EPT
. It's a pretty long read ~~WCS + MLG Anaheim
First off, I came into this tournament pretty ill-prepared. I spent the last week getting 2nd in the CSL and CSL All-Stars tournament with a 1-4 (?) loss to qxc and a loss to my teammate in the ace match. I came back home on Monday of midnight, studied for my intro to law final and was set to leave on Thursday.
Thursday
I was picked up at the John Wayne airport by Shindigs, Hazelynut and two others who I do not recall (Sorry T-T;) and they took me to the Red Lion hotel provided by Blizzard for the WCS invitees. There I saw many familiar faces including my teammate binski, areaKitty, Ver, Suppy, Perfect, and Everize who I had never met before (Everize is actually such a chill guy D:..). We went to eat at the Cheesecake Factory and I returned to my room where I found HeavensLighT asleep on one bed. WCS had given us a room per two players, so we had another room down the hall (for binski and Caliber).
Around midnight papa Xeris came with the rest of my teammates – Caliber, CecilSunkure, KnighT (he got second place at WCS New Zealand ~~!), Golden and Gerbil. After a few greetings and chat we went to sleep.
Friday
This morning Xeris treated the whole team + hazelynut to Ihop kekeke. We teased KnighT a lot for his newly pink hair (@_@). Usually this would be where I put a picture but nobody took pictures. G.g! I ordered a chicken sandwich or something and it was okay I guess? We also saw team Infinity Seven eating near there. Afterwards we left to the convention center to play WCS, which started at about 1:30 PM?
I saw many familiar faces as we arrived at the convention center. I checked in and greeted several of my friends including my close friend NrS.Ranged and many others. Once it hit warmup time they let us into the room so we could warmup.
In my first round I played GoSu.Rhythm formerly known as ppgBubbles in a somewhat dramatic best of 3 series. I lost the first two games to early rushes very quickly. However, the second game was close spawn Entombed Valley on the WCS version, which was not supposed to happen. The admins ruled a regame and I won the next two games taking it 2-2 (lol 2-2 in a bo3 tt). I felt sort of bad but I tried to get over it and focus on my next match.
Afterwards I lost to LiquidSheth 0-2 and QQ’ed about zerg OP because it is.
In the loser bracket I beat Lzgamer in two base trades in the same game on Antiga Shipyard against his brood lords, and in game 2 I failed a proxy 2rax on Entombed and went for a 1base 5rax combat shield marine + scv allin. Luckily Jake didn’t send an overlord in until I was literally leaving my base and I won instantly. T-T;
Afterwards I believe I played FnaticRC.ByuL next. There was about a 20-30 minute delay before I got my game started since the announcer called my name twice by accident – he read kiwiLighT (KnighT) as KawaiiRiceLighT somehow, and I hadn’t listened for who he played against. KnighT ended up losing 0-2 to iS.Crazymoving in a super long zvz and some other game I hadn’t seen.
It was pretty odd looking across the table to see a player obviously much better than me wearing the same jersey I used to wear in the past. In game 1 ByuL went for fast 3base constant muta ling baneling attacks for like 10 minutes and I barely held, lifting my third probably 6+ times and losing every unit. I managed to scrape out a win there as his waves got smaller and smaller lol. Then I lost the next two games where ByuL did the same style but went to ultralisks on Tal’darim and Cloud Kingdom. I couldn’t tell if ByuL was trolling me trying to end the game super early or if he actually played that way to be honest… although, his computer was supposedly super laggy… and I still lost 1-2 T-T; This was the first time I lost round 1 in the MLG winners bracket @@.
My next series in the WCS USA was against LGTop. I don’t remember much anything about the games other than he went brood lords and made no infestors, and I still almost lost the first game. I won 2-0 though and moved on to play IdrA on the featured station.
