EPTMy name is Nick, I'm 18 and a senior in high school. My name, The Fourn, is a play on my last name. I am Greek, my last name is difficult to say and the first five letters are "Fourn". It has been a nick name over the years too with many variations and jokes (The Fournicater, Horny 4 Fournie, and "the Fourn") I've been a gamer my entire life and always took up the opportunity to play as much as possible. I first glimpsed the gaming giant that is Starcraft at my grandparents house. My uncle, who is crippled and in a wheelchair, runs his business from his parents house since he cannot live on his own. He had Starcraft installed on his computer and my cousin was playing. As I watched, I had no idea what was going on. I remember, however, that he was playing the Terran campaign mission where you have to kill the Brown and Orange terran forces on the space platform and you have Edmund Duke as a hero. There were marines, tanks, nukes, and large space ships. At the the time I was 8 years old, the year was 2000 and I was hooked.
A month later (not accurate, but shortly after seeing my cousin play) I got my copy and tried beating campaign. I got to the mission where you have to save the Norad II and could progress no further, then I discovered cheat codes. I beat all 3 campaigns in outstanding fashion, massing 200/200 armies and steam rolling the map. I was 8/9, and did not care much for the story. I would also play custom games against 7 computers FFA-style and use cheats. I would play as terran and would turtle the entire game with a 200/200 and use black sheep wall and just watch what the computers did. It was fun, spent countless hours in the Green Valleys. However, being young, I did not care for what "esports" were and didnt know they existed, so it was on to a new game a few months later.
Fast forward 5 years, I'm 14 and discovered the wonder of online play. I don't remember what my username was, but i only played 2 matches. They were both ladder games and I went 2-0. I have no idea how I won, but I did. Words like "gl, hf, gg, ds ka" had no meaning to me, yet I won my first 2 games online ever. I felt like a king, and would flaunt my rating and record but feared playing ladder again and did not want to ruin my record. Then i discovered UMS.
On and off, from 2005 up to the release of SCII all I played was UMS. I loved starcraft for this reason, the amount of different games I could play had me hooked on the series. I made occasional occurences into actual matches, but only on NRmm zero clutter maps, since the idea of getting a 200/200 army was fun to me and I could not do that on Lost Temple since I was absolutely horrible at Starcraft.
The idea of competitive gaming did not cross my mind until I began playing some console games (namely Halo 2 and 3). I competed in MLG for both games, never made a name for myself though. My Halo 3 career came to a close about a month before SCII came out, and thats when things got exciting.
I reserved SCII back in 2008 since I loved the game.
About 2 months before the game came out I realized I did not know the story for Starcraft and had not legitimately beat the campaign, ever. I knew keypoints such as
+ Show Spoiler +
Tassadar killing the overmind, Kerrigan becoming the queen of blades and dominating the galaxy, the hidden Duran hybrid mission.
So, I started with the original Starcraft, terran mission 1 and over the next few weeks fell in love with one of the best video game stories I have ever witnessed (and I have played A LOT of games). My most favorite moment in the series, well two actually. + Show Spoiler +
Tassadar killing the overmind, so so so so so so so so *nerdgasm* epic. Also the speech Raynor gives after Kerrigan kills Fenix (my favorite character in the series)
So now, in the weeks leading up to release. I started watching some games casted by Crota, some of you might know him. I was aware of things called build orders, even though i played mainly UMS games and watched A LOT of games. So when the game was released I had a basic, rudimentary understanding of 1v1. I saw names like TLO, Huk, and a few others being casted by Crota and that was my introduction to the true e-sports I guess.
July 27th, 2010 - I woke up at 9 AM to go to the mall to get my copy of SCII. My laptop sucks, so it took me a while to configure all the settings so it could run SCII well on the lowest possible graphic settings. I beat the campaign in a few days then set my sights on the ladder. I played 10 practice matches and steam rolled all of my opponents. The first two games were tough, but then I realized that if I just rush air units, I could win easily since most bases were protected by destructable rocks so I didn't have to worry about early ground attacks. I thought I was the man, and watching Crota really paid off.
