SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

I've never blogged before. I'm usually a reserved person, but I thought I'd share some thoughts and stories regarding myself and my relationship with SC2 and hopefully you guys find it interesting!

-- Launch, 27th July, 2010

Looking back, this year was probably the most significant of my life. 2010 was of course the year StarCraft 2 launched. I was a total RTS noob really, I played AoE2 and C&C:RA2 like a total scrub, often being the bane of team games everywhere on the Zone and the Westwood Servers. 3 weeks out from the launch of SC2 however, I made a decision. I wanted to be 'good' at a game. What I thought that meant back then was very different to how I would define it today. I wanted to be the best out of my friends and the best in my small town of 6k people. That's what I thought good meant.

I spammed beta games. Hell, I can't even call it a 'beta'. I downloaded a cracked, offline-only version of the it and spammed games vs bots. Of course, I only ever played Terran. I played Terran purely in Brood War as well, and just loved the feel and power of the race (little would I know, 4 years on, I would be playing the worst and most UP race, David Kim pls). I don't even know how I began to learn builds, probably started off 3 rax 1 base sorta shit before watching Husky I guess. Really can't remember. Probably didn't care at that point, the AI still got beaten so I thought I was doing something right!

-- The First 'LAN', 2010

Following the launch of the game, I started hitting the ladder. Started off in Gold League. I think the weekend after launch, I was introduced to a mutual friend who was hosting a SC2 LAN at his house, where we would do a small tournament for a $5 buy-in, winner takes all. Being a total noob, I just wanted to meet new people, so I went along with no expectations of doing anything meaningful. There were about 8 people at this guys house, all of us looking to beat the shit out of each other (virtually!). Few hours later, I had beaten everyone and won. I was sorta surprised at how far ahead of everyone I was in skill, even being just a gold noob.

I vividly remember the last game I played, a TvP on Lost Temple, where my new friend said "I've got a sick build, no-one on ladder can beat it." Some of you may be thinking DT rush or proxy Voids or some other gay Protoss shit, but no, the build was Forge > Cannon his own ramp > 3 gates > stargate > fleet beacon. 1 base carrier. The game didn't last that long, a 1 base 2 rax medivac stim timing ended the game long before the strategy could truly be revealed.

"Huh", he said. "No-one's ever done that before."
".. well what did they do?", I asked.
"Usually they just walk into the cannons."

Ah, the joys of bronze noobs.

-- SC2SEA, September 2010

Believe it or not, I was one of the earliest members of SC2SEA. I think it would've been though Nirvana who introduced me to the site, and as such I was 17th member of this wonderful community. I started out being a typical 16 year old kid, spamming a macro that said "gl hf, visit sc2sea.com !" during every game. Ask Benji, he'll tell you I'm basically the reason he started in esports . My collaboration with the site grew as I grew in skill too, quickly rising to the ranks of Master. My involvement with the site grew once I had an idea of starting a newsletter for the community - one of the basis' of todays current news-based forum posts.

The First SC2SEA Newsletter
SC2SEA Weekly #5
SC2SEA Clan League Season 1, some cool old game vods in these threads btw!

It was also around the end of 2010 that I started casting along with an old member by the name of SixthSC, we casted a bunch of events around this time such as Community Opens and Clan League games. We both had our Who's Who profile made around this time.

My Who's Who Profile!

-- Changes, 2011

2011 saw a number of changes for me, I still lived in the middle of nowhere in country NSW, I was doing long distance with my girlfriend who was living in Sydney studying while I was stuck at school. I was never a particularly good student, I come from a lower-middle class family so money wasn't really abundant, so obviously going to a public school in regional Australia isn't really ideal. I started to put alot of emphasis on my own thing at this stage, and started skipping school just to play - obviously not a well informed decision looking back, but I'm still happy with every choice I've made so far.

I started playing alot more StarCraft, seeing myself hitting the old Top 200 lists that Blizzard used to put out before Grandmaster was a thing. As I started participating in more SC2SEA tournaments, my skills improved and I started getting my name out there. My gaming started affecting my home life, my mum wasn't too impressed I was skipping class to play, so after many fights, I decided to move out. I felt mature enough to make my own decisions, so I moved out of home and quit school to work full time. I moved in with the mutual friend from the LAN and the guy who introduced me to said friend. We were all glorious nerds, all working full time and loving every minute.

Once I moved out, I started applying for new teams that were popping up - Vortex eSports was my first venture. I joined alongside Ninja and SenSei, maybe 1 or 2 other people, can't remember. This team was a total clusterfuck, within 2 weeks we all bailed. Much like the majority of eSports teams, they lure you in with flashy words like contract and paid travel and deliver **** all. After Vortex fell through, Infeza messaged me on a recommendation, from Ninja I believe, for a trial with a new team that Infeza was going to be managing the SC2 portion of. That very team was Sequential Gaming.

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That's all for now, I plan on hopefully updating this blog and hope you guys enjoy some of the story's I have to share.