SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

Hey everyone!

As some of you may know, I have been recently involved in many SEA Lan tournaments/events within the last fortnight (16-09 -> 25-09), such as the Blizzcon Invitationals in Sydney, the Gigabyte E-Sports at the Respawn Lan in Melbourne, and the WCG Brisbane Qualifiers. During this time, I got to meet some truly amazing people, and am really stocked I can now call these people my friends. I had quite some ups and downs in terms of StarCraft, but came away at the end of the fortnight with a lot of positive energy and motivation to continue the pursuit of excellence. I really wanted to share with you guys this experience so I've decided to begin this blog, it may be a long read, but I hope you guys would be able to enjoy it and feel abit of the amazing experience I've went through. Me and Benji recorded quite abit of footage (including some awesome AZKziek moments), and we'll get to uploading them as soon as we can.


Part I - Blizzcon Invitationals: Awesome Event & Awesome People

The constant lows of having no solid answer to the Terran 1-1-1, smashing my face into my keyboard at the sight of Infestors, and watching my Protoss heroes drop one by one had me on the verge of quitting Protoss or even StarCraft II altogether. Then I saw the announcement of myself being one of the invitees to the SEA Blizzcon Invitationals, I was overjoyed, but also felt equally responsible upon noticing I was the only Protoss in the invitees and had to carry the weight of an entire race of balance-whining-aliens on my back.

I immediately contacted my manager (Benji) about getting a Korean account, and have started laddering there in preparation for Blizzcon. Although having mixed results in practice, and not pegged to make it very far, I wanted to at least do it for myself, and give the SEA protoss something to cheer. I felt pretty prepared against Standard Macro Terran (Rossi) and Roach/Infestor Zerg styles(Mafia/Jaz), and felt like I could definitely put up a fight, as scared as I was inside, I was never going to show weakness to my opponents. I actually felt good about StarCraft II, once for a very long time when I realised no matter how gloomy things looked, practicing was always better than crying, I'll leave the crying up to Slayers_Alicia.

Before the weekend, all the invitees and the Blizzard representatives met together and had dinner together on Blizzards shout (Thanks Blizzard!!!). I was able to meet some awesome people such as the lovely Jaczie, the Black Archon himself, JAZZBOSS, nomnom~, super awesome peeps like Paz, Raamon, Livi and Cheeky, and Noodle!!!(You don't need an adjective friend!). Had a wonderful time with these wonderful people before things got a tad more tense the very next day.


Day I

The event began the next day starting with lots of interviews from the press before the matches went underway. The competition came off to a hectic start with two of the strongest competitiors in Mafia and Deth dueling it out, with Mafia coming out on top 2-1. I was happy for my teammate but didn't feel that good because Deth is a great friend of mine too, and I would have to vs him or Mafia regardless depending on the result between me and Rossi.

I had quite a few allergy and sore eye issues prior to the weekend so I was really worried about my focus in my games. Nevertheless, I was well prepared for Rossi because I've scouted his style, including his bunker timings, and managed to execute the two builds I planned for him. Although as I watched the replay of game 2, I notice how insanely crisp Rossi's macro is(his micro is also starting to become korean-esque) and I should never ever underestimate and/or not prepare against such a solid player - something which will bite me in the ass one week later.

With both me and Mafia winning our games, we met in the Upper bracket semi finals. With my eyes starting to act up abit and with the memory of the 5-0 Mafia delivered to me in the CH anniversay lan event, I didn't do anything I prepared for in practice and pulled out the tried-and-no-longer-works 7 gate blink stalker build on XNC. Forgetting everything about how Mafia likes to use his lings to flank, about army positioning, I ran my army into a flank and was absolutely destroyed. This absolutely shattered my confidence and sent my stress level rising super high, further inflaming my eyes and the skin around it.

Game 2, Typhon Peeks, Mafia hatches first because that is the one map Protoss cannot forge FE. Regardless my policy of never letting Zerg hatch first kicks in, a cancelled gas into a chrono'd zealot, couple cannons around the mineral line later I was able to take the game - although it was very very close that I had to refine my cannon rushing procedures against hatch first couple days later.

Game 3, I forge FE on Shattered Temple, scouts Mafia in close position and think to myself: as long as I can hold off an all-in its an auto-win. My scouting probe went back into his main at 4:30 and saw that he has gotten over 100 gas, so for safety I put up another cannon, and chronoed a sentry out, completely shutting out any possibilities of an all-in to work against my sim city. Then everything went wrong, I decided hey I'm close position Shattered, I should just 2gas6gate! How stupid of me to not think in the shoes of my opponent. He knows exactly its close position Shattered, he knows he cannot take a third in these positions, he knows he cant kill me with an early bust, this only leaves really 1 viable strategy that I know Mafia will use -> Hydra Highway + Lings. So stupidly not thinking about any of that but in my own world of closeshattered6gatenow! I rush out with my push at 7:30 with a bunch of zealots and some sentries to try to catch him before he makes any units. And ofcourse, going for the HydraLing strat, he had ample amounts of Hydras already mate, and once again flanked me with Mafia Lings that I've warned myself about 100 times in practice. Losing my initial army consisting of 6 sentries because of the ling flank + terrible forcefields, the game was lost from there. Creep came next to my base almost immediately and the Hydras slowly started chipping away at my buildings. With Collosus tech not yet ready, huge amounts of Lings/Hydras eventually overran me as all my sentries were dead and I was stuck early on with 2 gas to try to do the 6gate2gas timing attack. A complete stupid game-thinking/strategy by me, probably a result of nervousness and physical irritations. Although I didn' feel too bad with Mafia beating me, I was so dissappointed in my performance, with my allergies was absolutely killing me, I ran home, didn't say bye to anyone (really needed medicine), took my medicine and passed out on my bed right away.


