EPTToday is New Years Eve in Sweden and it marks the ending of 2011. I'm home visiting my family over the holidays and I'm extremely restless and bored at this point, so I sat down and tried to gather all my thoughts about my life since I got picked up by Team Dignitas (and a little before that) and put it on paper. Hopefully it gives you some insight into what it's like being a progamer (or, sort of a progamer, I wouldn't call myself a progamer currently) It's a huge wall of text so be warned! It speaks about pretty much every event I've been to since I started playing SC2. And my experiences of progaming so far.
DISCLAIMER: I love all of my teammates in Dignitas and some of the things I say about them below was my first and very misguided impression of them
Background
I've always been into RTS when it comes to gaming. I first laid my hands on SC Vanilla when I was 8 years old, and didn't stop playing it til I was 19. Once I discovered battle.net and progaming, more like South Korea and progaming, my little childhood dream was to make my living as a big shot progamer. Playing on the big stages versus people like SlayerS_`BoxeR` and (at the time) XellOs, NaDa etc. I would spend hours of hours of just trying to learn their builds, study their fpvods, trying to figure out why they were so good. I didn't have much time to play though seeing how even though ADSL/Broadband was introduced quite early in Sweden (1999-2000:ish) our family stayed on a 56k modem til the end of 2002. I'd always say to myself I'd never quit the game before I become good, good by my own standards I guess. In the last few years before SC2 hit the scene, I did become quite good by foreign, or maybe Swedish standards. I made into the National A Squad, I played for some of the biggest teams out there such as MgZ), and competed in the highest clan leagues such as WGTCL Division 1.
As time flew by, I found myself applying for Law School in a place over 600 KM away from home, and I was accepted in september 2009. When I left, I left with a bag of clothes, a shitty laptop (useless for gaming) and some money I had saved up, due to taking one year off after high school, working my ass off. Law School was the "logical and mature" choice. When I realized being a SC/BW progamer maybe was a bit too farfetched and scary (going to live in korea, no source of income etc..) I settled for something I was rather interested in, and that would produce a relatively high income; becoming a Lawyer. Due to my incredibly boring talent (but really useful) of always finding school easy, it wasn't an unrealistic goal either.
Due to the nature of starting university, Law School, I didn't have much time left over for gaming, nor did I have the stuff required to play SC/BW. I didn't have a keyboard, no mouse, no monitor, just my laptop. I figured I was too old for gaming anyways, I was starting a "new life", so I left it all behind. I was kind of excited for SC2 that had been announced years earlier, but not overly excited. But things were about to change...
The beginning of it all - TSL2
In the beginning of 2010, I was moving into my new dorm, and my father kindly drove 700 Kilometers to help me move all my stuff, plus to bring along some of the stuff I left behind when I first left. Among those things were my desktop, with keyboard, mice and monitor. I started casually playing SC/BW again, laddering away at ICCup when shit hit the fan, and by that, I mean TSL2 was announced. Being competitive by nature, and regretting my poor placement in TSL1 (which was the biggest fucking thing in foreign BW for like.. forever) I decided "To fuck with it, it's TSL2 damnit!" and I started nerding hardcore again. I'd only play on weekdays though, and I'd still prioritize school/friends over grinding out a few extra games on the TSL2 ladder. But every single second I had off on weekdays was spent grinding away at the ladder.
I regained my form, and I BARELY just missed qualifying, due to a number of things that happened the last couple of days *cough* abusers *cough*, but hey, that's life, and If I wanted it so bad, I should've spent every last second of the ladder trying to qualify, instead of giving up when it was 10 hours left of playtime. I still loved the production value of TSL2 and I followed it religously, if I missed the live cast I'd get the vods and I'd make sure to avoid any spoilers. Then shit hit the fan again, only this time, it was the release of SC2 Beta.
I'm not sure what it was, my theory is that it was the competetive nature that TSL2 brought out again, and all the hours I invested into SC/BW again, but when SC2 Beta hit, I freaked out, because I didn't get an invite. Like I mentioned before, I wasn't overly excited for SC2... or so I thought, but once it hit, I had to have it. After countless hours of begging/asking different members of the SC/BW community I finally convinced pOGDI to give me one of his keys (he did get two) that we could share in our BW clan (which was named.. BW-). I finally got on and got to play the game and I was totally absorbed into it. Let me tell you something, no game, ever since I touched SC/BW, has made me drop SC/BW. And i've tried them all; CS, WoW, Wc3... Some of them had me occupied for 4-6 months (WoW...) but I'd always let them go and return to my dear old SC/BW, but it was just something about SC2 that didn't make me long back to SC/BW (except for it being.. you know.. Starcraft 2).
