EPTHi guys. Some of you may remember me from "the good old days", and some of you might not know me, so I'll give a quick introduction. I'm a 20 year old Terran player from NY, USA who used to go to MLGs/IEMs/etc back in 2010-2012. I recently started playing LotV (about 2-3 months ago maybe?) and finished last season at rank 36 NA GM.
I decided to say fuck it and give it my all to try to qualify for the WCS Ladder challenge thing. I am a full time college student but I had no major assignments for the four days it ran so I pretty much spent all my time outside of class doing nothing but playing Starcraft. I played 187 games in four days, peaking at rank 3 on the first day and finishing at rank 20. (I probably would have finished at 18, but I got desperate when I was 40 points out with 20 min to go and tried to allin a bit.) I'm just going to write a few thoughts about my experience with the competition, moments that stuck out to me and such.
Here are all 187 replays - http://www.mediafire.com/download/vsay3kp38i7w9at/Pokebunny_-_WCS_Ladder_Attempt.zip
List of random thoughts:
1) I improved a fuck ton. I started doing a lot of 2 base timings which may be a bit "cheesy" and not help my overall game, but they worked extremely well for me and gave me a solid fallback that worked against a lot of builds. TvZ I did a very early marine/medivac stim timing into marine/tank/medivac parade push, and beat a lot of good players. TvP I did a 2 base tank/combat shields push that seemed to work out quite well on a lot of the maps that I played. TvT I mostly played standard but never really figured out a style that I felt super confident in.
2) Highlights of who I beat - I took one game off Neeb (the only time I played him, actually), one game off Scarlett, one game off NoRegreT (also the only game we played in the four days), one game off HuK, perhaps a couple others that I'm forgetting. I couldn't consistently beat the good players with standard play but I was able to use my strong timings and catch them off guard to take games. My mechanics have a long way to go and I need to put in the research into watching Korean games to learn a more solid macro style. The wins vs Neeb and Scarlett were such a rush, I started getting really nervous as soon as I realized I had a chance to win in both of those games.
3) Going into the four days I felt like TvT was my best matchup, but by the end it was my worst winrate due to the fact that I didn't really have strong builds. I mostly played reaper expand into defensive macro play which I wasn't really good enough at to take on the top terrans. Fortunately I played primarily zergs in the four days and that was my best matchup.
4) The last day was stressful as fuck, and I BMed two people that I don't actually dislike, so I'd like to apologize to Illusion and Kelazhur for my rude comments. I was nervous and checking ladder ranks while at school all day and pretty much panicking the entire time, so when I lost games to getting cheesed by players who weren't even in the top 16 running I got a little salty. Sorry guys, that's really not who I am and I wish I could have controlled myself better. There were a lot of people who were getting really competitive and I admire the intensity of the competition and I'm glad I could be a part of it.
5) I'm a little sad I didn't make it, but every player that made it is honestly a better player than me so I can't say I deserved it. I played a lot of games but everyone who got in was really good so congrats guys. I'd really love to be able to play against those guys consistently and get their thoughts and learn to play at that level, and discuss with the terrans and pick their minds on how to improve my own play. If any of you good NA players ever want to practice or help me out I'd super appreciate it.
6) I really love how my small stream community banded around me, especially Wednesday night there were some guys who I really felt like were invested in my success. Special thanks to Forcesx for being my #1 viewer and apostle of the Church of Ebay. Unfortunately I didn't stream the last day because I was nervous and afraid of losing any games to lag/sniping/cheating since it got really heated.
What I can say more than anything is my passion is back. I honestly am thinking about taking time off school to give gaming another go because even if it isn't a great career path, I've been depressed as hell for the last year or so and I really need a change of pace. Nothing makes me happier than competing and being a part of the Starcraft community, even if it isn't quite what it once was. I would love to be a bigger part of the scene in whatever way I can - in the past I have done casting, writing, playing, etc so I've been around the block.
If you enjoy the replays or the blog and want to check out my stuff more often, give me a follow at http://twitter.com/Pokebunny and/or http://twitch.tv/Pokebunny . If you have any questions about me, my experience on the ladder run, or anything else feel free to drop a comment on the TL or reddit thread.
Again, the replay pack: http://www.mediafire.com/download/vsay3kp38i7w9at/Pokebunny_-_WCS_Ladder_Attempt.zip
Cheers everyone.
Nick / Pokebunny
