes all over the map and was moving down to kill my remaining Hatches + Spines whilst building revealed Extractors and Pylons all over the place to keep him in the game. I spread lings all over the map at a speed which I have never done before. My heart rate was rising, I had no idea how many minerals he had left or how many Probes were hidden out there. I don't normally play Muta in ZvP so I was just playing off instinct. He's ramming his massive deathball into my final bases, my wall of 30 odd spines getting dropped so fast as I pick off Pylons and Extractors. He is killing my last Hatch as I uproot my final spine and move it to the furthest possible position in the bottom right. ****, I only have one spine left have I lost? What if he has another probe ready to build another Pylon/Extractor? I move into kill the last Extractor on the map, he is moving in to kill my final Spine. I am hecticly moving my camera between my spine and his Extractor. My Spine is on about 1/4 HP. His Extractor dies. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I ******* screamed, as did a lot of people behind me watching the game. What an amazing game. I will forever remember this game and moment, the rush of excitement at the end was incredible.

It still wasn't over though, there was still another game. This guy was beating me, the only reason I won game 2 was because of a desperation base trade. I knew his style now though, I knew that double star isn't just mass void, I knew he would mix in Colo too. I knew that Swarm Host Corruptor would be perfect against that and it's my standard style too so it go well for me. Akilon Wastes, I didn't veto this because I was told he would be going for 2 base allins and I think Akilon isn't the best for 2 base allins. He was going for macro games though, so it wasn't actually the best map at this point. So I go for my standard style, whilst playing safe enough to not die to 2 base allins. Honestly this game was quite anti-climactic, I managed to get an Overlord into his base and see his 7 gate and hold it off easily. Then his follow up Immortal push had no chance at all as I had Swarm Hosts out already. GG. I think he must have been shook up from the previous game as if he logically thought about the previous 2 games he would've realize that his macro games were smashing me and with Akilon, he should've definitely gone that route again. Definitely wasn't expecting this guy to be such a good player and if he practices a lot, he definitely has a lot of potential to be a strong Protoss in SEA.

That was it for my games for the day. I found out I got Jazbas and Savior in my group, extremely happy with that - I was expecting something like moonglade and hut, which would be a lot scarier. Anyway I was tired as hell and just instantly went back to the hotel as soon as I had finished my games. I needed some goddamn sleep man. However once again I struggled to sleep, I slept 2 hours on Thursday and 4 hours last night, how is that even possible? Luckily after 2 hours of rolling around I managed to sleep for 6 hours, waking up at 6am. A lot better than the previous nights.

ACL Melbourne: Sunday

It's Sunday baby, the final day. Needed to smash some open bracket nerds and get into the championship bracket. I was extremely hungry but with Bundoora being in he middle of nowhere and Baldie being extremely strict about the start time due to the open bracket being so slow yesterday, we just went to maccas and I got myself 6 pancakes and ate them at the venue. They were actually pretty damn tasty but made me feel a bit sickly.

Vs Savior

Today was straight into the action, had to play Savior as soon as I finished my breakfast. I took Savior kinda like Kez, I knew he would be aggressive and I'm happy with the Snute build being super safe so I just played that every game. Don't remember these games too well, all I remember is that first game I just wasn't warmed up and made a lot of mistakes which ended up in me losing to his Targa banes. Eh whatever, now I'm warmed up and I won't make more mistakes. Next 2 games it was similar stuff from him, I shut it down and took the series in what I would call convincing fashion. Great start to Sunday!

Vs Jazbas

Jazbas next. Once again a cheesy little ******. Jaz cheese is a lot stronger than almost anyone elses cheese though as it's very mind game oriented. For some reason I don't remember these games too well. First game he went for a macro game but I think I just got such a big drone lead that I just ran him over with my 3 base Roach/Hydra pushes. Second game was Bel'shir, Jaz definitely brought his aggression to this one, he want for the original Jerry build, Hatch gas pool into mass ling. I scouted it, I should hold it. For some reason I have a brain fart and don't put my Queens on the ramp, I thought my banes would be finished in time and kill enough lings that I wouldn't need it. That was really silly, if I just put my Queens on the ramp it would've been an easy hold, I had a spine up with bane nest up. I lost that and went 1-1.

Last map was Neo Planet S. I REALLY wanted to make my 6pool work and it only works on this map or Newkirk, Since I went pool first the first two games I thought this was a great time to bring it out. I 6pool, he 9pools, I gg. Build order loss with my gimmick once again. Looking back on it I probably should've just played standard once again, since I was feeling strong beating him in a macro game if I just hold off his aggression.

Top 3 in the group went through to the bracket this time around, so I knew I was going to make it to the bracket even though I lost to Jaz. My games were pretty quick so I went to get some food with Sue before coming back tofind out who my bracket opponents was. Nandos, mmm so good! Never had Nandos before.

