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Well, it's 9:30AM and I've just arrived back home in Melbourne. So let's rewind 30 hours!

So. It's Saturday morning. I couldn't get to sleep until like 11:30PM. With just over 4 hours sleep, I find myself waking up at 3:45AM and walking straight to the fridge to plow through my first Red Bull for the day whilst getting ready to take a taxi to the Melbourne Airport. For some crazy reason my girlfriend insisted on getting out of bed to drive me to the airport. I was fine with getting a cab, but she's awesome.

I destroy a 2nd Red Bull in the car on the way to the airport, arriving just after 5:00AM, with a 5:40AM scheduled boarding and 6:00AM departure. Be mindful that this booking was made when the event was supposed to kick off at 10:00AM. Had I known they were going to push it back to a 3:00PM start, I would have gladly taken a later flight! But oh well.

I land in Sydney at around 8:00AM, and I do a bit of wandering around aimlessly while I wait for Andy ( mOOnGLaDe) to fly in from Brisbane. I sit around at his gate for 20 minutes or so before I get bored and take my phone out of my pocket. I swear to god, the moment I load up Facebook, he nearly walks right past me! Worst. Welcome. Ever.

So we make out for a while during our romantic taxi drive to Chatswood. (As a funny twist, when I was planning our journey the night before, I happened to notice there were two suburbs in Sydney named "Gladesville" and "Kellyville"!) We arrive at the CityHunter Chatswood store at around 9:30AM, and march on up the stairs, expecting waves of screaming fangirls to throw themselves at Andy. Nope. They just look at us and say, "SC2? Go back outside and wait until 10:00AM. Someone will come and talk to you." Don't you guys know who this is!? It's mo'fkn mOOnGLaDe! Jeez.
Yet another. Worst. Welcome. Ever.

So Andy & I decide to go exploring around this mystical land of Chatting Wood in search of more Red Bull. He buys me two bottles to get me through the rest of the morning (thanks champ ) and attempts to revive an ancient pre-tournament tradition by purchasing a Lime Milkshake from Michel's Patisserie. But hey, guess what. "Sorry mOOnGLaDe. You're really good at Zerg, but we don't have lime."

We were beginning to see the signs. No warm welcomes, no admittance to the venue and no lime milkshakes. The event was still 5 hours away, and the day had already gone from bad to worse.

Andy, deL and I wandered off to get some lunch before the event began and had some pretty good chats! Much love.

Fast forward to 3:00PM, Andy was mobbed by a dozen or so fanboy HoN players and a cute blonde camera girl (Jelly Kelly?) before the tournament area started filling up with SC2 players. The tournament administrator introduced himself as "Rocky" and did a pretty good job of getting things rolling. Before I continue - I'd like to say something. I think I speak for everyone who participated when I say the event was extremely well run. Like any event, it didn't start at the scheduled time, but hey, it's eSports, we're used to delays. The structure, flow and co-operation was absolutely STELLAR though. I remember iaguz walking over to GLaDe and saying, "They hadn't selected any maps for the tournament yet, so we came up with these 7." And that was that, we had ourselves a solid, balanced map pool. Not only that, but players were seeded based on their ladder ranking (ie. GrandMaster League).

I spammed the channel with the brackets URL as 32 participants eagerly spammed F5 in anticipation. Once the brackets were published, games were announced and players began lining up their matches. Except there was one problem. When you have a double elimination event starting at 3:30PM+, it's natural to try and trim back some of the rounds to try and finish the event at a reasonable hour. So Rocky decided to make it "best of 1 until the top 10, then best of 3." I wasn't satisfied with those implications so I got up from my chair, pushed through the crowd and asked him if he'd reconsider. I explained that a best of 1 for a qualifier of this scale would severely damage the integrity of the event, and insisted that if the event went too late, he could leave and I'd continue running the event in his absence. He agreed, so I returned to my seat and announced that the entire event was Best of 3. I think everyone was extremely pleased! Again, it was so great to see such strong co-operation.

So the tournament kicked off and several players proceeded to advance through to the second and third rounds, whilst I wandered around aimlessly trying to find my opponent, "cTsanti". As always, I suffered the tournament curse and found myself in a round 1 Terran mirror. However after 90 minutes of waiting for him, Rocky received a call from Santi saying he was 5 minutes away. Awesome! My first game would start before 5:00PM.