This part is already longer than expected, I wanted this to be about SC2 but so far it's mostly my life and SC/BW, so I'll try to skip ahead a little.
Summer of 2010 was approaching, I was promised a Summer job, everything was settled. I played the SC2 beta rather than SC/BW now, I wasn't one of the big shots, but I was doing fairly well, being in the highest league (which was platinum at the time.. lol) and I even did some streaming on TL. I played the occasional Zotac SC2 Beta cups, and always went far but not far enough (most of them were played hungover, to be fair, I know, I love making excuses). To keep things short, summer 2010 came, and my employer fucked me over and I was left without a job over the summer, for the first time in 4 years, and I had a 500$ tax refund to survive the summer. I had rent & stuff that still had to be paid so in the end, I had to swallow my pride, suck it up, and ask my parents to bail me out, while I moved home over the summer due to minimizing my costs (free food etc).
Looking back at things, my employer fucking me over leaving me without a summer job was probably the best god damn thing that has ever happened to me. It sounds weird, but what happened was that I was left with a shitload of free time and what better use of your time than to play a ton of SC2? I basically played the ladder for 8 hours a day as long as the beta was up, and once it went down I played some SC/BW to keep things fresh, and then right back at SC2 once the beta released again for a short period of time. SC2 was pre-ordered so when release hit, I had my copy ready for me. I kept playing like a mad man after release, only to find out that a LAN Café in Stockholm (where my parents live) were hosting the first offline SC2 tournament in Sweden; http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Inferno_Online_League/IOL_SC2_Cup_1
Inferno Online League SC2 Cup 1
Prize was roughly 800€ + a Flatscreen TV 42" for the winner, and 300€ for Second place. Which, at that time, was fucking HUGE.
It was roughly a 20 minute ride by train + Subway to get me there so I went. More for the sake of meeting some of the old BW players I hadn't met for a while (HayprO, ZpuX, newHABIT etc) and if I somehow lucked out and placed top2, I'd earn some well needed money.
When I got there, I was told that some of the rising stars of finnish players were invited, namely Naama, Fuzer and Elfi. I was not invited however, and I had to play a qualification to qualifiy for the main tournament that would be held the day after. I qualified pretty easy, and I remember saying "as long as I don't get Naama I think I have a small shot at getting top3". Naama, was the only player that would constantly demolish me on the ladder or in weekly tournaments. Whenever I played him I felt clueless, and like I was a complete newbie.
The next day arrived and when I got there I saw that I was paired up against no other than Naama in the first round. I was so demoralized. The only player I wanted to dodge, and I was playing him in the first round. I remember being nervous as fuck, despite being to some competetive offline events in SC/BW. After one extremely tight game at LT which I won, and a one-sided facestomp at Scrap station (me being the one who was getting stomped) I picked Steppes of War as the third map. At the time, It was my best map, because tank/viking if played well, was extremely good at it, and I knew how to play tank/viking in TvT. Naama however, due to either also being extremely nervous, or having balls of steel, went for the sickest thor all-in ever. Which fortunately for me, was easily held by someone going tank/viking into CC, getting siege mode before starting CC.
After holding off his all-in I knew I had the game. He lost quite a lot of SCVs and all of his thors. I simply walked to his expo (which took like 0.1 seconds if you still remember Steppes) and won the game. I was in shock, this was probably the first time I had ever beaten naama, and I beat him twice. I went on to face Fuzer, whom I also beat 2-1, and then went on to face SjoW.
I was kinda on hybris at that point. I had beaten the finnish players, I had never heard of SjoW, and after standing behind him vs MaD'FroG I thought it'd be a walk in the park, the guy had like 70 apm!
SjoW quickly made me fall off my high horse and land flat down on my face as he easily dismantled me in two quick TvTs on Metalopolis and Xel Naga. Mentally, I was already in the finals, I was waaaay ahead of myself, preparing to face either Morrow or Jinro. The good run ended abruptly vs some random dude named SjoW who didn't even have 100 apm, what in the FUCK just happened? At that point I was really disappointed, I had gone from not having any expectations on myself to expecting a clear top2 finish after beating Naama & Fuzer, only to fall short in the semi-finals.
