I am Sviatoslav "Na'Vi.FXO.HappyZerG" Vlasiuk, Ukrainian zerg player, I am 23. You can know me as featured streamer "HappyZerGlinG".
Recently I started writing blogs, this time I decided to post it here, if you are interested in my previous articles, here are the links:
First blog about perfomance and mindset
Second blog about gamers' casual problems
Lately I started doing much better - I can't make everything from my previous 2 blog articles, but I am step closer to the aim. I started being nervous less, my tournament games look a bit closer to practice games, but that's still not enough! On the ladder I reached top9 of EU GML, but then got a lose streak, now being at about top90 but with a lot of bonus pool because of weekend tournaments.
The first half of the month wasnt as good as second one, I reached semifinals a few times, even won 25$ at EnerJ cup. Then there was a WCS, I learned a lot from it, and then was DreamHack Summer - I was casting it with Roccat.DIMAGA in russian language, I got to cast a lot of Life's and Jaedong's games - they were very interesting, not only entertaining but also educational to watch, I learned so many small moves that affected my gameplay, I started microing better, I started playing cheesier in the beginning, and it helped me a lot to improve my fundamentals and game understanding.
After the release of dreamhack replays, I analyzed some of them. You can watch it here!
After all those analysis, I felt the improvement - on saturday I played monthly finals of Ukrainian cup - Palit cup, I lost to Bly 0-2, but I had advantage in the games, I had to stay more calm and make better decisions. That day also I played Season finals of ESET masters, in first round I beat Tefel 2-0, I am quite happy about that because lately he was doing very good getting into Ro16 of WCS EU and winning Zotac Monthly finals. In 2nd round I played vs AzubuSan and lost 0-2 - he was better at micro and army positioning. But he won all the thing so I'm not really upset. I learned that you shouldnt be upset after the losses, just concentrate on your mistakes and keep moving.
I think progaming is not about winning one very important cup, it's lifestyle, you practice to become a better player, the most important thing is that you enjoy it. Later that I played another cup - russian Regular cup and I reached the finals where unfortunately lost to Pro7ecT 1-3. Games were absolutely strange and didnt look like my practice games at all - I made some weird decisions, overextending, supply blocks etc because I was actually nervous, I won against him before and knew that I can win it right now, after the first loss I was both angry and upset, that affected my gameplay.
But anyway next day I was playing sunday cups - gave win at ESL because it's too hard to play 3 cups same time, got cannonrushed at Zotac (some horrible decision making from me), but then I concentrated on EnerJ cup and reached the finals! In the finals I played vs DreamHack Summer Champion - Stardust, I was sure it will be a 3-0, because I hate his cheesy allin-ing style, and I am bad at dealing with it. I was losing 0-2 to allins, but suddenly game 3 was a macro game and I crushed him quite confidently and even danced with my ultras! Next game I played 10pool on whirlwind just like Life likes to do and it turned out to be a very weird game where I won! Game 5 I played under pressure, something inside of me was fighting, like "Hey, you can do it, you are better" and "Hey, stay calm, concentrate". I decided to play very agressive because it could help me with dealing with allins, but he played a macro game, I made a max-out on roaches but his forcefields were too good. Anyway, I reached the finals, earned 50$ and some qualification points, and it was a very good experience. I am as good as Jaedong because he lost to Stardust with the same score :D
Some notable matches from June:
2-1 vs Tefel at go4sc2 premium qualifier
1-2 vs Nerchio at go4sc2 premium qualifier
1-0 vs HasuObs at Enerj cup
1-2 vs Tefel at go4sc2 monthly may finals ro8
0-1 vs Stardust at ESET masters
2-0 vs Tefel at ESET masters season finals
0-2 vs Azubu.San at ESET masters season finals
2-3 vs Stardust at EnerJ cup
Also I streamed 123 hours in June and got more than 300 new followers! So overall I am quite happy about June and how the first 6 months of this year finished. Of course, I didnt achive as much as I planned, but no more negative thinking - you should concentrate on not the things you haven't done, but the thing you've achieved and going to achieve in future! Thanks for reading, I appreciate it!