EPTLet me start by saying It's been a dream of mine to be a progamer since I was a little kid. I do not have any Broodwar experience beyond running random 2s with some school buddies of mine and thinking I was awesome by fast lurker dropping opponents on ladder. I played counter-strike competitively and only reached CAL-IM and never played in CPL. The only real gaming achievements I have are winning small LAN's with super smash bros and smash bros melee.
When I first heard the announcement of Starcraft II actually being developed, my buddies and I always talked about striving to go pro jokingly, not knowing how much dedication and time it would take for us to do so. The game grew closer and closer and I remember how painful it was not being able to obtain a beta key. Sadly, at the time I was really into WoW and people were talking about getting beta keys and not even using them. I decided to trade my account for an actual beta key during P2 of beta. When I got the beta key I couldn't stop playing. I fell in love with the game. As said before, I didnt have the luxury or knowing how amazing SC was in E-sports, so discovering it with SC2 was the first time a game actually appealed to me within years. I got to play the beta for a few weeks before they closed it and the game was actually released. Upon release I decided to play Zerg as I played Z in BW. I still was more of a 2s player and just ran 2v2s with my buddy and didnt play 1v1 ladder at the start. I was always nervous to ladder so I never played games other than customs. I finally decided to ladder and got placed in gold and worked my way up diamond by September.
At this point I found out about GSL and really fell in love with certain players. I worked at a software company in downtown LA called Cyberdefender, making a decent living in Pasadena. All day everyday I would ignore customers on the phone and read TL forums on clients computers. I decided at this point I wanted to go pro and give it my all, but I knew I needed something to get better. Watching my replays and playing 2s and customs was not enough. I had to seek help and actually hit up a few pro players not for coaching but just a quick spit on what it takes to be pro. I heard of RaNgeD as a BW player and decided to message him and a few others. RaNgeD was the only player to hit me back and gladly played some games with me and gave me suggestions on my game. I remember him blinking stalkers in my base and FF my units out in my nat and just rolling me like it was nothing. I was ecstatic that someone of his level took time out to help a scrub like myself. RaNgeD saw my dedication and passion I had for the game and offered to help me free of charge an hour a day, so he did for about a month. I quickly began to realize how crazy pros see the game and they have a whole different level of thinking.
I worked about 50 hours a week getting up at 4:45 am everyday, fighting LA traffic and getting home around 3-4pm, which didnt leave me much time to play. I was beat when I would get home and only got to play about 10-15 games a day, which by far was not enough. I needed more and wanted this incredibly bad. October was coming around and RaNgeD told me about MLG and said he was going. I saw this as an opportunity to expand my view on the SC2 community and the sport itself. I decided to play in the competition as well. Trying to not go off on too much of a tangent, but here I met ReSpOnSe, who is an amazing character himself, and plenty of other amazing players. Lazarus Gaming was nice enough to let RaNgeD and I join them and eat dinner / hang out with them for the majority of the time. Playing my first LAN, let alone one as MLG, was definitely nerve racking. I won my first series thankfully against a random Diamond player going 2-1. My next series I lost 1-2 getting knocked into the losers bracket thanks to a random cheesy player =) In the losers I face LGZelniq, who is also a very cool guys, losing 0-2 as well. After MLG I knew I had to go pro and wanted to take it to the next level. When I returned home, being at work was pretty much torture, because I just wanted to be in my leather chair studying the game, not helping 90 year old men fix their web cam so they can talk dirty to young girls over the internet.
RaNgeD started out as a coach and became a really awesome friend along with ReSpOnSe. I remember getting excited as hell everytime we'd skype chat and talk strats. Come December, both of them brought something to me that I never would imagine be true. I was offered an opportunity of a lifetime. They told me that one of ReSpOnSe's students (CEO of Newrosoft) was forming an EU progaming team and needed players. I thought nothing of it at first, until they talked about how ReSpOnSe could not go because he just recently got engaged (friggin' congrats man, so happy for you). Andrei had asked if they knew anyone else who has potential or is a progamer and they suggested me. Andrei checked out my play, although definitely nowhere near top tier or even 200 at this point, decided to give me a chance because the two explained how much potential I had although I rarely got to play. They knew that if I got a chance to play hard and practice for hours on end, I'd reach the top. We researched the entire situation through and through, made sure everything was solid and legit and decided to move forward with it.
After everything became 100% I left my job last month on Feb. 4th, so I could focus solely on my game. Since then I have been mass laddering, studying my reps, staying up till 2 am to watch GSL, analyzing games, pros reps, VODs, discussing strats with others and practicing my butt off nonstop. Currently I only sit at 3200 pts in ML, but that will change very shortly. I am a very dedicated person with crazy work ethics. I've been truly blessed by our savior Jesus Christ and given an opportunity almost no one would ever get and I'm going to take it full force. I promise you guys will be seeing ALOT more of me in the future. I did not play BW and I know PLENTY of players that did are probably a little worn out. My heart and soul are fresh and very passionate about the game and you will see some promising games out of me. stay tuned!!! -sLeEpy
Other blogs:
March 19th, 2011 - Blog #2
March 25th, 2011 - Blog #3
March 31st, 2011 - Blog#4
