EPTAfter making Master's League I had a few issues, mostly pertaining to my mindset. This always tortured me because I knew that with the knowledge of the game that I possess I could do better than I was, I could make it further and do better. I began to daydream of GSL finals and 4-0ing MVP for 100,000 USD in front of a huge audience.
Ladder anxiety tormented me from going after this dream, even the most even game that I ended up losing would send me into a deep depression and almost instantly tilt me. Not sure if that has gone away or if it will return to manifest itself in the future.
Enough about that, I kept practicing, seeing as I had no taste for ladder at this point I took mostly to practicing with my friends and teammates. There is actually a healthy tournament setting down where I live so during this time frame I entered into 3 local LAN tournaments, the smallest having 35 players and the largest nearly 80 (big stuff for Utah haha)
By the timing of the first tournament I was freshly in Master's League, I had just completed the task and played a handful of the few games I would end up playing overall. This tournament was an interesting thing for me. My team and I were about to become addicted to LAN tournaments.
Myself and about 5 of my friends attended this tournament. I was untested at this point, this tournament would be the true test of my skill and arguably this was when I was in my best shape as a player.
Game one began and I was faced with an easy prospect of taking down a Platinum League Terran player on Xel'Naga Caverns. He attempted to 3 rax and I was going 2 gate robo expand. I spotted the incoming 3 rax plenty early and I crushed it easily as it came with some well placed FFs (no overlap ftw, oGsMC is my hero). I held off the push and transitioned into a normal macro game, I know I could have easily pushed and won the game from there but it was my first tournament game and I wanted to ensure my own victory, after all this was serious business, there were 3 Grand Master players in attendance, ePGimix, SCDPride and ePValkyrie.
I won the game rather easily from his failed attempt at killing me and proceeded to wait between rounds. My friend cOnEnigma had also finished his first game, he had to play a Master's League Protoss named "FruitDealer" (who if I am not mistaken is actually Korean). I walked over to my friend and he looked mad as hell, he had been cannon rushed into the loser's bracket.
My next round opponent was announced and I was playing a Master's league Protoss, my heart began to race, this was the beginning of my struggle, the first real challenge of the tournament.
MLG Metalopolis was where this fateful confrontation would take place. He opened with a 3 stalker rush into 3 gate Robo and I went for the terrifying, the thunderous, the loathsome, 4-Gate all in. His stalkers failed to find anything I put down and I warped in right on his doorstep, finding that his warpgates were not finished and he had only 3 stalkers. I promptly rolled him and moved on to the ever so awesome waiting game.
(I forgot to mention that there was a large screen in the back of this room that was filled with computers, on the screen were games that were being casted by the two casters that were present.)
I sought out another one of my friends and inquired as the to result of his match, he seemed slightly bummed but nothing too bad (this friend of mine is quite possibly the nicest man on earth ever, nicer than White-Ra, Machine, Ghandi and anyone else you can think of) so he wasn't upset when he revealed that he lost to FruitDealer's cannon rush. That's right, this guy had cannon rushed 2 of my friends into the loser's bracket. I wanted blood, (in the friendliest way possible haha). Turns out, fate has a funny way of dealing with situations like this. I got my wish, Fruit Dealer was my next round opponent, the Master's League Korean Cannon wizard.
We had finally departed Bo1s and entered in to Bo3s, something I would take great advantage of. Game one began on Shattered Temple (MLG edition). I started normal, preparing for a 4-gate rush (this was at the time when anyone who wasn't 4 gating must've been really confident in their betterness, lol) I failed on scouting in this game and much to my chagrin there were cannons, cannons everywhere. I had been cannon rushed by this dude and lost the first game.
When game two began I was in full Godzilla mode, I wasn't going to get knocked into the loser's bracket by a cannon rusher (turns out this cannon rusher actually has mad skills but he loves cannons). Game two was on MLG Metalopolis. I started out normal again but this time with a faster scout and I patrolled a probe out front of my main, I scouted his main and noticed that he had nothing there. "lulz" I thought to myself I answered that by making a forge instead of a gateway. Turns out this guy is the build the forge on your front lawn kinda guy. When he finally marched in to plant his cannons down, to his horror he found a cannon waiting for him at the top of my ramp ending that swiftly. I rapidly threw down 3 more gateways (as I had smartly procured a gate and a core during this time) 4-gated and slapped him down (He would've been fine if he had gone for a defensive 4gate, but he rapidly teched to Colossi and skipped the immortal allowing me to breach his ramp and crush through his sentry army).
