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ACL was awesome again, i had so much fun and ill be sure to attend the next one. My ACL experience was good, the tournament aspect went really well and I had no issues as to how it was run, I even think that the way the group players went into the championship bracket was an improvement (Baldie was trial running a new format). I did find the venue a bit cold at some points and it was a bit of a mission the get the hands going at the start of the days.

Friday
I had quite an early flight, which involved me waking up at about 4:30 am for a 7:35am international flight. My flight landed early in Sydney so i was a bit worried that i would have trouble meeting up with Hayden (Wally) and Anthony (Tony), but the airport layout in Syd is a bit silly so it took a good 30 minutes from landing to actually stepping into the terminal and then i also had to clear customs. So i arrived at the arrange meeting point, Maccas obviously, and I saw Hayden and Anthony just sitting down, so it timed out nicely. Lawrence (Law) was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and from there we went to a net cafe to "practice" we probably did more talking that practicing though, it was a good time.



After some fun there we headed back to Lawrence's house and later on in the evening he picked up Domo and Ryan, we played some Smash Bros Melee, talked and just had a good time. Then pox and i headed for the trains (THEY HAVE DOUBLE DECKER CHOO CHOOS) for the ride back to the hotel.
The hotel was a bit of a mission, the booking was done online and i had believed it was paid for, but upon arrival i was told that they only held the card in guarantee and were expecting a payment upon check in. shit. well luckily i had enough Aus money to give the dude to cover the first night. once in the room we discovered there was only one bed! We didn't let this phase us, i called Alicia and told her the hotel situation and she got it sorted in a timely fashion and told me i was to be refunded my money the next time i went to reception, seemingly the hotel was sorted . (im just gonna go through the whole hotel story now rather than keep coming back to it) The second morning i went to the reception and there was a different person who told me that even though there was a payment made via paypal we would still be expected to pay for Saturday and Sunday night accom as the hotel wouldn't receive the payment until Monday, after the weekend. I tried my NZ card which was declined, but was told that i could pay when we came back that evening. So i had to go take out 2 nights worth of money to be on the safe side, that incurred about $40 NZD of fees but i was fine with being on the safe side. Upon returning to the hotel the dude at reception that had spoken to my manager told me that there was a miscommunication with the staff and that it WAS all sorted and he refunded my first nights fee and that was that. Pox and I then settled in for the night. Sorted... Then our door opened, some random person walked in, they had double booked our room T.T that was more of a laugh than anything else though as they just went back to reception and go sorted.


DOUBLE DECKER CHOO CHOOS MAN~!

Saturday
Pox and I woke up and about 8am and headed to the venue at about 8:30, we were staying pretty close so we just talked. we got there a little early and were in the venue as soon as they let us. They were a little late to start but as soon as the opening address was over we went to have a look at the open bracket and then start playing our matches. I was pretty stoked to find that in the two open brackets i had managed to get some legendary #Seeding and was in the bracket without NXZ or Alopex, i was then extremely confident in making it out of the open bracket. I had to play Pidgeon in the round one of my open bracket, i had talk to Johnny (Alopex) and had been told that he wasn't practicing much and wasn't very confident. We played on stage and after some delays we were under way. The series was an absolute train wreck for me and i was so thankful that i scrapped through with the 2-1 win, game 1 i was caught out by the fake third that he was enjoying using on coda and had pumped out 20 or so drones onto my third before i realized what was happening and i was just rolled by the push. Game 2, i decided that a 13/12 would be my choice, i quite like the aggressive play that this build offers vs protoss and if they don't know how to deal with it, it can be deadly. I feel that I was extremely lucky in this game as he went for a full wall on echo to try to stop my ling attack, if his pylon placement had been better he would have managed to wall before my lings got there, but i managed to sneak the win. Game 3 was nerves getting to me i think, he went for the San 4 gate which i had scouted pretty early on, it was the decider match of my first bo3 and we were on stage, i didnt want to lose to this zealot attack so i completely over reacted, made 4 spines and 3 queens while flooding lings, he kept warping in zealots but never attacked soon i knew that i had put myself very far behind but i didn't give up and somehow managed to take the game to the mid/later stages of the game and took a really good fight with roach hydra viper vs archon immortal storm, with the help of some poor micro and storms from pidgeon i was able to unlose game 3 and move on. I managed to win the rest of my OB with 2-0 scores to come out first giving me my first choice of groups.

I had decided on going into the group with Law, Azure and Eddie. I felt that this group was a nice pick given that Enderr was unable to attend, in the end the group was Law, Azure, Eddie, Pidgeon, Dragonite/Starlight and myself. a group that i was feeling good about advancing from. i only managed to play 3 games of my groups on the Saturday, first i played Eddie. I managed to take this set 2-0, though i felt that Eddie played really well in game one and at one point i thought that i may lose the match to his blink stalker aggression! Then i had to play Lawrence, no matter the outcome of this i was gonna be sad, because he had lost to pidgeon 0-2 in the group so if i beat Lawrence here his chances of group stages were almost gone. We played ZvZ how it was intended to be played cheese every game, i managed to win the 2-1 after being up 1-0 and then getting outskilled completely by Lawrence's 9 pool vs my 15 pool X.x My last match of day 1 was to be a rematch vs pidgeon, by this point i felt that i was hitting my stride and was feeling confident even though he had managed to go 6-0 in groups thus far. We played and i took what i felt was a solid and decisive 2-0 victory, putting me first in the group with a 6-1 map score, that was it for day one. My group had finished early and i was feeling good about advancing first in my groups having only to play azure and Dragonite (who i had 2-0'd in the OB). i spent the rest of the day cheering on my mates and talking people! i even met J-J-Juno for the first time

Based Hayden playing in groups!