Vs mOOnGLaDe

Got back to the venue and looked at the bracket. Moonglade first round. I verbally let out "Shit." I'm a bit of a fan of Moonglade and I know he is an incredibly good player so getting matched up against him first was scary. With that said, I was feeling like my ZvZ was good and I knew that Glade wouldn't be cheesing me since he most likely thinks I'm weak in a macro game. I think that's an icnorrect perception of me based off how I've played in tournaments in the past, my macro game is strong I have just palyed cheesy in tournaments in the past. First map was Star Station. Ninja had told me about Glades gasless style being way too safe and that I could just drone like crazy. That's exactly what I did, I droned up to 3 base saturation waaaaay faster than Glade. I was feeling good, generally if you drone up a lot faster in a ZvZ you can win quite easily. I push with +2 attack and Roach Hydra, I thought I would just win with the push or that it would snowball so that I would win. I get to his base and wtf he has a Roach Speedbane composition. I had never seen this before and I thought that my Roach Hydra would steamroll it. Oooooh how wrong I was, even though I split well against the banes, the time I spent splitting meant that his Roaches could do a lot of damage whilst mine were being scared of Banes. He crushed my army. After that it was just engagement after engagement and finally he managed to break my Roach Hydra. It's funny how you can practice so much but never see a certain style/composition. It seems ridiculously strong if you don't have infestors in this mix too.

Belshir Vestige, map 2. Once again I knew Glade was going to play safe which I was very very happy with as I knew it meant I could play greedy Mutas which I think is extremely strong right now, especially against Glade playing super safe. I was right, I got my Mutas out, droned my third and cancelled his third for a decade. I had a massive lead. I went into Roach Swarmhost which is super strong against ground armies and moved over to attack his base. He decided to not engage and just go base trade with his ground army - really smart decision as he would've just died to my army. Base trading with Swarmhosts doesn't feel great, they're slow. So I just send my Roach army into his bases to clean everything up whilst sending my Swarmhosts to thin out his army/slow it down as we trade bases. Honestly I had such a big lead I was probably never going to lose but it still felt really intense, maybe just because I respect Glade so much. Anyway I win the game and it felt great, beating someone you respect is always an amazing feeling. I let out a roar, which was probably kinda BM because Glade was sat across from me and the game wasn't that close it just felt great for me.

Map 3, Akilon. I planned to 9pool this map, I believe that 9 pool is extremely strong here. He went pool first and overeacted to my 9pool by cancelling and building a spine in the main, he must've thought it was 10pool speed or banes. I guess when you have a cheesy reputation like me that can happen. I went for a later gas but just got speed with it and didn't build more lings, I knew that I could get a big lead by just droning and he had no gas so he had no way of ever pressuring me for a long time. As I felt I had a decent lead, I went for Mutas as I am really comfortable with them and they worked great last game. My third was up faster, I had more drones and was feeling good. I planned to go for a Speed roach timing after my Muta harass to capitalize on my lead. I saw him take gas at his third before Hatch had even finished, this should be a telltale sign that he is going for Mutas but for some reason I just stuck to my plan of going for a mass roach follow up, which meant that I the gas at my third later than him and didn't get my air carapace. If I wasn't so retarded and just went for Muta after seeing his super fast third gas, I would've been in a ridic lead. Instead I waited until I saw his Mutas and then got my air carapace and gas. I honestly haven't played much Muta vs Muta lately, so I made quite a few mistakes with Muta control. The biggest mistake of all was being too aggressive, putting my Mutas in bad positions without knowing where his are and losing a couple here and there. I was behind now and desperately tried to stay in the game with ling runbys and playing defensive. It was working well, killing quite a few drones, denying hatches and getting good Muta engagements. Finally Glade decided to attack into my third, I had spores, a Queen, lings, drones and a lower Muta count. Miraculously I managed to clean up his Muta army with just a couple left of my own, the lings and drones underneath the battle helped me out tremendously. I thought I cleaned up enough Mutas that I finally had the Muta lead again, I thought I was going to beat Glade, my heart beat started to rise and we played out the rest of the game. Turns out I actually didn't get the Muta lead, we have a couple of battles and he finally cleans me up. Good game, I get up and shake his hand and talk about the game a bit.

Usually I get really sad when I lose in tournaments, I always want to do well. Ro12 in an Australian tournament isn't exactly a good result but I felt like I had a great series with Andy so I was satisfied. I hope that Glade felt like he was on the ropes a few times in that series too 8)

Rest of the day is pretty fun, got some food and went for a walk with Sue, found a nice park and chilled out in the sun for an hour before coming back to watch the finals between Guz and Pet, hang out with friends etc.

Guz and Pet both had 2 oranges each at this point so they had 0 chance of not getting to the finals.

Good event. Wish there were computers for qualified players to practice on whilst open bracketeers play but it's obviously a venue/amount of PCs restriction but other than that I really enjoyed it. Thanks to ACL and all the cool people that attend to make it a great experience.

Sunday night was a lot of fun, Korean BBQ, Ninja getting drunk then going back to the hotel to hang out with a bunch of people, Ninja getting more drunk along with everyone else. Once again KingKong was a lot of fun after the event, such a great guy! Hanging out with everyone after the event was awesome and I can't wait for the next event where we all get to hang out again.

This is honestly way longer than I expected it to be. Thanks for reading if you managed to survive all this way.

SC2SEA Scene.