EPTI missed the first BronyCraft because my alarm didn’t go off. I was really disappointed that I missed it, and it sounded like it was fun. That’s a problem Australian’s have when trying to participate in American events. They’re on very early, but this one wasn’t so bad. I had to wake up at 7:30 AM, which isn‘t ungodly early, and is indeed standard time for a regular school day, but I hate waking up before 10:30 on weekends. I only got about 3-4 hours sleep, but I was feeling perfectly fine when my phone went off and I got up. I got on StarCraft with half an hour to spare. I was finally going to participate in BronyCraft.
Going into this tournament, with the ever important t-shirts available as prizes, I was confident, but I wasn’t deluded. My goal was to win, but with master league players such as Whitewing, the winner of the first BronyCraft tournament, who defeated coL.FireZerg in the finals, my expectations weren’t too high. I was only a little platinum league Zerg.
A lot of bronze leaguers pretend (or actually believe) that they’re better than they actually are. You will hear many bronze leaguers say that they’re actually diamond level, but held down by all the cheese in the lower leagues. Well, for me, I think I actually am a level above the league I’m in. Oh, but wait, Tempest! If you were so good why aren’t you in diamond league? Well, because I lack consistency. I have about a 50-60% win ratio in platinum league, and you wouldn’t think that I would be diamond level with such an unremarkable ratio in mere platinum. Well, I make silly mistakes sometimes. My biggest flaw is that I choose stupid builds to execute. Like, at the start of one ZvP I played. I said “Okay! I’ll go for a quick nydus into his main!” when if I had played straight up I would have DEMOLISHED my Protoss opponent. If I execute the correct build however, and play at my peak capacity where I don’t miss any injects until I’m on 3 or 4 base and macro nearly perfectly, I feel I am indeed diamond level. This isn’t just talk, I can back this up. I have a Terran friend who is in Masters league on both SEA and NA. I am fully capable of taking games off him, and if I can hold my own against a high masters player, logically you would think I’m at least diamond level. Well, sometimes. I’ve only ever lost once or twice in platinum league while playing my best, and that was to stupid Protoss deathball bullshit that’s impossible to beat and stuff and no I’m not balance whining I just hate it.
So in my bracket I had a silver league Terran in Round 1. Easy. I couldn’t imagine any scenario in which I could lose to a Terran opponent so clearly below my level (no offence, nohbrows. Love you, bro.)
Round 2 would be a ZvZ for certain. I would be against either a gold Zerg or a masters Zerg. Well, quite obviously, the masters Zerg will win that, even with the go-either-way-edness of ZvZ. But it is that exact go-either-way-edness that let me believe that I could beat this guy 2 leagues above me.
Ro16 was where, realistically, I would go out. I would likely be against a masters Protoss, IIRC. I hate Protoss, so unless I all-ined him and managed to win. But even if I somehow managed to pull off the upset, I would be against Whitewing in Ro8. The guy who beat a semi-pro gamer. Yeah, I’m screwed.
Anyway, with the tournament beginning, I found nohbrows, my first opponent and we played our Bo1 match on Metalopolis. I figured I was a much better player in all aspects, so I could do just about anything and win. I decided that I would go for a July/Kyrix style high economy baneling bust. nohbrows went for a hellion build, but they were easily dispatched. I made a bunch of banelings and attacked at a perfect opportunity: right after he had expanded. My banelings crushed through his two bunkers and his depot wall, and my zerglings streamed in and killed everything. GG. I was on to the Ro32.
I wasn’t too happy about my win, mainly because in my mind I had already won the instant nohbrows was matched against me. I did take a moment to sympathize with my opponent, though. I would feel so tremendously disappointed if I went out in the first round, even though this is a casual tournament for fun. I hold myself up to very high standards, and that may sound ridiculous for a platinum leaguer, but although I know that I am not a good player comparatively, what I mean by high standards is I should be able to beat anyone short of masters if I play my absolute tip-top flawlessly as I have in the past. Well, I was against a masters in R2.
