EPTSince that day, I am proud to say that I have been part of history. Starcraft as an esport was already insanely popular in Korea before 2010, but in Europe, it was just a small niche of very dedicated players. Starcraft 2 changed all that. The competitive scene grew at an insane pace, but price pools remained modest. That was until GomTV announced the first season of the GSL. The hype was enormous, as was the price pool. I could not watch every game, but I did watch with astonishment as FruitDealer beated terran after terran, and ended up winning the event. It was a great story because zerg was considered the worst race out of the three. It did turn out to be the only noteworthy thing Fruitdealer would ever do though.
I'd go as far as saying that without Starcraft 2, esports would have never taken off outside South Korea.
On a personal level, I managed to get to Platinum league and stay there for a long time, proud to be among the 25% best players in the world. But I grew frustrated at my lack of progress and stopped playing 1v1. My main focus was on 2v2 because it was a lot less stressful.
After a while I did not play that regularly anymore. I had other stuff to do and mainly followed the scene via tournaments. I saw MLG grow to what it is now, the first Dreamhack Starcraft 2 events (Dreamhack remains my favourite tournament by far), the overambitious first NASL, IPL, the epic that was TSL3... I saw how the reaper got nerfed into oblivion, how siege tanks lost a lot of their strength, how bunkers were buffed, then nerfed, then buffed, then nerfed, how ZvX games turned into NR15 games because blizzard found it a good idea to give queens 5 range, thus ensuring that zerg could not be punished for greedily double fast expanding.
After a while I stopped watching tournaments because of that. At the end of its cycle, Wings of Liberty had become very boring to watch. Infestor-Brood Lord is only interesting so many times.
In August 2012, a friend and me visited gamescom and enjoyed Esports in real life. It was quite an experience, even though the event was rather small compared to MLG or Dreamhack.
Then came the announcement for Heart of the Swarm. I didn't really know what to think of it. Some units were great additions (I particularly liked the Viper, Widow Mine and Oracle minus the entomb spell), others were incredibly uninspired (Warhound). I did not manage to get my hands on a beta key this time, but I didn't really have time to play much anyway so I didn't mind. To be honest, my expectations weren't exactly high.
That was until I saw the IEM World Championships 2013. I concluded that while the units and abilities Blizzard added to the game weren't all that spectacular, it did give the game a much needed impulse. I decided to preorder the collector's edition. I already had the CE of WoL, figured I might as well buy the CE of HOTS. I picked up the game after college on release day, finished the campaign over the course of three days (just like WoL, it was very enjoyable) and then decided to slowly ease myself into multiplayer again. I decided to go with a newbie mentality and learn the game all over again. I also decided not to play when I am feeling tired or when I'm in a bad mood. I got dropped into Bronze and today managed to get up to Gold, realizing fully well that I still have much room for improvement.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the past three years of Starcraft 2. I hope that HOTS will add another three enjoyable years to that. Thank you, Blizzard, for making a game that changed the way a lot of people, including non-gamers, look at competitive gaming. Thank you, teamliquid.net, for being the most awesome online community I have ever been part of.
