EPTFirst a little background info about myself, my name is Connor. I go by the name Son of Gnome, I am 19 years old and I am a mid diamond lvl terran player.
So on to my story, over this past summer I was able to find trough team liquid that there was a local SC tournament going on nearby where I live. When I saw this I immediately signed up for the lower lvl division, I was high plat at the time about to break into diamond. So as it got closer and closer to the tournament I began to practice more and more each day. It was only for a couple hours a day on ladder but still it was practice enough for me. Then the day finally came...
I arrived at the tournament around noon, the games started at about 12:30. I got all register and talked to some people around me about SC and other things I don't really remember. So I decide that I have a little free time before my first match so I decide to play a ladder game just to warm up a bit. The match was tvz my best match up and it was an easy win vs a diamond zerg so I felt really good going into it.
I then look at my first match up and its tvp, and as soon as I saw that I was like "fuck me", because tvp is my worst match up and ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you I really really hate protoss. I decide to look him up on battle.net and I find that he is a bronze lvl player so I was very relived. I then meet him and talked to him a bit, and then we started our games. The first game was on xel'naga caverns so I felt pretty good going to into. I start up spawning in the top position and I decide to be super safe and scout after depot, I go to his base and to my confusion I see a forge. I then scout my base and fine no pylon confused I scout my natural and find that he is trying to cannon of my natural. Which made no sense to me so I sent my first marine to put an end to his cannon rush. I then scout with my reaper and see that he has no tech and no units. So I just in and win. He picks the next map and its metalopolis my favorite map. The game opens standard he 3 gate expands I 1 rax reaper. I just out macro the guy and a move and win.
The next player is a plat zerg and I am feeling really good right now. I don't remember the exact map it was on but I am able to win the first game fairly easily. We move on to the second game on xel'naga caverns. While I was playing this round by the way. I had gotten my little brother to help my mom watch the live stream of my game that was being cast at the tournament. So i open my standard 4 hellions and begin to macro. I then push into his main and to my horror I see my army get surrounded out of no where and I lose everything, he counter attacks and he wins. It turns out that he had burrowed banelings and I had go on the other side of xel'naga caverns and passed then and that's where the flanking units came. It's tied 1-1 and I decide to pick my favorite map metalopolis which now that I think about it wasn't the best choice for tvz buy hey whatever. So I open standard 4 hellions again and I see that he has no defense and only one queen so I am able to run into his natural and kill a few drones but I have an idea to hold position my hellions in his natural so he cant mine, and he cant run his queen down or I run in and kill more drones. So i am in a really good position. I take my 3rd and begin to get ready to push he is going infestors and I get my ghost and push into his base. I am able to kill is main and natural and he keeps trying to win but it doesnt work out for him. He calls gg. Actually it turns out my mom couldn't watch the last game because she was too nervous so my little brother just watched. While I had parked my hellions in the natural the commentator was saying I was trapped there when I really wanted to be there. So my little brother and I had a good laugh about that later.
I am feeling so good after that game I can finally relax, I had accomplished my goal of making it through the first round. I then look at the bracket and see that my next match up it TvT. I meet the kid and we begin the second round. The map is duel sight and I spawn in the grassy side and he spawns in the lavaish side. At this time the current standard was marine tank but it was quickly moving towards mech which I was mad about because I really liked marine tank. He I open up with a cloaked banshee he opens up with blue flame hellions and does a bit of damage. Then he goes for an early contain begins sieging my natural. I am losing a ton of units and lose my orbital to his thors and his vikings. I only have about 4 tanks left and a handful of marines and marauders. In a desperate attempt to win I drop all my bio in his main to try and kill him off. He doesn't pull back instead he goes up my ramp and my tanks destroy everything. He types gg. He chooses Tal'Darim for his next map. I open with a one rax fe and he opens with heavy BF hellions, I am able to hold them off with no damage and he is very behind so I macro up and I am able to win the next game.
I cant believe it I am in the finals. All I need to do is win 3 games. The first game I believe is on shattered temple and I open with my standard 4 hellions again and he goes heavy roaches. When I play vs z I love to see roaches, because I find them easy to counter. So I push across the map cleaning up his impressive creep spreed as i go. Keep in mind that we are plat and under players so we aren't prefect. I push into his natural and am able to kill him off. He picks next map which I don't really remember but I was able to win in the same fashion. Its game 3 and he picks testbug another map I really like. Before this game on of the masters players tells me to hurry up so that they can play their finals. So since I am up 2 I decide to pull out the old stand by. 2 port banshees. This is where it gets weird, I think his friends were helping him or something but he opens hydras and a quick nydus so basically the counter to my guild. I am able to however do a lot of damage to him before the hydras pop, he then nyduses my main in the smoke and does some damage, but I am able to deny his 3rd with my banshees. I take a 3rd and push across the map and able to pull of a win. He types in gg I send him a gg wp and its all over. I had just won my first tournament. I could not believe it, all my hard work had paid off and I had done it. I called my mom and told her and she told me how proud she was.If you ever hear your mom tell you that shes proud of you for playing a video game you know that it is such a good feeling. I won 35 dollars that day, but I didn't care about the money, I had won something that I worked for. I can tell you that it is the best experience I have had winning anything. Now I am in diamond still practicing, I hope to get to masters by the end of the year and keep improving until I reach my goal of being able to do things like this for a living.
EDIT PLEASE CHANGE THE TITLE TO MY FIRST TOURNAMENT
Thanks for reading :D
