EPTSo, i guess the i should start talking about how i start playing games, my father had a pc since before i was born (end of 93), since he works with elotronics we kinda grew playing games, we didn`t had a console before the PS2 been out for a few years, so i only played pc until my 11-12. As far as i can remember my oldest memory about a game was playing Flight Simulator, i was really into that game and F-22, until an uncle bring a bunch of CDs, mostly RTS games, Age of Empires (the first one), Earth Empire and some other games the i can`t remember.
Basically that was when i start playing RTS games, SC1 and Broodwar didn`t had much influence for me i did play a little but wasnt fun, maybe because i didn`t knew english so AOE which was transtaled to portuguese was more fun for me, i didn`t even knew Blizzard back then.
Playing online wasnt something the i could do or knew that was viable until 2003 when we had an 300kbs connection (god, that was so good at the time for me), i only could know what games were out when i went to the shopping and i only could buy one at my birthday or christmas.
But, once we had a decent connection in 2003, a few friends of mine made me play with them my very first MMO, Priston Tale, that was a blast for me, seen so many people playing at same time was something the i couldn`t forget. After that i start playing tought some tools matchs of AOE 2 online, almost always lose then start playing against an easy AI again.
About 2004, my uncle comes up with 2 CDs and says "Play that game, it will be the best game the you will know", that was when i met Blizzard, through Warcraft III Reign of Chaos. It was a pirate copy, but i`ve played the shit out of that game. I remember waking 3am to play until i fall sleep at the saturday (i forgot to mention, both me and my younger brother were only allowed to play at the weekends). But something the i learned from AOE is, if i play only i would be rekted. never touch the multiplay button! Sometime pass and my uncle (again) comes with a few more CDs, "Remember WC3? Yes? Here take the expansion", this guy probably made me lose my childhood, which my mother keeps blaming him until today. What could i say, Blizzard became my favorite company, if anything i knew about them is the whatever they do is awesome.
After that, i played a bunch of CS, i was a little older so i had some money which was turned into a lot of hours of gaming session in a cyber cafe close to my school, every day my friends and i went to play CS, i wasn`t good neither them, but it was fun. That was also my first contact with gaming tournaments, once one of those friends decided the we would celebrate his birthday in the cyber cafe with 4 hours of gaming (best birthday ever!), we had a few PCs only for us, in the other side of the same room there was a bunch of people playing CS while others were behind them watching they screen, i asked a friend what was going on and the he told me the that was a tournament, every saturday they had one, the winners won free hours in the café and some money. But wasn't something the i would ever imagine the someone could do for living.
Many years later, in 2010 now i was15~/yo i was about to start high school, but at first day i endup havivng a panic attack out of nowhere, which endup with me having panic attacks and losing one year of school. It was really bad, i bearly had any friends, many of them didn`t bother to check if i was ok, that made me realised who was really my friend, only 3 of them would come to my house and talk to me. But i had a bunch of free time, so i played everything the i could find, in some gaming portals the i use to go i found this banner with a bad ass soldier using a blue armor, Starcraft II Wings of Liberty would lunch in a few months.
Since i knew a little about Starcraft and mostly only played FPS and MMOs i had was really excited to play a new RTS, a couple of days after the official launch (remind, i didn`t knew about Pro scene, in any game, so was just an RTS for me), i took a while to finish the campaign, but i had so much fun, still, i was really into MMOs, i just started playing WoW and endup leaving SC2 aside.
Fun thing, here in Brazil Blizzard tried to made the game really accessible, a game at the launch would cost for a couple of years about R$99, SC2 was selling at R$50, but it was limited for 6 months, after that you need to pay R$10 monthly or pay more R$50 once to play online.
With this i endup not playing ladder a lot.
After this year, in 2011 i start again the highschool but i was in treatment, the drugs where really heavy, the only thing i did for 6 months was going to school, sleep until all the classes end, go back home and spend almost the whole day sleeping. It was kind of fun, back then because all of my classmates had no idea the i had a problem, so i was this weirdo the only was going to sleep in class. After a the first 6 months my psychiatrist decided to start taking away the drugs, so i start not falling sleep as i was and start to making a few friends again.
