EPTIt has been a long while since my last blog.. I was planning on doing many more to cover my time in Korea until the very end of 2011 but I lost the last entry after almost finishing it when my laptop died. I just couldn't muster up the courage to do it all again since it was kinda long and I put lot of effort and time into it. I'm not gonna be able to remember everything with the same details as in previous blogs, so I'm not gonna try to make it so, and this is probably gonna be messy, even maybe ranty. Last thing I remember from that last blog I lost before posting is how I met and talked to Bomber at the GOM house and getting dinner with everyone else there.
The tipping point
Since then lot happened, mostly me having to leave the GOM house because FXO was coming to Korea for GSTL (when qxc all-killed IM). However, I didn't have to leave it until Sheth arrived and requested from GOM to make me leave (he doesn't like living with many people), so I got to meet everyone who came, most notably qxc, tgun and SLoG (who would end up being really good friend of mine who helped me quite a bit in Korea).
I thought I would be able to come back after FXO left, but for some reason GOM didn't allow me to, so it led to me having to pay much more money to live here, but most importantly, I wasn't able to practice anymore, and I wasn't able to stream. This is the point everything went downhill for me
The downfall
I was losing my skill due to not being able to get decent practice in decent amount, I was losing my viewership due to not streaming at all anymore, and I eventually got removed from the featured stream list because of inactivity. Streaming was one of the main ways to sustain myself here in Korea, and I lost that too in the process.
I tried to hang on and find another solution to get some decent practice and was going to PC bangs from time to time but it wasn't sustainable since again, my living costs drastically increased while my income drastically decreased. I had to be careful and spending my days in PC bangs wasn't a reasonable option. I felt like my hands were tied
The rest, everyone can guess, I was still attending the code A qualifiers but obviously, I wasn't able to win games anymore since I wasn't able to practice anymore, and after a couple of those I knew that unless I found a solution to this problem it's never gonna get any better. To make it worse, this situation happened ~4 months before I had my first big offline events to attend : ESWC and PPSL (the IPL 4 Asia Regional qualifiers). I got invited to ESWC and I got asked to play in one of the PPSL qualifiers, being expected to win and then attend the PPSL offline event.
Even though I was in terrible shape due to reasons I talked about earlier I still managed to qualify at the first try pretty easily. They were basically inviting big names from Korea to come play in each of the qualifiers ; Sen qualified in the first one, and I got the proposition for the 2nd qualifier (although I don't consider myself a big name at all).
First international appearances : disappointment or ...?
My first offline event was ESWC. The conditions at the event itself were pretty bad for me, it was freezing in Paris at this time and my seat was right in front of a gate that wasn't the most isolating one, so it took me a good hour and a half just to get my hands functionnal, at which point I had to play my first game of the group. Not only conditions were pretty bad but, I haven't been able to practice for months, but I also had a pretty tough group with Stephano, Grubby, NightEnd and sLivko. I also heard from my team at the time, eSahara, that there were talks and expectations on my upcoming games against Stephano since we're both French and I have been in Korea for so long. It put a lot of pressure on me knowing that I had no practice coming into this tournament, and that there were lot of expectations for me due to my previous performances at code A qualifiers and all the time I've spent training in Korea. My value or power level would basically be decided on my performance there, a moment I was eagerly awaiting while training in that 100 gravity room that is Korea... but it was different now, it doesnt matter how good you get and how much you practice if you get cut off in the middle of it and can't keep it up at such crucial time.
I played my first series vs Grubby. We had small talk before the series started, he was pretty friendly and asked if I was that guy who's practicing in Korea trying to qualifiy for GSL ; he knew about me.
vs Grubby
First map on Tal'darim he went nexus first and I was planning on doing a build I've always had huge success with on this map, I would even go as far as saying that I didn't lose TvP on this map. He went for a nexus first while I was going for cloak banshees ; as soon as I scouted the Nexus first I went for a marine hellion pressure at the front while getting cloak.... which is when he asked for a pause. Me, stupid and naive as I am, see him not pausing for a few seconds so decide to do it. His computer was lagging apparently, which took around 10-15min to be fixed. When we got back in the game, I've lost track of what I was doing because the pause was so long. I messed up my micro for the pressure as we started fighting when I paused, which was not looking good for me but didn't let it bother me because I was confident my banshees would do damage (they always did)... problem is, I didn't actually start building my banshee, so I found myself with cloak researched and no banshees ; I knew I lost right there since I was way too behind because of this, but played on. My first banshee even got there before any robo was up while a canon was morphing.. it was pretty much an autowin if the pause didn't throw me off this much. I played it out and still went for my 2 base timing that obviously didn't work ; I was frustrated beyond words, because this game should and would've be mine for sure without that pause.
