Wooooo!! Just qualified for WCS EU!!! I havent wrote here in a little while besides announcing when I stream, but today is a big day, and it reminded me of a time long, long ago in which Id love to share with you! The WCS qualifiers consisted of 3 256 man brackets, single elim bo3, if you fail once, you can try again. The first day, I played vs a French player named Psionic, I knew very little about this player, and with no shame at all he played very impressively and beat me 2-1. I unfortunately had a poor choice on builds and fell victim to this young lad. In between the games he was obviously nervous, and I tried to give him advice on how to stay calm. While probably not a smart idea against an opponent, trying to help him out I mean, I didnt want him to lose if he didnt deserve to. After looking back on why I lost, and seeing friends and colleagues moving up the brackets, the amount of big names making it was really inspiring. The big names also falling victim to maybe not reaching where I thought they would in the bracket also proved that nerves were a bigger player in the tournament than I initially anticipated. Keeping that in mind, I went into the next day with a new game plan. Rather than playing my normal macro orientated style, I thought about rather than playing the game, I should play the situation. I went to bed with these thoughts in mind, and felt content despite the early exit from the tournament. The next day, after signing up and checking in the brackets were released. I saw multiple familiar names in my grid including the likes of Ret, Socke, Tod, Dimaga, Krolu and stephano. Ret and I as good mates destined to meet in round 4 if things go well saw that and spoke on skype a little, and had a friendly banter about seeing each other in round 4. Although a bunch of names I havent really seen too much of before, no game was easy. Its really nice to see so many names Ive never played against before (Knowingly) rise to the occasion. Lots of upsets were had, and multiple big names were dropped out of each qualifier making the end results less predictable than youd think. With the new strategy in mind, I went into each game playing majorly aggressive. Hardcore aggressive builds, cheese builds, you name it. There wasnt a series where I didnt cheese the crap out of my opponent really, and the games against ret were no exception. I started to feel pretty confident about how I was playing. After Ret, I thought Id be playing the winner of ToD or socke, both of those names dropped out to players less known, but obviously very skilled. I went onto win the next match pretty closely, and then saw I was vs DIMAGA, my old teammate and practice partner or my current teammate Stephano, my slightly newer practice partner :). I honestly would have preferred DIMAGA. Stephano and I have been 50:50 recently and hes exceptionally smart when it comes to adapting to new play. DIMAGA I havent played against in a while, and I know that If I threw everything at him, hard he may have been in trouble. Fortunately/unfortunately, Stephano made it through, after a pretty tight series, he beat me in the final of our bracket. WP to him. The final qualifier day, I knew what went wrong, looked at my grid and saw multiple names in which I knew would be tough. I respected every opponent and chose to play like a Maverick. I would treat each game as if I had nothing to lose. Seeing names in my grid like Harstem and Tefel drop early left me feeling confident, but also at the same time wary of the foes that did so to them, such as Dana and Lambo. Theres so many names I havent seen since Ive been away in America that have all improved so much, its nice to see the European scene is pretty dense when it comes to talent. I ended up getting to the final of my bracket again against Dana who just eliminated Tefel, and cheesed him out 2-0. Im still ecstatic. The reason I wanted to talk about this so in detail, was because it reminded me of something that happened a long, long time ago, and is all too similar to not share. Upon Starcraft 2s release in beta, the only tournament available was Zotac. Pro players would meet on the ladder without barcodes, statistics would be measured and whom was the best wasnt settled until someone won a tournament. Before Koreans got involved, the real war back then was Starcraft BW players vs Warcraft 3 players, and whom ever else got involved. I remember not taking the game too seriously originally, but fell in love with it almost instantly. With that being said, I fell so in love with it that I was scared if I did poorly at it and had bad stats for all those to see, so upon making my first account, I named myself GladHeAteHer, and kept it private from anyone. The first zotac came up -- I was so excited about doing well! I had great stats on the ladder and felt like I transitioned to the new game exceedingly well, only to meet Jinro in the first round and I lost 1-0 on a map called Desert Oasis where he built a tank and killed my gases. He apologized after winning (Nice guy Jinro even from the start) And went on. I came downstairs and told my parents about my early exit, in which my father wasnt the most pleased man in the world, and sort of told me I should really consider the casting job I got offered. I thought about it hard, but really wanted another shot. Upon the 2nd zotac, I managed to get past the first few rounds easily into the bo3 stage. I started meeting players whom I knew were good, still under my hidden alias. I managed to get to the final of the 512 tournament against a very familiar face: DIMAGA. Unfortunately he was really good and I lost 1-3. The game was so mysterious back then, that anything we did was New and possibly revolutionary. I went back downstairs to tell my parents of where I got, and they were stoked. Zotac was all I wanted, and the next week was no different. I signed up again to the 3rd zotac and announced that I was in fact DeMusliM. I managed to clamber my way up to the final again, and low and behold, DIMAGA busted his way through every opponent he had with ease. Lucifron fell, Jinro fell, multiple big names died to his 1 base baneling bust. I remember having the advantage of knowing that THAT was his strat of the tournament. Its a great advantage knowing what your opponent is likely to do, and I abused that to great effect. The first game I walled off my choke with Barracks and factories, not depots, his bust came and did nothing, in which I took an early lead and went on to win the game. As the series went on, we both adapted. Id be taking my natural with a CC first and engi pay into PF (was on steppes of war if you remember that beauty!) and went on again to win. The series itself full of adaptation and switching of strategies, but I managed to win my 3rd zotac after failing in the first round the first time, getting to the finals the 2nd time, and winning the 3rd. Im so happy to have won in almost the exact same fashion as the way I started my career basically, and Im so nostalgic with how similar the situation has been. Ive not been as good as I want to be for a while, and I think a huge part that was missing was confidence. Given this is how I started my career back then before I suffered multiple breaks to my arm, I want to treat this whole thing a new, and fresh and come into my return to Europe as good as I can. :) Thank you to everyone who cheered for and against me, you both gave me something to fight for. Thank you :).
Posted on: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 21:37:49 +0000
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