So we're on GSL Crevasse. This was my first time ever playing the map, but I felt confident in opening with a 1-Rax Expand into 1/1/1 to keep my early-game options open. I scouted his base with a Reaper and managed to abuse the Terrain of his in-base natural to pick off quite a few SCV's and marines... I think maybe 7 kills or something before the Reaper fell? And I also scouted a Starport with a Tech Lab. Aware of this possibility, I prepared a Reactor on my Factory whilst my Starport was being constructed, so I was able to get two Vikings out and destroy his cloaked Banshee before it could get anywhere near my mineral line. I took a quick 3rd and started powering mass infantry whilst maintaining a strong map presence with tanks being produced off one Factory. The plan was to prevent him from ever taking a 3rd and to do as much damage as possible with drop play whilst continuing to expand across the map. But, as always, I tend to get easily distracted and impatient in TvT, and found myself throwing 100 supply of infantry into a wall of tanks, hoping that I might somehow come out on top. I didn't. Santi immediately picked up his army and pushed on towards my 3rd, whilst I researched a Nuke for my freshly trained Ghosts. I produce enough Marauders from 8+ barracks whilst taking a 4th, that I figure if I can force him to unsiege with a cancelled Nuke, then run in with stimmed Marauders, I can take out every single tank. But it seems Santi was looking at his mineral lines for the Red Dot, because his army was too slow to avoid the nuke, and I capitalised by streaming units across the map and hitting his 3rd/production before he could recover. 1-0 to Dox! (Download Replay)

Game 2 was on Tal'Darim Altar. At this stage, most of the event was being held up in the 3rd+ rounds whilst my 1st round was still going. I commented to Andy that on Tal'Darim, you really don't have any choices besides Tank/Marine/Viking and aggressive elevator play to pressure the natural whilst dropping the main. Nonetheless, I decide to break the rules and go for a quick Cloaked Banshee rush, whilst expanding and poking with Hellions. My 2 Banshees just arrive, and I can see that his Orbital is on 7 energy... Cloak has finished researching... and then... - WAITING FOR PLAYER -

Santi's computer crashes. 20 minutes later, he's back online with his personal settings restored and ready for the rematch. I say to Andy, "Hope he didn't look at the match history 'cos I'm gonna do the exact same build." And I did. At around the 8 minute mark, I noticed he'd made no attempt to scout the Xel'Naga watch towers between our bases, and I knew this meant only one thing. A Hellion/Marine or Blue Flame drop was about to happen. My star sense kicked in and I moved my banshee to the exact spot his units were unloading and managed to keep them busy long enough for my marines and hellion to clean up. The banshee escaped with ~4HP and dealt SO much damage to him with a counter-attack. I think I lost 1 SCV compared to his ~1500 minerals worth of Medivac/Marines/Hellions/Tanks. I cleanly took a 3rd, tripled my production facilities and contained him in his natural. The gg came within minutes and I (finally!) advanced to the next round, 2-0. (Download Replay) I consume my 5th Red Bull at this point.

It was at this stage that I ran around frantically gathering results, interviews and predictions before updating SC2SEA/Twitter and moving on to the next round. My next opponent was INTIME.ScareCrow. I can't quite remember the first game, but it went something like this: I tried to 2-rax pressure into an expansion, but he was 4-gating. He had more than enough to hold my attack and push me back across the map. My macro was sloppy and I spent the rest of the game trying to catch up on workers. Easy win for him! Game 2 was on Terminus. My first time on this map, too! I went for a 1-rax expand and he looked to be 4-gating again. I held his pressure with a few bunkers whilst teching to all sorts of stuff. Mass infantry with Blue Flame Hellions, Ghosts and Vikings. He nullified a few of my drops with well-placed High Templar, and when it came to the big engagements, my Viking or Ghost count was always too low. I choked at the end of the game by cloaking all of my ghosts prior to the final engagement and as a result - not having enough energy for EMP. His Templar rolled in with full energy and cleaned up. I congratulated him on his victory - reminding him that his next opponent was Andy. Sucker!