Even though SjoW clearly owned me, I still thought MorroW would roflstomp that newbie back to where he came from, and I figured oh well, MorroW free wins in the finals, after all, MorroW came from SC/BW and apparently SjoW was a wc3 player. But we were proven wrong again. SjoW easily took down MorroW in a rather disappointing 3-1 series in favour of SjoW. MorroW looked as shocked as I had been, and all of a sudden SjoW stood as champion of the first held SC2 offline event in Sweden.
A week or two after that, rumours of MYM picking up SjoW for SC2 starting floating around, but in a sudden turn of events, SjoW got picked up by Team Dignitas, who were fairly unknown to WC3/SC2 players at that time.
The aftermath of IOL SC2 Cup 1
After the disappointment settled I was still quite happy with a shared 3rd place finish with Liquid'Jinro. After all, I still beat Naama who I'd never expect to beat, and I beat Fuzer to make it to the semi-finals. And SjoW wasn't looking that bad after all, seeing how he took down MorroW, who was beasting in SC2 Beta and SC2 Release. All of a sudden I started getting tons of offers from small and middle sized teams, they promised salary, gear, trips and what not. I sort of went on hybris again, thinking I was hot shit. But as I was trying to choose which team to join, I was approached by Team Dignitas. Apparently SjoW had recommended me as they were looking for more people in their SC2 squad. When I spoke with Team Dignitas:s manager ODEE, I knew it was the team I was looking for. He wasn't trying to bullshit me as in making promises he couldn't keep, it was honesty, something which is rare in the e-sport community. And I went for it, apparently they had picked up this other random Dawn of War dude named SeleCT as well, whoever the fuck that was, but at least he was Korean...
Once I joined Team Dignitas I had already let the tiny little "e-fame" that I recieved get to my head. Like I said, I was hot shit, or so I thought. Everyone knew who I was right, i'm dignitas\merz, same teams as dignitas\SjoW who just won IOL SC2 Cup, beating MorroW! I remember telling myself that hey, I'll do this on the side while I go to Law school, I'm already this good, it'll work out great! I honestly thought I'd be able to play a few hours here and there, and still place like top3 in tournaments. I was being sooooo naive and full of myself. I didn't account for the fact that I had been playing 8 hours a day non-stop for 3 months. I started placing in the top3 in online tournaments frequently, even winning some such as Craftcup or 4PL. I had a ton of second and third place finishes as well and I always qualified for the monthly finals. I was invited to a Swedish Online tournament called "GamerTV EU Pilot Season 1" Which would include pretty much the top 8 of Sweden (Excluding Jinro & SjoW).
This only made me think even higher of myself, but as always, my excuse in retrospect is that I didn't have a fucking clue that SC2 was about to explode into something HUGE. The only good thing about the whole hybris thing was that my confidence was good. I felt like I could compete with any of the top SC2 players. I went on to place second in the GamerTV EU Pilot Season, losing an extremly tight 2-3 Finals to MorroW. Again I fell short but I felt like I was getting closer, also because MorroW had demolished me in a Viking Cup Finals just weeks before (4-0 in his favour).
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/GamerTV_Swedish_SC2_Tournament_Pilot_Season
But I started feeling something I hadn't truley felt before, the pressure to perform well due to being on a recongnized team and being a somewhat recongnized name, I needed a win or to qualify to something big.
2010: IEM Kiev Qualifications and Dreamhack Winter 2010 announces SC2
In september, we found out that the next IEM event would be in Kiev and It would be the "European Championship". European countries would hold national group stags, that would go on to a national play off bracket, where top 2 would qualify directly to online international group stage (depending on which country, but Sweden had this) And places 3-5 would go to a Stage 2 Qualifier play offs together with other 3-5 place finishes from other countries etc. All in all, the process was fucking tough and confusing. If you managed to place top2 in the online international group stage, you'd get a paid trip and an invite to the IEM Kiev 2011 European Championship, where eventually 12 people would compete for the title of European Champion and top4 would get an invite to the World Finals.
I won my national group, qualifying to the national playoffs.