My opponent was a Zerg, StarDragon. Now we were getting into Bo3. How I like it. The starting map was Shattered Temple, and I learned that due to StarDragon’s status as a fan favourite of sorts (one of the most loved people in the entire tournament, definitely) our match would be casted. This was another of my goals, to have one of my matches casted. I checked the stream. 100 viewers. 100 people watching and I wasn’t the slightest bit nervous. That’s good.
Watch my Ro32 match vs. StarDragon here: http://www.twitch.tv/bio_hon/b/307547036 at 50:00.
I checked StarDragon’s match history and saw that he likes to hatch first against Zergs. This information would come in handy. I formulated a plan to 10 pool him to hard counter the hatch first builds I was 90% sure he would execute. However, Shattered Temple wasn’t a good map to 10 pool on. Far too easily scouted.
Well, the match begun. I was asked who my favourite background pony was. I derped (no pun inte….okay, pun totally intended) by answering Derpy, forgetting that she recently got lines and was thus no longer a background pony, but a minor character. I thought a little bit more and changed my answer to Bon Bon. I also answered the all important question of who is best pony overall, which is obviously Rainbow Dash by quite a significant margin.
We were close by air positions, and I scouted that after getting zergling speed he hadn’t taken drones off gas. This clearly meant banelings, so I put down my roach warren and hoped that roaches would pop out in time to deal with this baneling threat.
I ran a zergling up to the watch tower and saw that he was morphing banelings there. I’m not one to criticize someone in a higher league than me, but this was a poor decision. By the time the banelings dragged their slow asses to my ramp, I had already walled it off with 4 roaches, and rather than going for a small contain, StarDragon opted to pull back and expand.
I’m less comfortable late game in ZvZ, and would rather end it early, so after scouting that he put an expansion down, I decided to execute a roach-ling all-in. I made about 10 roaches and went to his base. I had back-up of about 15 zerglings as well. I ran up StarDragon’s ramp, bypassing his still-building expansion. Obviously, there were banelings waiting for me, but my roaches were in front of my lings and after all the banelings had exploded the death toll was 3 or 4 zerglings and significant damage to 2 or 3 roaches. However, StarDragon’s pure lings could not stop my roaches with ling support. I constantly streamed in more zerglings and overwhelmed StarDragon, forcing him to gg.
I was feeling very happy with myself. At the very least, it wouldn’t be 2-0. StarDragon chose the next map, which was Antiga Shipyard. I remembered that StarDragon likes hatch first in ZvZ, and since that’s his favoured strategy, he would obviously pick a map where he can execute it. And knowing from personal experience of being cheesed on Antiga before, knew it was a good map for early pool.
I put down the 10 pool, the hard counter to a hatch first. StarDragon scouted my position last, and was able to see my 6 lings running down my ramp. However, with my scouting drone, I saw that StarDragon had indeed gone hatch first, just as I predicted. I knew that victory was within my grasp. No, I had won, barring any significant micro mistakes. I ran up into his main, and, avoiding my previous mistakes from when I cheesed last time on ladder, abused the choke in the minerals, and did terrible, terrible damage to his drones. 4 lings popped out for StarDragon after his pool finished, but it wasn’t nearly enough. StarDragon gged. I had just beaten a masters Zerg.
I threw my hands up in the air and cheered. I felt like I was on top of the world and gained a new surge of confidence. I opened up Bio’s stream in time to hear Fluttershy crying and the people in chat saying things like “ZvZ is so stupid…”
I knew that it was a simple build-order win in game 2, but game 1 I won straight up, through scouting and choosing the correct strategy, and even if the banelings hadn’t been morphed at the watch tower, I’m 95% sure that I would have held.
I waited for my Ro16 opponent, who was a nice Zerg in diamond league named ZealotKiller. I just took down StarDragon, a fan favourite. ZealotKiller would be easy. We both agreed that Dash was best pony and were about to get started when we said our vetos. I vetoed Metalopolis, while ZealotKiller vetoed the starting map, Terminus.