My next opponent was pokerface. I knew all I needed to know - he was a 1200 GrandMaster Zerg with more wins than I have games played. There was no way I was going to make it to the next round. Satisfied with actually winning a Terran mirror for once, I went into the first game in macro mode. 1 rax FE gets countered by Baneling Bust. I couldn't recover from there. I acknowledged that I wouldn't be able to beat this guy even if he accidentally targeted his own Lair with all his Banelings, so I decided to do a REALLY BAD SCV/Marine all-in on XNC. Suffice to say, I've never been a fan of cheese/all-in builds in any RTS game, and as a result, I don't really know how to execute them. It showed in this game, as I lost all of my SCV's before the marines even arrived. I congratulated him on the win and wished him the best of luck in the next round. And then I got started with something I'm actually good at! Coverage.

I spend the rest of the evening ensuring that commentators get games, hijacking peoples computers and stealing their replays, interviewing players and noting their predictions, taking photos, videos, and having some good chats with awesome people like Light, FrOsT, Dippa, Benji, iaguz, Rossi, RiiChard, PiG, and so many more!
Andy drops a game to nGen.MaFia on Tal'Darim Altar and I asked him what happened. "I tried an all-in that never works. It didn't work!" He went back to playing standard on the next map, and well, the rest is history.

The loser bracket is only half complete by the time the winner bracket final is over, so Andy, Dave (OneHand) and I decide to go and get some dinner. I can't remember the name of the place we went to, but oh my GOD! Best burger and chips ever! Excellent recommendation Dave. We sit around and reminisce about WarCraft 3 for an hour or so before snapping back to reality and realising not much has changed. Andy is still the king of Australian RTS.

We return to the venue at 9PM to see 2 rounds of the loser bracket has progressed, and people mock the size of my gelati cup. C'mon now. It's not the size of the cup that matters. It's uh... How you use... the spoon? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So we reach 9PM and the home stretch is before us. mOOnGLaDe is standing at the top of the Grand Final with YYJ, iaguz and MaFia slugging it out with eachother for the next 3 hours to determine prizes. All of these players are relieved to know they managed to qualify for the grand finals, so the only thing on the line here is more money/prizes. We see manner mule drops, amazing comebacks and incredible reactions from all 3 players, but most importantly, we see iaguz breathe a sigh of relief after every game as he manages to turn pending defeat into determined victory.

I sit down at MaFia's computer to steal his replays to discover that he has played over 17 tournament games in a single day!

As most of the spectators temporarily depart to grab dinner, iaguz and mOOnGLaDe begin their first game on GSL Crevasse. I set up a spectator computer off to the side as not to disturb the players with a crowd of spectators, whilst PiG and I analyse the game in real-time and stare with awe at the sheer macro power of iaguz. It's no surprise that he took this first map from GLaDe in the grand finals - his presence on the map was fearsome.

Game two begins on MLG Metalopolis, and iaguz hits GLaDe early with a bit of SCV/Marine pressure, but unfortunately loses ~350 minerals worth of units whilst only managing to kill 3 Zerglings. He puts down a 3rd Rax whilst trying to secure an expansion, whilst GLaDe hits him hard with a huge Baneling bust. With nowhere to run, iaguz loses up to 30 SCV's in a single gooey green explosion. There wasn't a single person in the room who didn't gasp at the sight! Yet, somehow the Gimli Terran managed to bring himself back into the game with some pretty commanding play as he gradually pushed further across the map. GLaDe corrected all of his mistakes from the previous game - getting a 2nd Evolution Chamber and churning out his melee/armor/Mutalisk upgrades. We see an Infestor Pit go down, but before GLaDe has a chance to use it, iaguz is knocking on his front door with 180 supply worth of Tanks, Marines, Medivacs and Thors. I'm not sure if iaguz was building a depot or dropping a MULE at this stage, because GLaDe managed to sweep in with all of the Banelings and melt away 80 supply of clumped up units within fractions of a second, securing him the 2nd game. Feeling the same inevitable sense of defeat that I felt after my first game against pokerface, iaguz decides he's had enough and fakes a 1rax expand into MASS scv/marine all-in. Except there's only one problem. GLaDe is simultaneously Baneling busting with a mixture of 40 Zerglings/Banelings. Before the swarm of SCV's has a chance to wrap their shiny little fusion cuddlers (^o^) around the incoming acid party, iaguz taps out and concludes the WCG Sydney qualifier.

I upload these last few games to my FTP before everyone swiftly departs the venue. It's nearly 1:00AM, and people are tired. GLaDe and I moreso - we've been awake for over 20 hours with 6:00AM flights waiting for us. Dave is kind enough to give Rossi, Light, GLaDe and I a ride back into the city. MUCH LOVE 99~~~!

