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Hi everyone, it appears I missed the blog rush in the days following the event, but alas here is my belated ACL writeup of the awesome time I had in Melbourne!

MegaFonzie's ACL Blog

My leadup to this event was by far my strongest yet. It wasn't only that I was putting in more hours, but they felt like meaningful hours. It wasn't just a daily ladder grind, I was constantly learning, shifting and refining my strategies. When the groups got announced I focused all of my attention on PvZ as I was stuck with 3 zergs in my group, and there was a pretty high chance that there'd be a majority of zergs coming out of the open bracket too. I pretty much totally neglected my other matchups, trying to get the games over and done with quickly on ladder whenever I played them. It's probably not the absolute greatest approach to have to a tournement, but for someone at my level who's main goal was to get out of groups it made more sense than to a legitimate contender. That being said, exclusively practicing against zerg typically bodes pretty well for you in Australian tournaments regardless. I usually like to mess around with new things when I'm playing on ladder but I knew I had to come into my group with a much more refined approach and have a number of well versed strategies up my sleeve. I picked out my builds and general gameplans for each player and worked on them hard for those two weeks.

I flew up from Hobart late Friday night along with a bunch of my good mates from Hobart who were keen to check out an ACL and have a crack at the open. I was so grateful for these fine gentlemen, each of them barely missed a single game of mine and cheered me on from start to finish. It was unreal to have that kind of support behind me game in, game out, people to lend a pat on the back regardless of result. At first I thought it might make me a bit nervous having the extra crowd around, but it was the total opposite. I've never felt more comfortable at an event before, and I contribute a lot of that to having my mates around me. Legends!



Looking over a replay with team mates and friends

Obviously the Saturday really dragged on and it was hard not to get a little restless by the time groups eventually started. Thankfully I had my friends from x5 and Tassie to follow and support through the open bracket, so the early afternoon part of the day was pretty relaxing and enjoyable overall. Stormz and Armi both played well in their games but sadly both narrowly missed out of qualifying for groups. When we finally got told to start setting up I was so anxious to get my games underway. I set up and quickly jumped into a custom game to warm my hands up and then was good to go.

My first game was against PhoenixA, and was a must win. I'd never seen him play before but I'd heard he was quietly confident against me. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I've suffered a lot from LAN jitters and nervousness in previous events and one of my main goals for the tournament was to overcome the uncomfortable feeling I got playing at events. As I dove into map one on star station I got this 'here we go again' kind of feeling as I made mistake after mistake throughout the game, resulting in me dropping the first match. PhoenixA played very well to his credit and looked a much better player after game one. Bard came up to me and gave me some fighting words which helped pick me up a bit heading into game two. I can't recall the next two sets too much detail other than they were much, much cleaner games on my end and comfortable wins. I was happy that I was able to completely forget about the first game and play out the rest of the series without dented confidence.

Up next was Petrify who I was really looking forward to playing as I felt we were on a similar skill level. We both knew this was probably our most important series of the day as there was probably only enough room for one of us to make it out of the group. Petrify did himself a massive favour by upsetting Petraeus earlier in the day, meaning that losing this series would leave me with a pretty slim chance of making the top 3, so it was all on the line for me in this one. We were told we were going to be on stage which I was pretty happy about. My only other onstage games to this date were in the group stages at ACL Brisbane against tgun and those were pretty ugly, so I was looking forward to the chance to put on a better showing here.

The series played out kind of weird overall but the games were fun. The first game quickly devolved into a funky base trade but I kept my cool for the most part and put myself in a pretty good spot. There was always this uneasy feeling that I may have somehow left something unaccounted for that was going to come and bite me just when I felt confident I had the game won, but thankfully that moment never came and Petrify tapped out after I got the best end of the base trade and he got stuck without options. The next game was on Whirlwind, and though I originally hadn't planned to use the DT rush that I opted to go for, I decided in the heat of the moment that it was worth taking the risk as I was already one game up and I liked my chances on the final map of Bel'Shir anyway. Petrify read my mind however, and totally countered me with a 10 pool speedling all in which I had no answer for. In game three I planned to go for a 5gate timing off of a 1gate expand, but unfortunately for me his overlord scouted everything I was doing. I figured my best chance was to feign the attack and macro heavily behind it, which worked out well for me as Petrify overcompensated on defence for an attack that I didn't end up commiting to. From there I got a really good fight at my natural when he tried to put on some counter aggression and went for a +2 blink and immortal timing as I'd scouted a freshly completed spire and I knew that was probably my best bet to finish him. It worked out well for me and I took a 2-1 series win and a 2-0 lead overall in the group. Not a bad start!

Petraeus was always going to be the biggest challenge and I faced him next. The DT rush I used against Petrify I had originally planned to use in this series, as I knew to take out Petraeus I'd stand a better chance at throwing in a risky build like that to try and steal a map. It worked out quite nicely as the DTs did a lot of damage and I was able to come away with a sneaky victory on Bel'Shir. The other two maps I was simply outclassed, in a macro game where he crushed me with roach hydra viper on Akilon and deflected my attacks pretty easily on Whirlwind to take the win. At the end of the day Petraeus, Petrify and myself all sat on 2-1, so it was anybody's group for the taking.

I quickly went over and had a peek at some of the names coming out of the open bracket and was pretty happy. Aside from the obvious advancees, there was a number of players I really fancied my chances against, so as long as I ended up with one of them I'd be pretty comfortable with my position heading into the second day. What actually happened was Moonglade and HuT made it into my group.

Damn.