I went on to beat inF.Jimpo in the quarterfinals with a 2-1 score, only to be faced against SjoW, again in a semifinals. SjoW at the moment was the best performing Swede alongside with MorroW, but I wanted revenge. But, we were friends now, due to us being teammates and fellow Swedes, so there was no grudge between us, just classic rivalry. I managed to beat SjoW 2-1 which meant I was directly qualified to the international groupstage (alongside with MorroW who demolished his side of the bracket).
The only downside to this was I sent SjoW to the "stage 2" playoffs where all the top 3-5 place finishers had to fight for a place in the international groupstage. The pressure to qualifiy for a big offline event was slowly edging up on me, as I felt like I was getting closer. But at the same time, I felt relief in beating SjoW as it proved to me, personally, that I was capable of beating players of his calibre, and I got my sweet revenge from IOL SC2 Cup 1.
SjoW did however manage to fight his way back from the Stage 2 bracket and was eventually also placed in the international group stage.
When the groups were released, I was once again demoralized as it turned out I had both mTw.DeMusliM and mTw.DIMAGA in my group. DIMAGA, arguably one of the best european zergs at the time (and still is..) and same goes for Demuslim. Other than that we had a polish protoss player named "KroLu" who I figured I'd be able to beat. The problem was taking down either Demuslim or DIMAGA.
I really, really, wanted to qualify to Kiev as that would be my first international offline event EVER, and also to prove I guess mostly to myself, but also to Team Dignitas, that I could compete with the very best in Europe.
I prepared so much for my first game which was vs DeMusliM. I studied every damn replay I could find of him, I played a shitton of TvT's, most of them vs SjoW. And I was super nervous once it was time to play. I had prepared a 1 rax FE that I if adapted correctly, could hold off anything, at least in the current metagame. Also, demuslim favoured a 1 rax, 1 fac, 1 port marine, hellion, medivac opener into expansion in most of his TvTs that I had seen. What my 1 Rax FE did in practice was set me ahead economically, while still holding that off, as I had SjoW do that specific strategy against me numerous of times.
What happend in game 1 vs DeMusliM was one of the most rewarding and beatiful things i've experienced in competitive gaming as of yet. Everything worked out just as planned, he went for his 1/1/1 hellion, marine, medivac into expansion. I held it off with ease, got ahead economically and just never let go of that advantage. It went just as planned, and personally for me, things never go exactly as planned in SC2, not to the very extent they did in that game at least.
To be fair, Demuslim probably didn't prepare anything special against me, nor did he have much reason to know who I was to begin with. While Demuslim had replays all over the place as he was pretty succesful in beta/release. So I clearly had all the advantages that being a underdog grants you. No exposure, while you have full access to his playstyles, no pressure, while he has the pressure to win since he's the "good guy" etc.
I'm not sure why but in game2 Demuslim picked Blistering Sands and Protoss. I thought he'd 4 gate just because it was incredibly hard to hold off on that map, instead he went for a sick proxy gateway cheese and I barely held it and the game actually got really close, despite him playing his offrace, but I pulled through in the end.
I sort of did the exact same thing in my game vs DIMAGA. And once again, I had full access to a number of replays. I studied his style and realized he'd always open up hatch first, roach warren, make 5 roaches, pressure, and then make nothing but drones while teching up to lair and mutas. I again resorted to a 1 Rax FE followed up by a 3 rax Marauder/marine timingpush, that would also handle the early roach pressure early because I could get marauders out in time. I won game 1 straight off the 3 rax push after my expo, game 2 I lost because I tried something extremely gimmicky on Shakuras Plateu. I hadn't practiced it either so it was just meant to fail right from the start. I tried to push through his rocks and siege his main (which was utterly broken on that version to be honest) but he still crushed it.
Game 3 was one of the most nervous games in my life as my 3 rax push after expo semi-worked due to me adjusting it last second and pulling 10-12 scvs with it. I lost my entire army and quite a few scvs, but I killed off the hatchery and some drones. It then turned out to be a back and forth game where I had a sick advantage but I was so nervous so I kept fucking up again and again, letting DIMAGA back into the game. But eventually I managed to close it out when DIMAGA, after putting on quite the come back, made a blunder where he sacked his entire army trying to kill off my 3rd, but failed.
