EPTI joined just about a year and 2 days ago. I guess I'll use the 1 year anniversary to just say a few thoughts and write down some memories.
My first memory of starcraft is from a long time ago. I'm only 16 now, so I was really too young to get into Broodwar at all, but I used to play Age of Mythology on Gameranger. I was pretty bad - never built more than 20 or so workers, just liked to make cool cities or whatever. But I remember somehow gaining knowledge that some people played RTS games really well and professionally, and I vaguely knew about someone named "Boxer" and how he was really good and cool.
Years past - I played AoM like 6 to 7 years ago - and I had turned away from RTS. I was playing Starwars Battlefront (also for mac xD), and I was competitive, as far as the swbfmac scene could be called competitive. We had our own website - it was swbfmac.com, then it was a bunch of other names - and clans etc, and we'd have clan wars and all that jazz. It was fun.
Anyway, I first really became aware of progaming after picking up wc3. After swbf, I had the greatest shame of my video game career: I bought, and played, WoW for almost all of my middle school years. Those were some seriously wasted hours. But I was addicted, and I had friends who played. I bought wc3 to learn more about WoW's lore etc.
I remember asking in some pub channel for advice on how to get better at wc3. At this point I was the lowest of low rts player, a 3v3 player who scouted with groups of grunts and didn't make extra bases till I was mined out. Someone in that pub channel linked me to a grubby v moon game.
It was here I found out about progamning. I kept watching wc3 commentaries as they came up on youtube, but that was the extent of my dive; I was after all, still playing WoW at least 3 hours a day.
Freshman year of high school I quit WoW, thanks to my friends peer pressure, and so summer of last year, I was looking for another video game. My substitute for WoW had been a mixture of RPGs and HoN, but nothing serious, and I was looking for a new love. And then, one afternoon on my prowl through youtube I found my new love: An sc2 commentary by HDstarcraft.
The game is a rather infamous one. It was between Idra and Masq, and Masq tank pushes Idra, and Idra calls him a fag.
People will have their opinions on Idra and his BM, but let me say this. It was this game, that got me, and the friends I showed it to, into starcraft. The fact that someone cared enough about a sequence of events we couldn't really understand to insult someone so harshly, and all to HD's joyful laughter, blew our minds.
Luckily, I had found and rekindled my interest in RTS a week before release. And so, the night sc2 came out, I downloaded it, and the next day I played my placements.
During that week I had "studied" the game. And by that I mean I watched HD/Husky videos and figured out which units I wanted to build, and what race I wanted to play. The race: Protoss (Like day said in Daily #100, I play protoss because I'm smart
). The unit: Void rays. And so, for my 5 placement matches I void ray rushed, 5 times. I went 3 for 5. But it's 1 of the 2 losses that was most important, not the 3 wins. I lost to a zerg named Rossep, who inclined to give me some practice games. It was him who advised me to look up day9 and /r/starcraft.
So I did just that - I started watching all the day9 content I could get my hands on and started browsing screddit. I wouldn't say I was totally enthralled, but I enjoyed what I saw. Almost every weekend night, I would play teamgames with my friends, and I was just generally enjoying being a noobie.
But for me at least, teams weren't real enough. By now I was aware enough to understand my void ray rush 1v1 (I was gold) was what Day9 had described in his 100th daily as a "trick". I wasn't trying to outplay, outsmart, or beat my opponent. I was trying to "trick" him.
So I stopped void ray rushing. I tried macroing. I dropped to silver. Then once I learned about attack move I rose to gold. Then once I learned about liquidpedia I rose to plat. Then I started thinking, and watching, and I was in diamond. And then I joined teamliquid as a poster, and started participating in the community. I watched tournaments - the first one I can really remember seriously digesting was MLG Dallas, and my new favorite pro became Nony. I remember just slowly learning that he was still in the tourney, so late into competition.
I started listening to SotG, started to love Incontrol and think Artosis was arrogant in a lovable way and JP was awkward as your first fuck and day9 was genuine and nice as anyone could be.
This time, about a year ago, was when I would say I joined the sc2 community. And the past year it's been awesome. I've watched with pleasure as my love for the game has grown and grown. I watch tons of streams now, I watch every tournament, I stay up late for GSL (that's the best way to watch sc fyi - staying up till 4am and watching tastosis and the highest level of play possible is such a cool experience).
Yesterday I made top 8 masters for the first time. I couldn't be happier to be part of this community. Couldn't be happier to hate EG and root for TL, to be entertained by Huk and upset with Idra, to hope for Nony and to root against the Koreans. It's all so awesome.
So thanks TL ^^
(sorry for spelling or grammar mistakes, I'm not going to reread because I'm afraid I'd get ashamed and delete this)