I still remember when i star to talk with a classmate, he was talking about some ecchi anime with other guy, i never realised the someone in that class would watch anime, so that's how i start making friends again. Also this guy is one of my best friends until today, the power of ecchi...
Now we are going with SC2 again, remember when i told the only three friends used to visit me when i was in home? I mention to him the i was starting to play SC2 because blizzard did a sale where i could upgrade my account for unlmited for R$18! After a few days he come and say "Hey man meet this guy, he also plays that game the you told me about it". That whe i meet George, aka PoneyMaldito back in the days, we spend so much time playing 2x2,3x3 with TheCellist who was a studying in USA to become a Maestro, he was also the first person who start coaching me with the basics of the game, i had 0 idea about hotkeys, hardcounter, macro,micro, GSL,MGL, and he start me showing what those things were. I will never ever forget the time the we were watching MC playing Idra in MLG 2011 Columbus and thinking how zerg was broken.
But after a year or so George transfer to another school, due a few connection problems we didnt play anymore, i was bronze, he was gold and TheCellist platinum, i was by my own, with no more friends playing, i didn`t knew much about Day9 was when i started to watch his dailies, one of them made me become a fan of SaSe (Daily #371) how good this guy was.
Mid of 2012 i was addicted to Starcraft 2, started to stream and cast some games to the brazillian community, change my nick which was my name to SpiritSTR (at that time you couldn't have a nick same as other player, so Spirit was unvalible), SC2 took a huge time back there, but wasnt my main game, i was so much into BF3 the i didn`t take SC2 serious, so i played 5 games per day and was ok with that. But then, i met Sapo, this guy is proably well know as a cannon rusher from Copa America, he went from Bronze to Masters in 6 months and start to play against GMs.
I was browsing in Twitch and saw in portuguese "Diamond Protoss" and realized he was having trouble with his stream settings, so i start to chat with him and helping to finish the setup, we endup becoming really good friends, and he start to coaching me, making me quit from BF3 to only play SC2. God, i was a low plat when i met this guy in less then 2 months i was beting low masters, once HoTS beta came out he also jump into beta and i did the same, we improve so much our multitasking mostly because of our phoenix playstyle once the game officially launch i hit diamond,even play against a Select (yes the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ guy), i got demoslish but i was so happy playing with a pro, i got stuck in diamond, swarm host was broke as ****, mines was so painful, but i keep playing.
So, Sapo left... he wasnt having much fun in SC2, even getting a spot in copa america he start to cannon rush everyone because of that, he still beating a lot of good players in ro32/16 (can't remember right now) but since everyone was getting cannon rushed by him, was easy to know what was coming then he got eliminated we didn`t play anymore, once again i was alone again.
2014 was around the conner, i still in diamond with almost no improve, not really many reasons to keep playing, couldn`t stream anymore because my IPS decided to cut my upload speed in half (which was about 400kbs), i end up start playing BF4 again, while playing a couple of SC2 games, but i was starting to talk more with the community, start to got invited to cast and play some online tournaments and got know by a lot of people, so i wasn`t out, for months i played enought to keep up with the tatics, watch religiously GSL.
For almost 2 years i was stuck in diamond, i was really lazy, afraid to left my confort zone, until one day we contract a new IPS, i was able to stream again, and so i said to myself "i'm gonna hit masters", for a whole month i start playing at least 2-3 hours every single day, learning more about game sense and micro, after almost 2 months i hit my goal (which i was able to record https://www.twitch.tv/spiritstr/v/43706520) i was so happy, it was proably one of my best memories, i had work so much for this and learned so much.
Since that day i'm a low masters-diamond 1 (mostly because of the same reasons the i was stuck in diamond) but SC2 made learn a lot of things, working hard pays, becoming patient, remain calm when things got hard, thiking outside the box and also, knowing the only one limiting you its yourself.
Well, i guess is more than time to get masters again and why not shot for GM?
Thanks for reading, sorry for my english has been a really long time since i wrote something so long, i got a cold yesterday and still in bed so i'm sorry for not making grammar corrections right now.
Cya!