Game 2 I went for the same opening, it was pretty even all game, he had trouble defending my all my banshee harass but I was still pretty tilted by game 1 loss, thinking about it and ended up slipping and letting DTs do unrecoverable damage in the midgame. We shook hands but I was extremely upset about this series. It was a series I had very good chances of winning, in fact I could see a lot of weaknesses in his play that have always made me smell blood while practising in Korea, but it has been way too long since I had been able to actually practice so it didn't matter. It was extremely frustrating knowing that I should win but couldn't because I wasn't playing on my level. (I wanna point out that I respected Grubby a lot and still do, but this is still how I felt when I played him)
I played Stephano next, in a rematch from an online French tournament I won against him in the finals a year ago, when he was still calling himself Sat. I'm not gonna go over that series, he did what I was expecting him to but was too dumb to stick with my plan because last minute thoughts convinced me he wouldn't. I also, again, was playing pretty bad, so I would've lost either way I think.
From there, I knew I was out so the rest isn't really relevant. I was already extremely embarassed and disappointed in mysef. Even though I haven't been able to practice for long time, I was still hoping that playing in a major tournament like this would make up for it and push me to play better than I would expect, but it didn't happen.
Some people came to talk to me and tell me they love what I'm doing and were cheering for me, couple people asked me to sign some stuff and some other French progamers that I met before going to Korea also came to talk to me a bit. most notably MoMaN and Adelscott, who also asked me to practice with him. We used to play some together right before I left for Korea, but he told me "yeah but at least now you're actually good". The compliment lessened the pain I felt at this moment, but he probably didn't know that I wasn't really good anymore.
I wanted to spend some time with my friends and family before leaving but I couldn't .. I had PPSL a couple weeks later, so the time I had I would use it to try to get some practice before going there. All the time I had was a couple days with my family and an evening with my friends. After that I went to stay at my manager's house to practice until I left for PPSL.
I had some time to practice this time and thought it was gonna be better this time. I was wrong. It went pretty bad too, I lost in groupstage in 2 close games vs FXOwhale and not so close games vs Inca and I was out. However, I understood why I got asked to play in the qualifiers for that tournament when I got there .. for some reason everyone there (in Manila) knew who I was and I spent a big portion of my time signing stuff and taking pictures with pinoy fans, who are the most passionate and excited I've seen. There was this one guy who saw Artosis and went completely insane, screaming "aaaaaaaah this is Artosis oh my god oh my god !!!", jumping around waving at him and such until Dan eventually went to him and took a picture with him.. That guy looked like he achieved his life dream and could die tomorrow and not regret anything, it was pretty amazing to see.
I also got to spend time with some of my friends I haven't seen for some time, namely Rachel, Torch, Tastosis and TheGunrun as well as NaNiwa and SaSe who I met in Korea. I also got to meet autralian player Rossi (who did much better than me and lost to FXOwhale in first round of playoffs, that fool didn't listen to my advice !). I had a good time with everyone, but in the end the taste that stuck when leaving Manila was of a bitter disappointment in myself after those two events... but could I really call that a disappointment ? I saw it coming and knew it was gonna be bad, I guess I was disappointed tournament pressure didn't make me play above my actual shape in this case.
What now ?
Obviously my team was as disappointed as I was, especially since they, as almost everyone else, had high expectations from me, even if I warned them that after so long without any solution found for my practice, it wasnt gonna be good. I got back to Korea and situation stayed the same until December when we managed to find a solution and arrange me staying in the MVP B-team house. I stayed for 3 weeks before the next code A qualifiers came around.. but I wasn't feeling ready. I was still too far from the kind of shape I needed to be in to have a shot a qualifying, and after the embarassment from ESWC and PPSL, I just didn't see the point in piling those up, so I refused to play them. The other qualifiers I went to because I was prepared and had a legit shot at winning. This time it wasn't gonna happen. I know eSahara wasn't happy with my offline performances, but it was to be expected after leaving me without any means of practicing for so long. So they basically used me skipping the qualifiers as an excuse to get rid of me, real reason being that they couldn't afford to keep if they wanted to get the koreans they were planning on getting ; some drama ensued.