…I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to veto the starting map, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to look like a jerk. ZealotKiller asked Bio if it was okay, and apparently it was. Eh. Whatever. I was told that I could pick the starting map.
My mind flashed back to the 10 pool I had just executed on StarDragon. Shakuras Plateau usually has hatch first. I could get an easy win with a 10 pool again! But…Shakuras wasn’t in the map pool.
Wat.
I was positive that it was, but apparently Shakuras Plateau was not, in fact, in the map pool.
Well, fuck. There goes Plan A.
I didn’t really have any preference on the remaining maps, so I just picked Bel’Shir. I’ll just play straight up and win. No. I’ll all-in. I’ll do a good all-in that I’ve made work before, a +1 speedling all-in.
I checked ZealotKill- Okay, fuck it. That’s just annoying to type so I’m abbreviating it as ZK. Zed-Kay. Not Zee-Kay
As I was saying, I checked ZK’s match history and well…there wasn’t much to go on. He plays Protoss a lot and his last ZvZ matches were…well, I have no idea. I didn’t find any. I’d have to treat this like a ladder game. Just react. Oh, wait. I’m all-ining. Not react. All-in
Long story short, I went for my all-in against ling bling, and a micro slip-up or two left me way behind. I tried to take a third base but it was quickly denied. I went for mutalisks, but ZK stopped it perfectly and I was overrun by a hydra/roach/infestor army.
Well, that wasn’t good. Why did I continue my all-in after I saw banelings? BECAUSE I’M A FUCKING MORON, THAT’S WHY! Remember earlier how I said I did dumb builds? Why even all-in? Why not just play straight up and macro?
Well, I dunno. I picked Antiga Shipyard for Game 2, hoping ZealotKiller would hatch first and we would get a repeat of my game vs. StarDra….SD.
I 10 pooled and…wait, did I just make a 9 overlord with a 10 pool?
Oh my fucking christ.
Well, Destiny won with a ghetto 7 pool, maybe I can win with a ghetto 10 pool? But no, what I should have been doing is NOT FUCKING 10 POOLING AFTER I MADE THE OVERLORD! After shit like that you need to cut your losses and execute a different game plan. Well, no. My super delayed 10 pool did no damage, so I tried to expand, only to be horribly violated by over nine thousand zerglings. GG.
I wasn’t hugely disappointed, since Ro16 was my original prediction, but I know that I wouldn’t have been embarrassed horribly if I didn’t play so FUCKING BADLY! I wanted that shirt, man. But I couldn’t have it.
It’s a shame, but afterwards I congratulated ZK and watched the VOD of my games vs. SD. I hadn’t seen it from Bio’s perspective. Bio was a pretty biased caster. He reminded me of Artosis casting NesTea. He casted almost completely from StarDragon’s perspective and his commentary was basically “NOOOO STARDRAGON MAYBE JUST MAYBE HE CAN HOLD COME ON MAN OH NO NO NO I DON’T THINK HE CAN HOLD OH NO POOR STARDRAGON NOOOO WHYYYYYY”
I don’t actually care, in case you think I’m upset over something silly like that. I like Bio’s casting and it was an interesting feeling to be both the underdog and, I suppose you could say, villain of that series.
Anyway, Bash, some EU GM player who has apparently beaten Stephano before, went on to win the tournament. Good for him.
BronyCraft 2 was a great experience and I had a lot of fun participating. It’s a really fun feeling to be in a tournament and rest assured, that when BronyCraft 3 rolls around, you will see RPR_Tempest aka Soundwave there. I won’t make any stupid decisions. I know what I did wrong every game and how to fix it. I will be a bigger, better and badder Soundwave next time and I won’t be stopped in the Ro16.
Thanks for reading.
EDIT: About a minute after I posted this, far too quickly for anyone to have actually read this, my blog was rated a 1 by somebody. I don't care about ratings, but it's sad to see that some people will hate on something just because it's related to cartoon ponies.
I gave you a higher rating for ponies :D
![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111010224622/halo/images/e/e0/14381-fluttershy-yay.jpg)
