EPTSo I do a lot of thinking and usually don't get it out of my head so I felt like this would be a cool way to do that.
My name's John, I'm 17 years old as of a couple months ago. I used to play massive amounts of Starcraft (terran) but currently I play League and a lot of mtg(but never enough... the magic addiction is strong...) I was at my peak top8 master in Starcraft and good enough to do okay at a tournament(below). In League im gold IV so not that great, but I like it a lot and play with some friends all the time, we are actually participating in an amateur tournament so that's cool :D
One of my life philosophies from Day9 is that if you care enough and try hard enough, you can do literally anything. Someone told me that was silly and for example people could never grow wings. I told them with science where it is maybe they could figure out a way someday. I actually do realize that this ideal is not actually possible, but somehow that doesn't stop me from believing it and living by it.
So on to Starcraft. Ive played since the start of 2011(end of 2010? no idea actually) and pretty quickly hit plat once I learned how to build barracks and right click. It turned out timing pushes don't auto win forever so I had to learn to play and it took a long time to hit diamond. Once I managed that I actually did quite well, I was very poor mechanically as Starcraft was my first remotely demanding computer game so I won games from build orders I brewed. I figured out some silly ones like 10minute allins vs protoss, stuff like 4 banshees and a raven with vanilla marines. I had macro ones too which I mostly did so I got pretty decent and actually did a lot of coaching for fun.
Come early 2013 I finally made masters. I remember it really well because the 8-1 streak that finally got me there started with a pvp I accidentally queue'd. I won it. Was very happy about that, but after that I played a lot less. Not as much motivation once I'd made that goal. I actually did really really want to make grandmaster so I could try to become professional, it was a dream since I started that I still have.
I started playing League in the summer so that really hurt my starcraft hours, it was a lot easier to spends hours queueing with friends than laddering by myself. In august though, I found out about Lanhammer2013. Which was about 30 minutes away from my house. No entry fee and prize pool was very exciting so I decided to enter even though I hadn't played much at all. I actually barely ended up going, about a week before my depression was getting pretty bad among other things in life so I was going to give up on playing but my mom actually said I had to go. I'd signed up and was set on doing it so person stuff shouldn't stop me. My mom is pretty much the best and most supportive person ever.
So being down in low diamond with very little play I went ahead and went. The experience was incredible and easily worth with it even without the prize. I was super nervous beforehand because my little amount of playing made me think I would do very poorly, but a friend of mine gave me a very pro pep talk basically telling me to shut up about not being good enough and try as hard as I could, so I felt pretty good about it. I practiced for the hour or so before the event started by 1v5ing some AIs as Ahri. Good starcraft practice for sure.
I was in a group with 3 other people, Huk, and a couple masters protoss. TvP has historically been my best matchup so I actually felt okay about it. Unfortunately my first match was against Huk, who cheesed me twice and it was over in like 8 minutes. I was actually really disappointed in him, I felt like he wasn't respecting me as a player. I was in no way deserving as I was way below him, but I think if I was in that position I would give the person an opportunity to play a pro and take them seriously. Anyway I just had to beat everyone else to advance so I thought maybe I could do it.
I ended up advancing, beating the other two protoss. I played some of the best starcraft of my life in those games, the try as hard as you can was really there. Being out of practice didn't end up meaning I didn't have a chance. I was more into the game than I'd ever been before, it was really cool.
Anyway in the bracket I matched against a masters terran who I beat 2-1. He won game 1 with a rush so I was like huh okay... and picked whirlwind and totally outmacro'd him. It was a pretty fun series. After that I got to vs Root.State which was AWESOME. He was so nice and respectful, even though he 2-0'd me it was a lot of fun. I actually played very well and had winning chances in both games until some issues like not seeing my army for a moment when forcefields happened. I really think those were the best games of my life, trying as hard as I could didn't mean I won, but it was still great.
Losers bracket I was against a masters zerg who beat me 2-1 in the most disappointing series ever. I held off and beat a baneling bust game 1, lost to one in game 2, and in game 3 I knew it was coming so I decided exactly how to do my build and building placement to crush it. Except I didn't do it. I have no idea what happened in my brain, I thought do X and win, and my hands did Y. I don't know if it was pressure or tired or stress or what but it was incredibly upsetting. I'm a really non-angry person but that was the only moment I've ever been close to smashing my keyboard. I had my fist on it and was going to just punch it but I realized my brother was right beside me, and I really didn't want to do that in front of him. So my keyboard lived.
So that was a really great experience, even being upset about the finish I still won $60 and got to compete in an incredibly well run event with some of the most amazing staff ever. :D
Edit: Picture of my competitor tag :D + Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2lQhSZ1.jpg)
