EPT
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Considering switching to the Korean SPL stream because my girlfriend, who is now apparently interested in Starcraft, doesn't like Brendan Valdes
10 000 posts is a lot of posts. In fact, 10 000 posts for me adds up to about 1 post every two hours, every day, for the last 805 days. I originally wanted to be cool and have my 10000th post be something instantly recognisable like "Fuck Roro" or "Life is the best", but I got caught up in another one of my posting sprees and missed the oppurtunity. Thus, a kind of celebration blog is in order. Or maybe not. Either way I'm writing it.
I was never a big Brood War fan. A friend of mine forced me to come over and watch a few matches - I think the first full series I ever watched was Bisu beating Jangbi in Club Day Online MSL. I watched casually for something like 2 years, starting somewhere late '08 or early '09, but I never watched more than a few games a week and it wasn't rare that I'd forget to tune in and just kind of not care for weeks on end. I appreciated the greatness that was the Korean scene (honestly I was barely aware of the foreign scene), but it never really pulled me in. I visited TL albeit rarely and I never once ventured into the forums, nor did I ever think of signing up and taking part myself. I had other things I cared about and it was just never really that interesting for me.
Starcraft II was announced and went into beta, with all the hilariously bad maps and disturbingly imbalanced strategies that came with it. At the time, I was actually playing the game myself (I'd never played Brood War) and having quite a bit of fun with it, both team matches and solo ladder. Somehow, it didn't really strike me that I'd find the Korean (much less the foreign counterpart) competitive scene interesting although I somewhat enjoyed both pro Brood War and playing Starcraft II, but I managed to somehow find my way to MLG Raleigh where Idra beat Select to win some insignificant sum of money.
I don't really know, somewhere along the way I fell in love with the game, much more so than I ever had with Brood War. Dedicated and likeable English commentary was definitely a factor, as I had never watched a tournament with Korean pros that had official English casters before. GomTV's GSL with Tasteless and Artosis was a saving grace and although the games were bad and clearly imbalanced, they were mostly enjoyable. Fruitdealer's cinderella story (why the FUCK do Zerglings suck in this game?) concluded as he beat Rainbow to win the first-ever SC2 GSL and a cool first prize of something like $90.000, and I found myself admitting that I was now a fan of a Starcraft player, which really happened before.
Fast forward a year, and I decided to sign up on Teamliquid. I don't remember what made me, exactly, but even though I'd signed up I remained mostly silent and completely anonymous. At this point, Naniwa had lost to Thorzain in the TSL3 finals, Chill had been told to GTFO. Nestea had embarrassed Inca (I hated that season), a good game had been played in a GSL finals (Mvp vs TOP nuketown never forget), I'd watched FoxeR almost successfully gold base rush a player in the elite league, and I'd stayed up all night to watch MLG Columbus (which, although it wasn't the best tournament I've watched nor the most entertaining, is still the tournament I remember best).
Columbus heralded a major change in the way Starcraft works, as Koreans were given (provided they had money) free reign in the foreign world, and although some people got upset when "Johnny China" came to take their money, I'd never been particularly invested in the foreign scene and I was happy to watch the better players win. I still go back and watch the MMA victory chant, and it gives me goose bumps every time. I oozed passion, and I think that was the main factor that lead to my eventual signing up on TL.
As for why I started posting, I can't remember that either. I think I'd discovered TL's impressive coverage and, since I've always loved writing, I felt like I had to thank them for their hard work and wit in person (Jjakji Chan vs Bruce Leenock, never forget). Either way, at some point (I think after Naniwa had tried to break a brick wall with sheer greed as Leenock beat him in Providence) I became a more active poster, although most of my posts were about Naniwa or my being upset about people bashing him and Swedes in general if we ever dared to be a fan of him. For that reason alone, I'll never forget Blizzard Cup '11 - the probe rush and the ensuing drama, though hilarious in retrospect, made me really upset. And I think I took it out on random people on the forums. (Not that I don't now, but at least I can't be reported anymore)
In 2012, I began to actively try to schedule my activities around Starcraft - I remember skipping practise (a heinous crime in my mind) to watch DRG vs Genius. As I had very few friends who were into Starcraft, I think I began interacting with people on the forums to a greater degree - similar interests, (mostly) similar opinions and (sometimes) healthy debate and truckloads of passion. From that point, Starcraft spiralled out of control for me. I posted more than ever, I actually produced some content (though insignificant) myself, around the time of TSL4. At this point, I had become a huge fan of the ZeNEX prodigy Life and my fandom soon eclipsed that of all other players combined. GSL came around, and I bought a laptop specifically to be able to watch his GSL matches live in school.