Game three was to be on GSL Tal'Darim Altar (no damn rocks at my third yo). This map is actually impossible to do anything but super duper cheese on or 4 gate (by super duper cheese I mean making offensive buildings, IE proxies). I 4 gated, he 4 gated. He engaged me at my main first, I had seen him going 4 gate himself and opted to defend, he went aggressive. He got into my main and traded blows with my army before making a run to my mineral line. He managed to kill half my probes but he lost his entire force and I lost nothing in my army. I swiftly counter attacked and crushed him because his army was gone and there was no way in hell he was going to remake it.
I had avenged my team mates, now began the waiting process, I was deep in now, Semi finals were coming up. Me vs ePGimix...
He was at the time known as Pit. I didn't know what to think of this guy, the first Grand Master I had ever had the privilege to meet. He seemed nice enough (turns out he is really awesome, but I knew that before you all did so
)Game one was on Slag Pits (Dustin BROWWWWWWWWWWWWWDEEEEEEEEEER) And naturally, it was close spawns, in the most Idra moment of my life I decided to just 4 gate and get it over with. Gimix not being silly noticed my poor attempt at concealing the 4 gate and walled in perfectly, I fell back and attempted to get Dark Templar in the hopes that I might still win, never know right? Well it failed cause he knew better. On to game two.
Shakuras Plateau, one of my personal favorite maps to play on and for good reason.
I opened up with a 1 gate fast expand, cause that's how I roll. He went for a 1 rax CC, I got my expand and my tech out as per normal, hitting the standard robo timing. And this is where it gets interesting. I scouted that he planning on going mech, multi facts + siege tanks meant to me that mech was coming. I knew that he was going to hit a timing because I had practiced against this build before. He was planning on hitting with a strong mech army and using the pressure to secure his third base and deny any tomfoolery from me.
I had just seen SangHo defend a similar build on GSL as well using Void Ray/Immortal and a ton of Zealots. I followed suit, delaying my third for a long, long time to build up a powerball of units (not a death ball lololol). Finally, his push moved out, I was ready, long ready for this attack. He sieged up outside the location where my third would most likely be (it was a good position between the third and nat). I pounced, my army CRUSHED his army like a hot knife through butter. My heart leaped out of my throat "Did I really just win this game?" I thought.
I could hear my friends and my Sister all shout joyfully as it looked as if I would win. (my headphones were noise cancelling and the in game sounds were loud as all get out, my friends were really, really loud). I was overcome with joy, but then suddenly...I choked.
Counter attacking was the only decision that made sense, I had seen his third base and saw a 4th under construction, I had no 3rd of my own and he had no army. And for some reason...I did nothing, I just took my 3rd base and started production on more air units. Gimix possessing Grand Master Macro conjured up a large army rapidly and attacked with Ghost/Mech and crushed me clinching the win 2-0.
I wasn't even affected for some reason, I went over to him and shook hands, asked for some tips about improving my play and he kindly obliged.
Next came the loser's bracket.
I played a Master's Terran player and won the series 2-1 (two 45 minute long macro games and one 4 gate on Tal'Darim). Then my opponent was slated. SCDPride, I had just watched at this tournament alone an SCV pulling extravaganza. He cheesed his way through the vast majority of players there (Fruit Dealer did hold off a marine SCV all in on shattered from him through, that was a sick series actually).
I was tired at this point, it had been 8 long hours at this LAN and I had eaten nothing all day, I wanted to lose and I just kinda half assedly played the next two games. I didn't have a lot of energy left after playing those two long macro games and almost winning against Gimix.
Overall I placed 4th at the tournament out of 35+ players.
1st. ePValkyrie
2nd. ePGimix
3rd. SCDPride
4th. cOnIncursus.
there was a lot of team kill drama among my teammates all in good fun of course.
+ Show Spoiler +
Let me know what you think of my story, I am willing to write up my other LAN Experiences and share them as well if you all liked this. Thanks for reading!