I then decided to take some time for myself and went to Japan to visit my girlfriend for a couple months ; we broke up. Everything was just going wrong for me at the moment. I still had a month left in Japan. I spent new years eve with a Japanese friend I met in Korea, and a Korean friend who happened to be in Tokyo too, after which I felt like I needed to start over, and that writing about my time in Korea until then was a good way to sweep everything and start fresh ; this is when I wrote the 5 previous blogs, sitting in my room in Tokyo by myself, literally just thinking and searching videos, pictures, dates about when things happened exactly, and caught myself trying to recall everything in the most details possible as I was getting immersed into that writing spree.
Doing so provoked a huge resurgence of motivation in me thinking back about how everything started and how my hard work was starting to pay off before my hands got tied. All I wanted was to get back to Korea, get in a situation where I can remove those ties and focus on my game again. Because I knew. I knew that if I could get back into something close to what I had in the GOM house, even if I would still be on my own, I would make it. I came to Korea with no RTS experience beside some months learning SC2 in France but yet I was able to start seeing result after couple months of training here. Then after moving in the GOM house and training there for another month or 2, I was able to consistenly advance in those qualifiers and get closer to making it. In practice too I was able to be even with code A or code S Koreans and even take games off the better ones. I just needed to get in this situation again.
Back to Korea
I came back to Korea, more motivated than ever thanks the thinking and writing I had done. However motivation sometimes just doesn't cut it. I was still alone in a foreign country with no support at all anymore. It got even difficult to just survive here since I was running out of money. I had to find solutions and started doing some little things here and there, sometimes things that would even be dangerous for my health. But I had no choice, something had to be done.
I tried to get in a Korean team house and such, but nothing ended up working out. Coach Lee watched me play at one of the code A qualifiers of 2011 and thought I had a lot of potential, so he offered me practice some with them, and come at the house from time to time. He wanted me to join the team but I was stll in eSahara at the time. I was really interested and really wanted to do it but I stayed faithful to my team ; by now we all know how it turned out and how big of a mistake it was. That's why when I came back and tried to work things out I got back to him, but it wasn't possible anymore as coach Lee usually often recruits some players he thinks are talented to give them a shot and train them. One of those players you all know very well : it is Symbol, who at the time coach Lee took him, was still going by the name of KDH. A name I was very familiar with because we played each other a lot on the Korean server, and against who I was up by quite a bit as I was winning probably around 70% of the games we would play. Moletrap funnily enough filmed a random ladder game I played at the gom house, and it happened to be against KDH aka Symbol :
+ Show Spoiler +
A fight I never got to finish
That's why I'm really mad at GOM for what they did. I was far from being the least performing foreigner at code A qualifiers. In fact I was doing amongst the best if not the best, and I was always getting better and better, yet I got cut off. When I see where Symbol and other players who rose to fame later on got, while I was actually better until my hands got tied, who knows ? I could've maybe been there instead. Maybe not. But I'll never know now. And this is a thought that is making me sick, seeing all the work I've put into this go to waste like that is too much.
I kept trying and trying, trying to find a way to stabilize here in Korea but it just couldn't happen. And there was no way in hell I was gonna be able to qualify again if it stayed this way. Koreans kept practising hardcore 10 hours+ a day, share strategies and such with each other, kept improving, while I was wasting time trying to make it work in awful conditions, just stagnating, or even getting worse. It just wasn't gonna happen. I kept going, but I knew I wouldn't be able to win. I had no confidence for good reasons, it would be foolish to think I had a chance when I haven't been able to practice decently for about 8 months while Koreans in pro teams kept going at it.
When I was pracitising as hard as the Koreans in the GOM house, I had complete and absolute confidence that I could make it and didn't care who I would play because I put so much effort in it, but when you can't do it it's different. Practice not only makes you better but gives you the confidence. When you know you've put at least as much work as your opposition, there is no reason for you not to be able to win. At least this is how it felt to me, and I was right. I was able to win. As soon as I wasn't able to practice anymore, I couldn't win anymore.
So 2012 for me has mostly been playing here and there where I could, going every week to shoot that korean drama I'm playing in there, playing in couple movies and doing whatever I can to stall until I find a solution.
As of now I still didn't really find a solution, but it got a little better. I got a functional computer, I got a place to stay, but I still need to figure out how to make everything stable so that I can finally focus on my game again. I don't know if I will be able to, how I can do it and when it's gonna be, but until I do nothing's gonna change. I've been there for so long, the short period of time that I had to focus on the game, I made the most out of it. Now it's me against a horde of Koreans who don't have anything else to worry about, and KesPa joined the party.
So let's be realistic. Until my hands get untied, this isn't going anywhere. I just have to figure out how to remove those god damn handcuffs, and when I do, then I can fight them fair and square. The last time I did, it was getting hot for them, the next I'll make sure they burn.