As I was 2-0 in my group I had ensured qualification and I was so relieved and happy. I'd just beat both DIMAGA and DeMusliM, I was going to IEM Kiev, everything felt great. KroLu did proceed to 2-0 DIMAGA which knocked him out, while DeMusliM went on to win vs both KroLu and DIMAGA. All in all it ended up with me going 3-0 and Demuslim 2-1.
It was almost december 2010 now, I had been going to Law School while playing SC2 "part time" for 3 full months, and so far it was working out great. SC2 was getting bigger and bigger by each month as well, and Dreamhack had also announced a prize pool over 15 000 $ for DH Winter 2010. I slowly started realizing that I was kind of living the childhood dream I had when I was 12-14 years old.
Dreamhack Winter 2010
I'm going to try to keep things short here. DH:W 2010 was great in a way, but it was also completlty horrible. I was still on Hybris, thinking I was the shit. I kept posting results that would increase my ego and I was really upset with that I hadn't gotten an invite for the tournament. Luckiley there were BYOC qualifications as well. I felt like I was one of the top european terrans (after bo3 wins against SjoW, DIMAGA, DeMusliM.. again, I was so fucking naive and full of myself) and I deserved an invite. In retrospect, I still feel I should've been invited, but I wasn't nearly as good as I thought I was (obviously).
I ended up going there to try the BYOC qualifiers, and I met some people who are now awesome friends in dignitas. People like Zaccabus for example, who does the awesome dignitas videos of MLG, and other events if you haven't seen them (plus a SHITTON of work behind the scenes that people never see). I did survive the BYOC qualifier, which was horrible btw, Bo1 all the way to Finals. Once I qualified for the big tournament, it was time for Bo1 group play. Which is horribleeeeeeeee! At least when groups consists of 4 players. I drew Demuslim again, with Adelscott and fnatic.Fenix.
I lost a won game vs Fenix where I killed off 20 or so off his scvs in the beginning only to lose to the counter push due to choking horribly. (Fenix had placed 2nd in IEM US some weeks before and I was nervous as fuck). I went on to beat Demuslim again in a TvT mirror, and then I lost an extremely tight game vs Adelscott on Xel Naga, which still haunts me today. I was out in groups, and I was pissed off, because again, I wanted to prove my worth in Dignitas, and all the stuff about me thinking im the shit and a top european terran still applied.
SjoW unexpectedly also went out in groups, and dignitas was eliminated day 1 of the major tournament. Fuck this isn't short at all, there's so much to write about. All in all, I had a great time at DH:W 2010 anyways because I got to meet so many awesome people there and I also met NTT who was a fucking legend in SC/BW.
What I began to notice is that I started taking losses extremely hard. It's hard to explain what a fucking dark time it is for a progamer right after they've been knocked out or just lost. But know this, I'd go off on tilt back in SC/BW when I was 15 years old and playing for ladder points, and be grumpy for like 10-15 minutes after I game. Think that and multiply it with like a 100. If you watch HuKs interview from the NASL Season 2 finals, I think he describes it best. It goes something like "all the hard work you put in, feels like it was for nothing.." and so on. It's just very unpleasant. All of this was a result of me feeling the pressure, the exposure. Something I've realized in my time as a SC2 progamer is that it drains you mentally, more than anyone could imagine I think.
DH:W 2010 was the beginning of a huge slippery slope for me, but a necessary one. Looking back at it, or well, I wouldn't say im out of it yet, it has taught me a lot of things about myself. Such as how fucking naive I am as a human being and also how quickly even a little success such as doing well in a video game can get to your head. How you all of a sudden think you are the shit because you beat a couple of good players here and there, how you think you deserve more, when in reality you're not very good compared to some.
Inbetween DH:W 2010 and IEM Kiev 2011 I yet again, was still thinking I was a top european terran and that I was capable of competing with the top even though I didn't put in the hours I needed due to Law School.
I don't think I realized what I had was RTS experience, and years of competing at a fairly high level in game that required pretty intense mechanics. That was what was carrying me til DH:W 2010, that was the reason I didn't require so much practice. All I needed was the strategy part. But, people were catching up, and they were catching up fast, I didn't realize it at the time, and the people who already had the same setting as I had, or even better, were playing far more than I was. Again these can all be excuses as well, but this is how I rationalize it still. I feel like I have to believe in my ability to compete with the best if I put in the same amount of hours, call it self defense if you will.