I started off against IdrA on Antiga Shipyard in a pretty decent game; we both went pretty fast 3rds and I went hellion banshee which is terrible and couldn’t pressure anything. Creep just spread as queens laughed at me because they’re broken. In midgame I got a decent advantage trading and turtling, having 2 banshees with 2 more + cloak almost out against his ultra ling bling infestor until his computer crashed. Since there was no significant advantage (I thought I had a pretty significant advantage but my opinion doesn’t matter because MLG admins wouldn’t understand anyway) we regamed. We both opened the same builds I guess out of honor? xD.. anyway I played like utter crap, even building a 4th cc thinking it was my 3rd… I was down 40 supply from poor macro alone and lost very one sidedly. Game two on Shakuras I went for a marine hellion attack where I should have killed his third, but I mismicroed and a baneling blew up like 6 units. IdrA defended some of my drops and won the game shortly afterwards with a mass ling bane infestor push, and then I got eliminated from WCS USA.
Saturday
For my loser bracket games we started at 12 today. I matched up against an unknown protoss who I beat 2-0. Then I matched up against Desrow, a player whom I previously hated but I came to respect. I won 2-0 holding off a dt drop in game 1 and I forget game 2. In my next set I played my friend Quantic.theognis and won 2-0; first game was a decent macro game where I won through some big engagements, and game 2 I won quickly with an expo into 3 tank timing against his bio expand on Antiga Shipyard.
Afterwards, I took my revenge on qxc for my CSL All Stars loss, where I won 2-1 in some crazy 40+ min Antiga game where I didn’t have the middle and was down 3base to 5 @_@...
The match that knocked me out was against iS.Crazymoving. Despite the fact that he played Zerg, I still felt confident since I beat him in multiple clan wars in the past. I won game 1 and threw the second hour long Entombed Valley game where I nuked 5 bases worth of drones and was up 50 supply at one point. However, I couldn’t win a single late game fight against his superhuman bl corruptor infestor ling bane ultra army composition. He followed up with a roach bane allin in game 3 on Taldarim where I was building a fast 3rd, and I got knocked out of MLG. Funny note was that I got knocked out of MLG and WCS by 4 zergs, lol. Crazymoving said sorry to me afterwards and again at night as well… not sure why. Maybe because Z is op? :D
I spent the rest of the time watching my teammates play, including a rematch between my teammate Heavens and FnaticRC.aLive where Heavens won the macro game and lost to two proxy 2raxes 1-2, a repeat score of MLG Columbus (T_T). I believe my team went like 0-5 against Fnatic at this MLG;;. I didn’t catch any of Golden’s pool play games but I saw him beat Thorzain and then lose to FnaticRC.aLive (another Fnatic loss zzz).
Me and Heavens also played a mini clan war against vVv’s Rocker (no longer on vVv) and Hasu in HotS where Heavens lost and I went 1-1 before they kicked us out for the night. Noo T-T;
After that I went back to the hotel with my teammates where we trolled around on smurf accounts and slept super late.
Me and Caliber 2v1... we're pretty good
Gerbil is really bad at keyboard
Gerbil laughing constantly
Sunday
The last day of MLG is usually pretty depressing for me if I didn’t make it. In my team’s case we all woke up super late, watched MLG from the hotel room and played some more HotS.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/86LOR.jpg)
Watching MLG but not really...
This time I experimented a bit more with zerg army compositions like roach hydra viper infestor, which was pretty funny. It was too hard to control my army with the settings though and they didn’t let us change it… I also tried abusing the early mothership core recall ability and the new factory units from Terran but I played both like one game before they told us to leave. So that was pretty fun ~~
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FKB8W.jpg)
CecilSunkure laddering hard on hotel wifi 
Afterthoughts – I lost to 4 zergs just as I expected coming into this event. Golden finished top 20 once again this MLG, losing 1-2 in the deciding round. Being on the cusp of accomplishing something is the most painful feeling ever and I felt bad for him. It was nice to see everyone again though and I’m looking forward to the next MLG where I will actually have time to train, since I started summer break two days before flying to MLG.