As myself & Andy approach the hotel entrance, it's quite clear that the concierge is not comfortable with opening the front door of a Sydney city hotel at 1:00AM, and insists I provide as much information as possible before he hesitantly allows us inside. He couldn't hide the smirk on his face as two weary looking guys approach the desk and ask to check in to our room. I fumble with the keycard in the elevator for a good 30 seconds before my tired eyes register that I'm putting it in backwards. We finally reach our room. I walk in. Turn on the light. Oh hey, awesome. They ignored my request for two beds. Even though it says it on my receipt. Whatever. The two of us climb into bed and share a romantic embrace that only Brisbane WC3 players could know.

After the retarded amounts of Red Bull I'd consumed and the numerous awesome games replaying in my head, I wasn't able to get to sleep until around 3:00AM. It was nice to just rest my eyes though. I wake up again at 3:25AM and disable my 3:45 alarm before taking the most depressing shower of my life. Seriously, 25 minutes of sleep after that many hours was just torture. I let Andy sleep in until 4:00AM before waking him, and we venture off into the wild streets of Saturday night Sydney.

On the first street we cross, I see a guy and a girl (dry??) humping up against the wall of a 7-11. Who says romance is dead? Then on the next street, we see two guys and a black woman in a car. The woman gets out of the car and so does the guy in the passenger seat. He starts to shove the woman around and start yelling at her, before she shoves him back into the car. They start getting pretty violent with eachother before Andy and I shuffle on by. Didn't feel like getting stabbed.

Andy later tells me that he saw an Asian girl walking around here with no shoes on.

We arrive at central station and there's like 4 gangs "guarding" the entrance, looking tough, shouting, loitering, whatever gangs do these days. Fortunately they recognise mOOnGLaDe and respect his street cred, so they let us pass without incident.

As we reach the ticket machine, my completely dysfunctional brain struggles to process the necessary transaction steps. After 3 failed attempts, I concede and defer the machine to Andy. He 1A's his way to victory and secures a train ticket. He made it look so damn easy. We walk on up to the train platform, and at the bottom of it we see 2 (~16yo?) girls sprawled out on the ground in short skirts and low cut tops. Clever. Not like it's 5 degrees or anything. And then a bunch of emo boys run past us singing emo songs at the top of their lungs. I doubt they made it past the gangs.

We climb the never-ending staircase to the top of our platform to discover that the 4:48AM train I was planning on catching wasn't actually going to arrive until 5:18AM. So we sit around on the platform for 45 minutes in the freezing cold whilst an old homeless guy with missing teeth parades around the platform delivering speeches more inspiring than presidential candidates. And calling us ungrateful youths destroying the future with our universities instead of shaping it with culture. Or something. He was smelly.

Our train finally arrives and 10 minutes later, we find ourselves at the airport. During the train ride, Andy says he recognises the girl in front of us on the train as the shoeless Asian girl... I tripped approximately 7.93 balls.

Andy & I share one last sweet embrace as I congratulate him and we part ways for our separate flights. I don't really remember what happened after that. I bought a pie, I think I ate it. Then I was on a plane. I was trying to sleep, but I kept doing that (Inception kick) thing where just as you fall asleep, the motion of your limp, falling body brings you back again. When I fly, I always keep my headphones in my ears, even if I'm not listening to music. In this case, the ear buds were just comforting - drowning out the chatter of the other passengers - whilst preventing my ears from popping due to cabin pressure. The next thing I know, some flight attendant jackass is shoving me and ripping my headphones out of my ears, aggressively snarling at me for "listening to my iPod after all electronic devices were supposed to be switched off." I pointed out that he was holding a naked headphone cable in his hand, without any electronic devices attached to it. He grumbled off saying something retarded like, "Well how am I supposed to know? You'll be the one who won't hear us screaming when something goes horribly wrong." Wow bro. WOW.

And now I'm home.

Replays and photos are being uploaded, i'll be editing some of them into this post, and all of them into the original news post. I'll get around to processing the videos (interviews) I recorded later tonight, hopefully. Desperately need sleep. It's midday now. 32 hours. Braindead.

If you ended up reading all of this, you have my deepest sympathy. Sundays must be very boring for you.
P.S. If you want to read more, then check out FrOst's blog, right hurr.

Much love,
Derek / Dox