2011 January-June: IEM Kiev, Assembly Winter, Hazard Winter, Copenhagen Games
IEM Kiev is where things went horribly wrong, it was the event where reality slapped me in the fucking face and I kinda realized I wasn't hot shit or at the very top, at least not anymore. I had a group which consisted of Tarson, White-ra, Demuslim, Kas, Naama. I felt fairly comfortable, Naama was fresh of his DH:W win so he'd be tough, but Tarson, Demuslim, Kas & White-ra felt okay. I was so wrong. I lost each bo3 in the group stage, I finished with a 0-5 overall score, with 2-10 in maps. Grabbing mapwins vs Naama and Demuslim. Surprisingly Naama did really bad as well, ending up with a 1-4 score.
On the plus side, SjoW went on to win the entire thing, not even dropping a series in the group stage and I think he lost like 2 or 3 maps in total throughout the entire tournament.
The realiztion at IEM Kiev was harsh, but needed. I just wasn't keeping up with everyone else. I got demolished, there are bad tournaments then there are BAD tournaments, this was the latter. I had a couple of good moments in some of the games but overall I was outplayed in every series. Everything I had assumed at the beginning of SC2 release was now false. I couldn't keep up with the time I had over for SC2 practice, people were sprinting ahead. SjoW among others were doing this fulltime, 8-12 hours a day, every day. I played maybe 8-12 hours in total on weekdays and maybe 16-20 hours in total on weekends.
Also I more and more started to realize I lack the core "raw talent" when it comes to strategy and decision making, i'm more of a self-made player who need to put in the hours to make it work. I had been delusional, thinking my previous success was because I had some sort of RTS talent, whereas in reality it was probably the years and years of RTS experience and mechanics that had carried me this far.
Ever since IEM Kiev 2011, I've known that I have to do this fulltime if I ever want to make it big in this game, and that was nearly one year ago now.
Worth mentioning IEM Kiev 2011 overall as an event was fucking amazing. Everyone there from the admins to just fans were so helpful. The people in Kiev were so kind as well. And both players and Casters were awesome to hang out with. It was the first and only time i've met RotterdaM for example, and that guy is fucking hilarious. It was also my first encounter offline with ClouD, who turned out to be one of the most geniune and awesome guys i've ever met. Same goes for people like Tarson, or DeMusliM. One day I'll write something about all the hilarious shit that's gone down at events "behind the scenes" but that's for another time. I won't be throwing people under the bus or putting anyone to shame though, but it'll still be awesome.
Events that followed were Assembly winter, Hazard Winter, Copenhagen Games, I made it out of groupplay in all three but got eliminated swiftly in the first round of playoffs. I started losing to more and more players who were relatively unknown to the scene at that time and I began to grow more and more frustrated for each event I went to, thinking this isn't sustainable. Why did I go? you may ask. I ask that myself sometimes. But when it comes down to things, saying "No" when someone asks "hey do you wanna go here and here to compete and meet awesome people?" is hard as fuck. I still love meeting all the progamers, some of them are people I would consider friends now, but at heart I, succeeding in competition is still what matters most.
I also had these small upswings who would ignite the hope that I was coming close to reaching the top again. I barely lost to Naniwa at Assembly Winter in game 2, I beat mouz.ThorZaIN in the quarter finals at Hazard Winter (right in the middle of his amazing TSL3 run). Things like that kept telling me there's something there that makes me beat all these top playes or barely lose to them.
Things got "worse" in April-May where I took a second place in a small offline event called IOL Season 3.3 (Sweden only) where I again beat SjoW and Jimpo to play Naniwa in the finals where I lost 1-3. By worse I mean I was again ignited with hope that I could do this playing only part time. At this point SC2 had exploded, it was SO huge now. MLG had taken off for real, Koreans were being flown to foreign events, etc. Everything was out of control. I still didn't fully understand how big SC2 was yet though, that would come later.
But, after each small upswing, I'd fall flat on my face again. At Hazard I lost to "AiSeiplo" and then to "sRsRAZER.iNSOLeNCE" and placed fourth missing out on the money and a top3 finish. At Assembly I went out in Ro32 vs Naniwa, after IOL Season 3.3 2nd place, I got demolished 2 weeks after in the WCG Sweden qualifiers by SaSe and Naniwa, 0-2, 0-2, none of the games were even close.