GESL
After MLG, Xeris drove binski, Caliber, Golden and I to the NASL studio, turning it into the team LighT daycare center for a few days while nobody was there. We played there for three days while Xeris worked. Notably, binski, Golden and I got 11 TSL4 qualifier points. It was super painful to play those though lol… Xeris lives an hour away from work for some god forsaken reason, so we woke at 6:40ish am and commuted. We were staying for a week since Caliber, Golden and I had received GESL invite spots.
My stay at Xeris’ house was super painful in general (wah complain complain ^.^). Personally I hate having animals around, and Xeris has two cats in his apartment… I slept in his closet to avoid the cats and cat hair. +_+ Cat hairs were also super bad for my allergies lol +_+
Xeris also cooked some food for us ~~
Xeris marinating? the chicken
Xeris chopping some stuff
The final product
Friday
Day one of the GIGABYTE invite tournament was very annoying. We were told to show up at 9 AM for a player meeting which I missed, but apparently there was no impact. We also needed to be there for the random live group drawing, but the players were not involved in the drawing in any way. It really ticked me off. They also said they wanted to avoid groups with the same race and teams and did some arcane way of putting players in pools. Group A became group Zerg; my group had four terrans in Ryung, Clide and Beastyqt, as well as a teamkill in Caliber and my friend HwangSin. Nice. Since I was in group C, my first match started at 7 pm. Luckily I brought my pillow and blanket, but I was severely pissed off.
My first series was against SlayerS_Ryung where I lost 0-2. Going into this, I was expecting to lose (awesome mentality I know) since my TvT is pretty bad in my opinion. On game 1 on Cloud we both went FE builds and I held a slight advantage where I went bio to air against his mech play. However, I failed to secure a 4th + 5th base for very long since he kept pushing one side and the other. I stupidly moved my slow air army across the map over and over without doing anything about his 4th and 5th bases, basically gifting Ryung the game. Eventually Ryung built up a Viking ball and crushed my air. Upon reflection I would have won easily had I countered his main as he went for my bases, and just defended his mech army with my air.
In the second game we had cross spawns on Entombed Valley. I went for a 1rax FE build once again and held his cloak banshee losing a SINGLE scv. We took our thirds pretty quickly but I had a pretty significant advantage. I gifted my entire army like a retard with my first move out killing pretty much nothing and the game evened out. Then he took the middle and slowly destroyed me with slow positional attacks and I lost the game in 37 minutes. I was angry at myself for throwing my huge early game lead.
My next game against SlayerS_Clide I threw my games even worse and lost 0-2 once again. In game 1 on Antiga I went for a FE into marine 3 tank Viking push against his gas first banshee expand (huge bo advantage lol). I even cancelled his (stim?) and siege upgrade when I pushed below the main cliff. Then I made 3 bunkers and sat there……………… he killed off half my main scvs with a double drop and cancelled my stim……. I pushed into his natural 5 minutes later, lost my army and lost the game when he did a big 3base push………… game two on Entombed Valley we both FE’d again, I went for bio and he went for a big mech push. I set up half my bio units below my natural in the small valley but he went for my third instead. When I stimmed in half my units didn’t engage until the other half already died…. And I lost instantly. I was super super super angry for the rest of the day and didn’t say much. Xeris drove us back to his place and I slept in his closet again.
Saturday
Today we had to come early once again since Golden had to play more pool play matches, but he was already set since he went 3-0 the first day. I on the other hand went 0-2 and had to 3-0 in order to guarantee advancing, so my hopes were not as high. I spent the first part of the day playing in one of the campus’ Super Smash Brothers melee tournament lol. @@ I lost 0-2 taking 1 life off a guy called CommonYoshi or something, and then a girl in the loser bracket (I think I got like two or three lives? Xd). I played a bit of SSB on the N64 playing mostly Pikachu and Link just with my friends in the past xD;
Me, Caliber, Gerbil and Binski also played Time Crisis 3 at the campus’ game room. Gerbil literally spent like three of my dollars before I even spent one; he’s so bad lol T-T;;
When it was finally my turn to play at 5 pm I had very low expectations. As I said before, I had to go 3-0 against HwangSin, Caliber and then Beastyqt.