Sunday
Baldie had told us to be set up and ready to play by 9am so Pox and i left the hotel a little early and were ready to go by 9am. First up i was playing azure, i felt good going into the series, but i would lose game 1 and the series 1- 2. My play was not the best i and made some mistakes, this was a disappointing loss but i wasn't too fussed as i had prepared for the ZvZs to come and it wouldn't stop me from making it out of groups as long as i beat dragonite. I then played Dragonite and took a quick 2-0. this would make my final group score 9-3 and have me advancing in first place which kept me safe from playing vs KingKong, Alopex and Wally who all got first in their groups also. I spend more time enjoying the event and talking to people as I waited for other groups to finish. I even tried my Selfy game over the whole weekend

Lawrence and I on the way to the net cafe


Pox and I


Hayden was harder to capture as he would always cover his face.


He agreed to some in the end of the weekend



Sadly i didn't get Selfies with Domo or Ryan :'( but i got some photos of the kids in action!





Then the Championship Bracket was about to start! I saw my bracket and i was very happy, i had to play Pidgeon for third third time in first round who i was 4-1 against so far this weekend so i felt good! and to make things better there was no KingKong, NXZ or Alopex on my side of the winner bracket !!! couldn't have asked for a better bracket. But my play wasn't where i would have liked it to have been and mistakes were made.
Baldie had asked if i would like to play on stage, which i agreed to but pidgeon didn't want to so we played off stage. I was ready for the match and was feeling good about winning. Game 1 was a little crazy it ended up going for 40min i was on 6 base zerg with 2 mining bases left while pidgeon was only on 4 nexus all mined out on Coda. i had a nice army concave in the center of the map and was on the watch tower with about 6 infestors, i managed to see 6 or so Full energy high templars on the top of the ramp he was sitting on in the center 4th base of coda, i went for the fungal and it was money. i chained down all the Templar and took minimal damage, he had decided that it was time to pull probes at this point. I didn't think he would come down the center ramp knowing that i had lots of fungal energy, so when he pushed down the ramp my reaction was too slow and he was on top of my army and i had missed my chance to chain fungal him on the ramp, disaster, the fight was bad for me and i tried to run around and get more units from my 2 bases but it wasn't enough. I went down 0 - 1, i moved onto game two and was surprisingly calm, i knew that i could've won that game if i made less mistakes so i decided to stay calm and just go into the second game and play my game. i felt this game 2 was a clean straight up win and would make the score 1-1. Game 3, i decided to 13/12 on iron fortress, this was a questionable decision that i regret now, i had already don this to him in both of our prior series and once on this map before. He didnt play at all greedy and i was unable to do the damage that i needed and would fall down to lose the set 1 - 2. this was disappointing but i felt that i could still reach a top 4 finish which was my goal.
Then came Pox in the LB round 1, the player that i had practiced with the most in the lead up to this ACL, the mind games were real. So i just went in with a dirty 9 pool and did some damage, the game went on and i managed to keep my lead and win. game 2 was a filthy 10p bane.... need i say more. I'm sorry pox i love you
NXZ was my next opponent, he had beaten KingKong and then lost to Alopex, i wasnt feeling great but i knew that i could win. I attempted to play gasless in both games, game 1 was unprepared for a ling bane all in, i had even skipped spine crawler, and just died to an effective attack. Game 2, i decided i would give the gasless another go, i managed to gain what i thought was a lead, killing his third base and then going up the nat and seeing spines, i realized it was muta.. my heart sank a little because i knew that my build wasn't the greatest vs muta and that i was pretty useless using the gasless opener to defend vs the mutas. i ended up losing my third while he retook and redroned his. I tried a last ditch nydus effort but it was easily stopped and i was out of the tournament 0-2 to NXZ in 5/6th place.
Over all i was pleased that i made top 6 but i felt that with the bracket the #seeding gods blessed me with i could have achieved a better result. Having yet to beat Ryan on LAN i hope that next ACL i am able to play him again~!
The two people who killed me in champ bracket were 1st and 2nd so i guess that's one way of looking at it, and my 5-3 map score vs Pidgeon over the 2 days.
It was a blast, and the people are awesome i would go again without a second thought.

We ended the day crowning Pidgeon the ACL champ and NXZ runner up. Then it was off to KR BBQ



After this it was time to say goodbye to lots of friends, old and new :L Until next time !

Monday
The day after, i was feeling good about the event and was happy for Ryan and Alopex doing so well, also i got to share 5th place with my brother Hayden and was able take home the highest placing Kiwi of the tournament (probably for the last time).
I met up with Chase, MiLes and Crimson for some brunch and then we headed to a net cafe for a few hours where we met Lawrence. We had a good time and then Miles and chase had to catch a flight so we said goodbye, and then Lawrence kindly offered to drive Ben and i to the airport as we had the same flight. Props to Lawrence for putting up 3 people in his house and driving us to and from the airport and wherever we needed to go! Thanks heaps, maybe one day i can return the favour (Wellington Lan?).

It was nearing the end of the journey, but i still had heaps of fun even on the flight home with Ben, and he hooked me up to the sweet internet in the terminal.

my internet savior


in the customs line i snuck a selfy


The tetris battle on the plane was real when Ben discovered that you could play multiplayer and compete for high scores on the plane.



Maybe next time ben will get on the score board

All in all i had an amazing time, i met lots of new people and saw old friends that i missed. Thanks to Baldie and ACL for running another great event! Thanks to everyone for coming and being a part of it, especially the kids and the kiwis. Thanks to my Team Vox Eminor for giving me the opportunity to go and compete and to Alicia and Richard for sorting out any problems i had and for looking out for me!

See you all at the next one!