As players were eliminated from GSL4, a Royal Road championship became a very real possibility, and my passion similarly shot through the roof. I bashed people who thought Marineking (#1 championship thief) could beat Life, and (unwisely so) jumped people who felt like Liquid'Taeja was a huge favorite against my favorite player. I couldn't sleep the night before Life vs Mvp. I bit my nails and probably hurt my fingers permanently during games 5 and 6. I screamed out loud when Life broke through to take the championship in game 7. I've rarely been even close to as happy about Starcraft as I was then. It was a great feeling.
Late 2012, and Proleague was starting up. I won't go over the story of how I became a writer again, but I was given the chance to cover professional Starcraft - an oppurtunity I'd kind of hoped for but never actively thought about, in part thanks to Fionn encouraging me to apply when I thought I shouldn't for whatever reason. Unfortunately, with official coverage comes a minimum level of professionalism that I sometimes have difficulty maintaining. The "patchzerg"-era was riddled with angry posts and almost hateful conversations between me and people who were convinced that no "good" Zerg player existed at the time. Being Life's biggest fan, this immediately became "my" problem. In retrospect, I should probably have stayed quiet and not engaged in the mind-blowingly stupid discussions that followed every major tournament, Zerg champion or not, but I couldn't.
2013 and HotS came around, and my eyes had "opened" somehow. I had a bunch of people (thanks TL Writers Skype chat) to talk to about anything even remotely related to Starcraft and a lot of stuff not related to Starcraft (mostly the latter). I could bounce ideas and thoughts, and through that chat I've learned more about Starcraft - both in terms of history and pure game knowledge, than I ever would have on my own.
I could go on writing forever about everything interesting, entertaining and annoying thing that's happened since I became an active member of the TL community, but that'd make this even longer and less coherent than it already is, so I'll stop right this second and just make a few lists instead, because lists are really cool.
- My 5 favorite tournaments of all time
- MLG Dallas 2013
- WCS Global Finals 2013
- WCS Season 3 Finals 2013
- MLG Columbus 2011
- GSL Season 4 2012
- My 5 favorite Starcraft II-related screwups
- Redeye drops the HotS Collectors' Edition
- "you werent loss"
- MLG screws up WCS qualifiers and NASL mocks them but then screws up too
- JD claims the Tyrant is back and then loses
- Sorry can't build nexus, pylon in the way
- My 5 favorite things somehow related to Starcraft
- (DHW 2013) I walk up to Life to tell him "Life fighting", he looks confused for a moment and answers "Fighting? No, easy!"
- (WCS Global Finals 2013) Writing the pre-Blizzcon Player Profiles
- (MLG Dallas 2013) Flash and Grubby have an incredibly cringeworthy yet awesome pre-game ceremony
- (WCS Season 2 Finals) Naniwa eliminates Innovation
- (2012 Auction OSL) Parting eats Baby, kind of
Without getting to sentimental, I'd like to thank everyone who makes TL an awesome place to spend too much time on. Including, but certainly not limited to:
Wintex, stuchiu, opterown, Shellshock, lichter, Waxangel, GumBa, DiMano, Plexa, Olli, BisuDagger, Darkhoarse, neoghaleon55, Dodgin, Fusilero, Heyoka, KadaverBB, Lorning, NovemberstOrm, everyone who doesn't balance whine more than necessary, everyone who likes Startale and/or CJ, everyone who maintains a positive outlook on Starcraft and life (and
Life), everyone who contributes to the site, and the 10-15 people I somehow still managed to leave out.And kollin too, I guess.If you want to be my friend, help me achieve more ESPORTS fame than Olli and kollin by following me
To all of TL: thanks for being awesome people and may your favorite players lose if they're not Life, Sora or Bomber.
Edit: I would also like to specially thank everyone who sent me supportive messages after Zeyna's death. I'm not very open about these things in real life, and being able to clear my mind on TL and receive support meant a lot to me. So thank you.
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