I started off with a 2-1 against GoSu’s HwangSin. I won a pretty one sided 20 minute game on Daybreak, lost a (40+ minute? Don’t remember the time) game on Entombed with some bad engagements and a ton of pfs + nukes, and did some freestyle expo -> 3rax marine tank attack with a 4th rax floated for vision in imba spawns Tal’darim. Hwangsin expoed into blink stalkers and decided to go base trade while building a small group of units + immortals. When we did our first crucial engagement I was down to my last tank and he target fired it with every unit; I pulled it back and he lost his immortal and many stalkers. I was able to repair the tank with a mule and make enough marines from my landed 4th rax to finish off his base.
My second series against my teammate CaliberLighT was very weird. Since we both knew our usual styles I decided to play very unorthodox to beat him; I won game 1 with a 4rax marine scv allin (the first wave failed and I closed it with a second wave xD). Game two I went for expo -> cloakshee into a marine tank scv banshee push against his nexus first into 3rd with no robo and won quickly.
My last series against Beastyqt was super important to qualify, but I had the least confidence going into this set. I avoid practicing TvT and I knew Beasty was very experienced at late game TvT. I expected to lose unless I played like I had against Ryung the day before. In the first game he opened proxy marauder on metropolis and I went bio expand… I probably had like 20 supply left. After several blue flame drops I was reportedly down 50 supply. As I secured my third and scouted his third with hellions I was greeted by his 4th and 5th command centers… and I just wanted to leave. Luckily Beasty sat until he was maxed with 5 bases and neglected antiair. I got out a large group of Vikings with 2 banshees, targeted his thors with my bio, killed his Vikings and forced his tanks back with my banshees. By the time he had antiair I was pumping out bcs from 5 starports and won an unwinnable game.
In the second game on Shakuras I held a pretty big lead in economy and position, having the center on Shakuras. However, I failed to deal with Beasty’s drops on my 4th/5th bases and never got a half map turtle going. Beasty’s late game experience took over and I lost the game in an hour, 10 minute and 6 second game. I later learned that GHOSTCLAW from Liquipedia won $10 and Korean barbequeue betting $7 against several of the GESL casters that the game would be over 1 hour and 10 minutes at the 37 minute mark. I laughed when I heard since the last several seconds of the game all I did was stare at the screen, shake my head and wait for a bit. I was seriously sweaty and my eyes teared up during the game since I didn’t blink much, so it looked like I was crying. In the final game we got cross spawns Entombed Valley. Once again I went bio FE against his FE to mech opening. I held his mech push really easily unlike my game against Clide and held a huge advantage. I started teching right to BCs and then saw Beasty spread out his tanks way too thin all the way to his 4th, so I went right into his main and sniped 4 of his starports and fusion core. I attacked with my 5 bcs + Viking army and won quickly afterwards, placing third in my group.
Sunday
The last day of the Gigabyte LAN… I lost 0-2 to violet, the eventual third place of the tour. I lost quickly to a roach ling bust as I went fast third, and lost game 2 after getting my stim blown up by five random banelings thanks to my tech lab being at my natural ramp on Antiga. My marine hellion timing got held easily and I lost in the late game.
I spent the rest of the day cheering on GoldenLighT in his tournament run where he got fourth, and finaly started playing Diablo 3. As I left for the night, Ryung waved at me and said Kawaiiiiii~~ lol;
Since coming home I hit level 51 in D3 and stopped playing ~~ also raged a bit (maybe more than a bit :D) at TvZ. Once I'm not sick anymore I hope I can concentrate on playing... I would like to qualify for TSL4 @@;
Thanks for reading~~