Then I played placement matches, and I was in for a rude awakening. I won 1 of my placement matches and got put into bronze, steam rolled in the 4 other games. I was battered, broken, and figured I could just return to being a UMS player. But alas, SCII's UMS games just didn't really seem that fun. They're different, in a bad way for me.
So I started playing more 1v1. A lot of 1v1. I had a long way to go and my journey over these past months has been interesting. I started playing, losing, and learning. I began memorizing build orders for each race and would just count on crushing my opponent through sheer numbers rather than actual strategy. I played random always and began winning a lot of games in a row. Before I knew it, I was silver. Silver was tougher, a lot of cheese strats and better players. I switched exclusively to zerg and I managed to triumph into gold, where I almost stopped playing.
Gold was difficult for me at first, there were a wider variety of skill levels and strategies. I would find myself losing to earlier reapers, mass MMM balls, banshees, proxy gateways, and just shit I couldn't learn to deal with on my own. I had been adapting to what my opponents did and had just been countering trends i noticed in my unskilled opponents. In gold, I had no idea what I was doing and won a few games but lost a lot more. My winning percentage was slowly approaching below .500 and I did not want that embarassment.
I sought outside help. Shoutcasters, battle.net forums, etc.
Then one day, I happened to come across a youtube page of some guy you might have heard of, the one and only Day[9].
What an extraordinary human being and gamer he is. I could write a 100 page paper about why this man should run the United States and why everyone should watch his streams. He would just say things and I would be like....wow why don't I do that? Then I would go into a game, do it, and win with relative ease. I began using hotkeys now as well, expanding semi-intelligently, optimizing my builder orders, scouting and knowing what the info I gathered through scouting meant.
In addition, I watched all the games posted by PsyStarcraft on youtube, since I was zerg after all. I watched all the Morrow vs. Idra IEM games and switched to terran for a bit to exploit the imba 5 rax reaper build but found little success and won about 50% of the games I did it in.
I switched to Protoss, IDK why but I did. Playing as zerg for a long time definitely improved myself as a player (again IDK why). As protoss, I began to win an absurd amount of games and began using creative variations of standard builds. I did not use VRs though :D. After watching countless dailys and winning a shit ton of matches, I made it into plat.
I remember my first platinum game and knew the level of competition was going to be much much greater. It was a PvZ on Kulas Ravine. I destroyed the main of my enemy zerg player and he said gg. Before I know it however, there was a large muta/roach army crushing the remnants of my army since I stopped production. I went to produce more units, then realized my main was mined out and I did not expand. I then understood the emphasis day[9] put on how to hold on to and build upon a lead and how to not let your opponent catch back up. I destroyed the guys main, and still lost. How embarassing.
I continued playing, watching dailys, and moving up in the ranks of platinum. As a protoss, I made it to rank 1 in my division with my XP at about 950. Then I stopped playing for almost a month.
Throughout that month, however, I did not miss a single day[9] daily. I kept myself up to date on the new patch, new strats, and even kept myself up to date on esports. I did not play a single game however. I decided it was fear of losing in a 1v1, the pressure was too much for me even though I loved SCII.
Then I watched day[9] daily 100, and the next day I played. After losing 5-6 (maybe even 7) games in a row I won (against a gold player >.<). Daily 100 gave me the motivation I needed to not give up on Starcraft and to try to accomplish my dream of becoming a professional gamer. I don't play nearly as much as I should if I hope to ever reach that goal. I beat diamond players (low diamond players however) on a regular basis but I am still in plat. I made it past 1400 ranking the other day, a huge accomplishment for me. My win % is pretty good and I hope to make the jump to diamond soon. That level of competition will help me once again improve my game and learn new things.
I play exclusively random now. Terran is my weakest race even though I feel the way I play with them is my most creative style of the 3 races. Zerg and Toss are tied for my strongest races. I hope to one day be able to compete with the likes of Huk and TLO, whether at a LAN or in some online tournament. I understand that I need to improve and do everything I can to do so, but my social life tends to get in the way as well as other priorities.
I'll update this blog with news of my quest to become a diamond player and after that my quest to become top 200 (lol). It may take years to do so but I feel I can accomplish it. I understand this game and the way to play and could definitely make it if I put my heart and soul into it.
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