EPTWith our AOL, we would go on b.net every now and then. But being afraid to lose, I steered clear from melee, choosing UMS games instead. Actually, I simply joined a bunch of games and stocked up on UMS, so I could play them offline later. We weren't supposed to be online too long, since that would tie up the phone line.
As more of my brother's friends got into it, we started playing melee. It was, of course, a turtlefest, a matter of who had more patience. Games usually ended up with someone going guardians/devourers to outrange the mass static defense.
In about 8th grade, we got cable internet at home. I started playing online with a group of friends. The best among us was my cousin, Lam, who was a great low APM player. The group of us would shuffle around and do 1v1s. In 2002, which is around 9th grade for me, I became more serious at getting better. My friend, Justin, and I went to west server to look for a good clan to join. We found [SES], which was a pretty good clan at the time.
I was able to get in by impressing the clan leader (Leader[SES]), but unfortunately, Justin didn't get in. Getting a lot of good practice from my clanmates really sped up my rate of improvement. We changed our clan from [SES] to FightAs at some point. It became an active and well-respected clan in west.
In 2004, I participated in WCG Los Angeles as FightAsBlind. My clanmate, FightAsVenom, also competed alongside me. Together, we took first and second respectively. Although I think Venom's zerg was at least as good as mine at the time, I was a little better at the zvz matchup. Nonetheless, it was a great night because we were both qualified for the nationals. Somehow, I also beat HovZ during that tournament, which is surprising considering he was the top 5 terran foreigner (haha, who else remembers?).
I also met some other TLers in that tournament, including mnm and collegebored. But for some reason, I didn't have much motivation to go the nationals, and neither did Venom. Rather than practice for it, I went back to playing 3v3 BGH and sunken defense with high school friends (non-clanmates). I actually got into a lot of trouble with the clan leader for this.
Anyway, on the day of the final, I decided not to go. At 10th grade, I couldn't drive and didn't want to hassle anyone for a ride. At the last minute, both mnm and collegebored nicely offered to drive me there. I went without Venom. The tournament started great for me as I beat NeO)AsS and rS.Wisdom. I eventually got knocked down to loser's bracket by Artosis and eliminated by Froz.
In retrospect, Artosis seemed to dominate me more than Froz, although Froz was a beast back then. Froz later goes from the loser's bracket to come back and beat Day[9]. My games with Froz were actually quite close. I think they were both on Korhal (?). Not sure, it was an old WCG 2 player map with a long path down the middle in space terrain. I won't bore you with the details, but I knew I could've won if I had practice instead of playing BGH. By te way, highlight of the tournament was Rekrul losing to some newb named Monkey[Ballz].
After that tournament, I did say I would stop playing SC (as we all do at some point) to focus on school. Although it was rough, I did eventually "stop." At times, I would have dreams of getting good again, play mass WGT/PGT, and then gave up after realizing that the general skill level has raised dramatically. The only way I'd be good is if I invested much more time in the game, which I wasn't prepared to do.
Once college rolled around, I truly didn't have time for SC anymore. I still play BGH and UMS every now and then, but have thrown away dreams of making it to the internationals.
The end. (Sorry for the incoherence, it is very late, but I felt an urge to share this at the moment)
![[image loading]](http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2563/wcgsv3.jpg)
