EPTIn total I played Starcraft for 12 hours that day, from 9 to 9, and as the day went on my opponents got harder and stakes grew with each match. I started the first round in high spirits, I was jovial occasionally dancing and singing midmatch having an all around great time. This euphoria lasted for a while in the day, zerglings were dancing, I was having fun and the experience was just great.
Around 4ish the swiss rounds were nearing the end, I was exhausted having has an incredibly testing run through the tournament hitting 3 of the top 4 seeds and really having my play tested. In the final round it was make or break, if I won my match I would enter the top 8 with a record of 5-1, be in a three way tie for 2nd, and be guaranteed prizes. If I lost I would have to play a BO1 tournament for the opportunity to fill the last two spots of the top 8. The dancing had to stop and the stress started building. I took the series 2-1 and still had barely enough energy to be excited about it.
After a small dinner I return to the tournament to see that I had been seeded up against someone who I had already hit earlier in the day. This is an interesting situation, it would be I believe my 5th ZvZ series of the tournament and I knew that my opponent had seen my strats and knew that my bread and butter was a baneling all in. The tournament setting is interesting, most players play safer than they would on the ladder because they don't want their games to come down to chance as the stakes are higher and every game really matters. In ZvZ this leads to a massive increase in speedling expands over hatch first play which is easily broken by a well timed baneling all in.
We begin vetoing maps and his first veto is tal darim, a map notorious for being impossible to hatch first on because of the openness of the ramp and base layout. At this point I know that he is going to metagame me hard and blind counter the baneling play that we both knew I would do. In game 1 he goes for a fast 2nd queen and blocks his ramp with it and has banelings behind the queens to completely shut me down. I got lucky, he didn't realize I was crazy and he moves his queens down his ramp to try to expand, I surround the queens and get an incredibly lucky win.
Game 2 he does the same thing but this time with a spine, I'm not quite dumb enough to try and it goes into a game of roach hydra infestor v roach muta and eventually he kills me.
Game 3 I pick tal darim essentially announcing that I will be baneling all inning, at this point all I can think about is if I win this game I get at least 800$ in prizes. I scout his base and realize that he is trying to blind counter me by going one base roach. So I threaten a counter attack if he tries to move out and eventually we both get up to two bases. Now I'm living on pure adrenaline the pressure is on. It becomes clear that he is going to do a raoch ling bling all in and I prepare a defense with spines lings blings and roaches of my own, his +1 kicks in and he moves out. I cancel my third and prepare to defend, he engages and almost instantly all the lings and banes from both sides are destroyed, he is rallying in lings but eventually my reinforcing roaches are too much. I hear clapping in the background and realize that people are huddled behind me watching the game for the first time, I had my lair up and with a muta transition I take game three.
Instead of feeling like this
![[image loading]](http://www.esports.com.tw/up/32979/image/%E8%87%A8%E6%99%82/BlizzCon/dimaga.jpg)
As I thought I would and I had after every win of the day before it, I take out my headphones and head-desk from the stress of it all.
![[image loading]](http://fastfoodies.org/wp-content/uploads/Head-desk-1.jpg)
I'm up against everize next and he wants to start vetos and get the games going, I'm still recovering from all the built up stress and delay. Eventually they tell us to hold off so they can cast our series. Game 1 starts and he puts the pressure on with a 2 rax, I hold spectacularly and counter forcing him to life his natural cc. I get pretty ahead after that but he puts on such relentless pressure and in the end outplays me and takes the first game. At this point I check the various chat channels I frequent to hear that the casting had been incredibly biased against me and that at some point they said something similar to "This isn't as much of a walkover as we thought it would be." There are few things more frustrating than being talked down on after a long day of playing against very good players by people who couldn't stay in a game against anyone at the tournament for more than five minutes. Of course game 2 manages to be the only thing more frustrating than that.
Game 2 begins and I immediately suspect everize is up to something he walls fast on belshir beaches and for some reason I thought he was going to use the reaper build I had spotted in his match history. Sure enough a bunker goes up at my natural and I knew what was up. I force the cancel before the reaper gets there but the SCV escapes having only taken a few hits. He throws up a bunker again and it is that strange timing where I need to wait for my queen to pop to pressure the reaper. As my queen pops my nightmares come true, the SCV moves behind the bunker into a position that is impossible to click, I even rotated my camera to try. The bunker finishes and I lost the game because through dumb luck it had become impossible for me to win. I'm fine with that, I lost to an incredible terran because of a flaw in the game. I was happy with my play but I was also certain that I was the only person with the possible exception of everize himself who knew what luck it was that the game ended there. Apparently the casters had been commenting about how my control was bad, and I really just wanted to throw something at them for wrongly insulting my play. I actually considered pausing the game before I quit and explaining what had happened because even without hearing them talking I knew what they were going to say.
I go on to lose the 3rd/4th match to puCK and happily take home 800$ in prizes.
Through this small glimpse into the life of a competitive gamer I have a new respect for the people that make their living in this fashion. It was the most testing day of my life and I am so happy to have had the experience of competing against such skilled opponents. There is so much more that goes on in the LAN setting for a player than online, you have to look your opponents in the eyes, feel the spectators watching you and live up to the expectations of yourself and so many people. Every move you make is being watched and critiqued by so many people and most of them barely even understand whats going on but they will still make their judgements regardless.
The amount of effort that goes into competing in events like this is difficult to describe, I can barely understand how progamers can survive while subjecting themselves to these environments constantly. I may be coming off wrong and making the LAN sound like an un-enjoyable experience but really it was the most fun thing I've ever done but it was also the most intense experience I've ever had.
TL;DR LAN tournaments are fun but incredibly stressful, The people who live their lives going to these events are insane and I don't know how they have the mental fortitude to do it, bad casters are bad.
