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In response to eros wanting drama.

It's been a constant theme last year, that even though my results in LANs almost mirror former player "Light" who was worshipped as the SEA Protoss god, I'm severely underrated and not even placed in many top 8 lists that go flying around.

I'm not exactly sure why this is, maybe it's my boasting, maybe it's my ego, I do/have a lot of both. However, since results are what matters, I'm going to talk a little bit about my 2014 and why I think I deserve at least top 5 status.

Online results. None. This is the stain on my resume. It's true that I play in very few weeklies. I have a job, I have university, and I don't have time to play weeklies unfortunately. However, I want to go over why I think online results mean so, so much less than LAN results. I feel like only a full time player might disagree.

Think about a player's mentality before an online tournament, do they practice weeks in advance? Usually not, unless they're full time and are already practising all day every day. Now think about the night before the tournament, are they restless? Maybe a little. Can they sleep? Sure.

Now think about a big event, the biggest events in Australia are no doubt ACLs. 2 weeks before the event everyone gets started, this is serious. Everyone wants to show their best at the LAN. Everyone starts practicing, refining their builds, preparing for specific opponents in their group, making sure that they bring their A-game to the LAN. The night before the ACL starts, not many of us can sleep (Petrify can vouch for the fact that I have trouble sleeping before ACLs, as we literally sat up all night talking about how we can beat our opponents and what builds we should use).

The atmosphere of a LAN is totally different to an Online tournament. People take it more seriously, this is how it will always be.

So yeah, I don't have many Online results, and I don't participate in Online tournaments. Guess what though, I had the HIGHEST "Scalp" points for OSC last year, meaning I beat players who are ranked higher than me more than anyone else did. It's clear that my online results don't reflect my skill level.

So we finally get to the LAN portion, what I consider to be the best way to measure a players skill. This goes back to ACL Melbourne 2013. Why do I mention this specific tournament? Because this tournament was the first time that I was the highest placing protoss player. Since then, at every single following ACL, I have never dropped the title of highest placing Australian/Singapore/New Zealand protoss.

Not only that, but I had consecutive 4th place finishes, first at Brisbane, and then at the largest ACL ever, ACL sydney 2014.

At the last tournament of the year, I placed 2nd, losing only to Pig. SLCN domination cup was a pretty stacked tournament for a non-ACL event. Players were travelling, strong players like MightyKiwi, Alopex, Wally, Pig all travelled from outside of Melbourne. Melbourne also has a very stacked lineup atm, including Probe Rival Petrify Kez Law Fighto Runamok the list goes on...

Calling my first 4th place at ACL a fluke would be fair enough, but nobody stays as consistent as I do in LANs.

So when I'm rated under certain players, and I'm not in top 8 lists, it does hurt. It hurts my pride. It hurts because I put more into this game than most people know, I dropped uni for a year, and even though I worked on the side I still put a lot of time into practicing. I want something to show for the sacrifices I made, and I'm happy with what I've achieved. It doesn't mean much if the community doesn't respect or value me as a player. Players like Enderr, who play literally every single online weekly, of course they get results. They're spamming online weeklies... They're gonna win a few at least. But I feel like I am on that level.

Anyway this wall of text has a purpose. I'm losing interest in SC2, I have even more real life obligations, I have no time to play anymore. Unless LOTV sparks something in me, or I miraculously regain my passion, I probably won't be able to get the same results this year. I'm not saying I'm quitting, I love this game too much and going out and meeting all of you guys is the absolute highlight of my year. It just sucks that even though I got great results last year I'll never be recognised as one of the best of SEA, and I have very little hope that this year will rectify that.