Day 2

Deth and Yoon was knocked out on Day 1, a surprise to many of us and a disaster for the Terrans. Day 2 started between me and Jaz. Game 1 on Shakuras (Hate this map for PvZ now thanx to JimDiddy) featured Jaz's swift transition from ling bane into Roaches upon seeing my zealot archon mixture, then with some poor positioning and lack of ANY forcefields from myself, the rain banes and roaches took out my zealot/archon mix handily and pushed him to a 1-0 lead.

Game 2 featured my XNC Forge FE, which 80% of zergs responds with an all in. My scouting probe managed to return to his base at 4:30 to catch a glimpse of his gas sitting at 2240 (260 gas mined), so I knew instantly an all in was coming, quickly putting up a cannon and chronoing out units as fast as I can, I was able to stop the incoming all-in handily -> DON"T ALL IN MY FORGE FEs!

Game 3 Typhon Peeks had me gambling for a win, knowing Jaz's new rain bane strat and knowing how narrow the corridors on Typhon is (cannot split anything), I wanted nothing to do with that. Thinking Jaz would open with ling bling with a 3rd base again, I did a 1gate expo into 6 gate timing attack that would kill such an opener 99% of the time. Ofcourse this build, is quite-allin-ish and hits with relatively no scouting information. As I dashed to his base at around 8 minutes, I was distraught to see roaches and spines. But having the dash to his base catching him slightly off guard (he was supply-capped) I decided to push anyway. As an experienced ZvPer that Jaz is, he immediately pulled drones (drones are absolute fantastic against stalkers btw) and defended off my first wave, giving him enough time for his roaches to hatch. As I went for another attempt, and saw damaged roaches burrow underground, I immediately knew I was hard countered by a 2 base burrowed roach. I sighed, knowing the game was over, tried to attack for abit longer for the hell of it and gg'd out pretty much right after. My gamble has failed .

Immediately after my loss to Jaz, I congratulated my teammate, threw away all my no weakness to opponents crap and asked the man who was sitting next to me - Moonglade himself to help my PvZ. He agreed to help me practice and share some replays with me, and gave me some recommendation on Stargate play (Which I have practiced before the weekend). But as you know, once you get nervous you go back to your old habits and forget your vsing against a live intelligent human being who is trying to outthink you while your too busy worrying about how much your eye hurts or some other crap. Your in a competition, nothing else should matter! I am definitely going to work on my tournament nerves and physical conditioning for future events (lol just realised how retarded that sounded).

As I lost, breaking Protoss hearts all over SEA, I was left cheering on my friends and teammates who were still in the tournament and feeling so much regret and crushed ego (never liked losing in anything). I felt so ridiculously bad, but I knew I had to cheer on my teammates, as Iaguz, someone who should have been invited but wasn't invited to the tournament, whilst putting aside his own ego, has done all along.

The biggest suprise behind Jazbas' dominance during the weekend, was definitely Red Archons emergence in TvT. Having been pegged by many as someone who was going to finish 7th/8th because of his outdated TvT style, he really blew the minds of his terran opponents when he showed up with a mech TvT style and proceeded to outplay both his terran opponents with that style, a truly incredible effort!

Jazbas' dominance in ZvT was no surprise as for those of us who knew how he plays, we knew his style hard counters the style of YYJ and RA, who loves their marine/tank pushes, which Jazbas is so insanely good at cleaning up. Luckily for him he was able to dodge the stronger macro/more passive Terran such as Rossi who I feel has Jaz's style countered. Unfortunately, the final Blizzcon ticket was left between two Xeria teammates dueling it out in a ZvZ. With Mafia not spotting Jaz's lings move out to drop 1-2 to Jaz in the lower bracket finals. Eventually Jaz was able to take one game off his idol Moonglade and grab the second ticket to Blizzcon for the chance to play Class players like Major , and also win enough prize money to purchase this Bass system that he wanted - really really happy for him. Also in this event, we learnt that, MG is still the man to beat in SEA (apart from Tgun ofcourse ), and Zergs are definitely the strongest race in SEA right now.

Ofcourse all of us were quite happy about Team Xeria's performance, myself and Mafia were both pretty shaken/distraught at our individual performances. Before celebrating the end of Blizzcon with drinks that night, I decided to head home to give myself some time to cheer up, clear my head, get over the losses, and get into a happy mood so that I get to party with all my friends and lovely people I met that weekend. That I did, and Sunday night was truly a blast for everyone, everyone was so fun to just hang out and have some drinks with - Even had a good chat with YYJ (never thought that would happen!). Also a pity that this was the first and really last time I got to party with Tom (TAScarecrow), who left for Korea a few days later. (I'm really really stoked to be in that TA groupshot) Thank you Cheeky so much for finding my cross by the way! Oh and before I forget to mention it - To say I absolutely and utterly demolished Thanapol in drinking would be an understatement Round 2 Thailand baby, bring it! ^^

Thank you to Zie, and Blizzard for making such a wonderful event possible, especially in my own city. Was a really wonderful move and hope we can do something similar in the future. SEA E-Sports continues to grow because of you!


Me + Zie (Honourary TA) and TA!



Team Xeria! Wheres Chris?


Everyone!

Part 2 - Patch 1.4 & Preparations to go Melbourne + Brisbane! Coming very soon

Quick shoutouts to our Sponsors - Kingston Technology , for being so awesome and allowing us to be our team that we want to be. To V Energy drinks, which will always be available to team Xeria for that extra energy boost we need at LAN events. And to City Hunter Internet Cafe, a cafe we can call home.


Signing out,

Rayray 'Light'
Xeria Gaming