For some reason throughout the entire day I felt it was almost a certainty that Moonglade was going to be the first guy out of the open bracket and his choice would have been my group, so seeing him was somewhat expected. HuT was a worrisome surprise for me however, as I'd pretty much neglected proper vs Terran practice since groups were announced as to focus as heavily on my PvZ as possible and I know he's really dangerous in BoX matchups.

The next morning myself, PiG and Bard wound up getting to the event slightly after the proposed start time, and were told we had forfeited our first map of the day, so I went into my series against HuT with a 0-1 defecit from the get go. I can understand the decision, especially given with how fast the delays snowballed on day one, but it was not the kind of start to the day I needed. If I'd lost this series I would have dropped to 2-2 in the group overall, which would make life really tough. I'd still have a chance if I managed to take out Moonglade in my final match, but I knew that was a long shot. As far as I was concerned, this was the make or break series for me. Thankfully, despite an average start to the morning, fortune favoured me in my opening bo3 against HuT and I was able to take two maps in a row to take the 2-1 series win.

Sometimes everything seems to go your way for whatever reason, and it certainly felt that way for me in my games against HuT. I opened the first game on with a DT drop on Bel'Shir vestige that caught him totally off guard and did way too much damage for him to recover. I know HuT is the kind of player who will look over a replay and pick out the weaknesses in builds or gameplay, so after opening blind in game one I made sure to probe scout the next map. Luckily for me, his first proxy barracks just barely clipped the edge of my probes vision and I was able to force him to abandon those plans. From there I was in a very good spot, it was simply a matter of not doing something stupid and consolidating my lead until I could do a finishing move. Thankfully I was able to do so to close out the series and put myself in an awesome spot to advance.

My final series was against Glade, if I were to pull an upset and win I wouldve been a lock to advance in second, otherwise I'd be relying on HuT to take out Petrify for me to advance. In the second match I got myself in a pretty good spot but lost it all when he took advantage of my phoenix being out of position to snipe most of my ground army and 4th Nexus with his mutalisks, leaving me in pretty terrible shape. From there he closed me out pretty easily and took me down 2-0. After finding out that Petrify had fallen to HuT, I was relieved to have secured 3rd spot in the group and a chance at the championship bracket, which was my main goal for the tournament.

The one person I didn't want to play was PiG, for obvious reasons, but sadly the draw didn't fall my way and that's who I ended up with in the Ro12. Bugger! Teamkill situations are something that is bound to happen from time to time I guess, all I could do was try and play my best games and see what happens.



Duking it out with PiG

The first map was Bel'Shir, as PiG sniffed out all of my moves from a mile away and shut down any attempts I made at putting the pressure back on him. In the end he crushed me with a roach hydra viper composition after killing around five or six of my warp prisms without them getting a single warp in down.

The second set was on Whirlwind and probably was the best map that I played all tournament. PiG went for a mass air composition of mutalisk corruptor which I typically struggle against, but found a good rythm early on in the game with my harrass and kept up my momentum throughout the duration of the match. I ended up victorious in a 30 minute game, regardless of the fact that he is my team mate it's always a big achievement for me to beat someone of Jared's caliber in a tournament game, particularly in a macro game, so I was pretty happy.

The third map was Star Station, and I think this one would best be described as a 'learning experience'. I didn't really have a clear plan going into the game; after how badly he crushed my standard macro play in the first set and the build I used in game two wasn't really viable with the Star Station 3rd base, I was pretty much just freestyling without any real direction. The result was me getting totally stomped after I failed a half assed 3 base blink stalker attack. GG!

After I got eliminated I spent the rest of the day socialising and cheering on Jared. It was great to see him knock out the old enemy KingKong, and although he eventually fell to Iaguz they were really enjoyable games to watch from start to finish. From there it was off to post event dinner and drinks which is always awesome fun, coincidentally it happened to be one of my Tasmanian companions Jerry's 21st, so it was nice to be able to enjoy a night out with him and some of my other closest allies. After a long night that involved a trip to team mate Doombie's house in the early hours of the morning which I could barely stay at, it was back to the hotel for a few precious hours sleep before a tiring flight home the next day.

As satisfying as it was to come away with a personal best result, it's something I've got to keep in perspective. At the end of the day, I only made it as far as the Ro12. When I consider my goals in this game and where I want myself to be at, I'm still a long way off the mark. The important thing is I'm seeing improvement. As I sat on the plane back to Hobart the next day I took some time to evaluate and do a bit of a personal debrief of my weekend. As long as I maintain the right mindset, it's impossible to come out of a tournament a worse player or competitor. There's always something to be learned from. Whilst it was by far and away the best I've prepared for a tournament, there are still plenty of things I can look back on now that I could do better next time. For instance, I think my strategies were getting pretty worn out towards my last couple of games, and I have to be more confident in my standard game as it gave me my best results overall during the weekend. I think at the end of the day, regardless of result, extracting the little things to tweak for next time has proven to be one of the most fruitful parts of the tournament experience for me.

Overall ACL Melbourne was a fantastic event. Now there's a bit of the break with a couple months until ACL Sydney and as far as I know nothing major happening until then. This will prove a great chance for me to continue the momentum I've started to build up in my practice and apply it over an extended period of time. Managing to consistently play the amount that I did in the weeks preceding Melbourne for the next couple of months will prove to be challenging for me but I know I'm capable, and I know that's what it's going to take to catch up to the players ahead of me.

Finally, I'd like to say thank you to everyone I talked to over the weekend, it was nice meeting you all/seeing you all again. Can't wait to catch up again in Sydney! A special shoutout to my managers Bard and Fries, they took awesome care of me over the weekend and I appreciate it a lot. As always a huge thanks to Exile5 and our sponsors Western Digital, Nvidia, CoolerMaster and CMStorm for granting me the opportunity to play in events like this. Thanks for reading!