What kept me going was that the Summer holidays were approaching and I'd be doing SC2 fulltime for 3 months. I considered it somewhat of a test, if I could show signs of improvement in those 3 months I'd still go for it and aim for fulltime SC2, if I kept on failing I'd stop trying and just settle on being a part-time SC2 player.
2011 Summer: Dreamhack Summer, MLG Anaheim (!), Assembly Summer and Multiplay UK i43.
Again I came to the realization that I'm too naive and I have too big of an ego sometimes. I gave myself 2-3 weeks of fulltime practice to get back to the top, that wasn't really the case. 2 weeks is what I had to prepare for Dreamhack Summer when I finally went on Summer holidays from university. I began hitting the ladder and doing customs, I was back to 8 hours a day just like 1 year ago when SC2 had been released, but I was getting fucking owned for 2 weeks straight. When I came to Dreamhack Summer I lacked confidence, and I had a tough group; IdrA, Kas, Grubby, SaSe, Naama.
Naama was the only one who had fallen off the map by now, the rest of them were doing quite well. My first game was vs IdrA, but I was fairly calm. Being the underdog, is always easy. Nothing surprising there. When you are the player everyone expects to lose, what do you have to worry about? If you lose, things went as expected. If you win, people go HOLY SHIT UPSET! It's a win/win for the underdog.
I had studied IdrA extra carefully because A) He's the most exposed person of them all so finding replays/vods and what not is really easy. B) On paper he was the toughest opponent in the group C) TvZ has always been my second best or best matchup. In the end, it paid off because I had prepared three different strategies all who relied on a reactor hellion opening but all followed up differently. By the time the series was at 1-1, I had him guessing what would be next and it forced him into playing safer than usual, which I exploited by playing greedier than usual instead. I ended up winning 2-1, and my first tournament game after I went on summer fulltime was a 2-1 win vs EG.IdrA. Things felt good.
I lost quickly vs Grubby soon afterwards, but TvP was and still is my worst matchup by far, and I wasn't too upset. I went on to beat Kas 2-0, which felt good, and put me at a 2-1 score. I only had to beat Naama, I didn't have very high hopes vs SaSe because again, he's protoss and my TvP is horrible. Also if anyone didn't notice yet, SaSe is a fucking beast. But I failed miserably vs Naama and I lost 0-2. Naama, with the exception of IOL SC2 Cup 1, he has always been a tough opponent for me.
That's also a quite funny thing about competition. It seems people always have people they always beat, and always lose to, no matter what shape they are in or what shape their opponent has. Take Kas for example, Kas is also a fucking beast and argueably the most successful european terran online, while also one of the most consistant terrans overall. Yet I almost always beat Kas, because It's just been like that ever since the start. I never had any troubles vs him or felt nervous. Sure he's beat me in a couple of bo3s but I still have a lot of wins over him than he has over me.
NightenD, opposite example. I've never to this date beat NightenD in a bo3 ever. And we've played quite a few. Naama, I've beat him once in a bo3, other than that I've lost every bo3 vs him.
All in all I did show signs of improvement at DH:S 2011 but I didn't qualifiy for the playoffs. I needed more time, and I had 1 month before I'd be flying all the way to California, Anaheim in the US.
MLG ANAHEIM
MLG Anaheim.. blew my mind. Not only is MLGs Open bracket system probably the hardest damn bracket to ever qualify from to date, but the crowd and the fans are so fucking awesome. There were soooooooooo many people there watching, so many people were asking for autographs and stuff, it was just mindblowing. It wasn't til I arrived at MLG Anaheim that I realized how big SC2 was and how much potential it has to become something even bigger.
MLG Anaheim was a tough one looking at performance. I was more nervous than usual, because Open Bracket looked like an endless tree of Bo3s and I felt more pressured than normal because I had been flown out all the way to MLG. Flying from Sweden to Anaheim and staying there for almost one week isn't exactly cheap, and players with my merits, or lack of thereof, usually don't get a chance like that. I choked terribly vs a masters zerg named FabledIntegral in like the second or third round of the open bracket, he played a very intense ling/infestor style or ling/roach style that was still quite new at that time. And I just didn't have that much experience vs it. The harder the first game got, the more nervous I got, and I just couldn't think straight, I couldn't control well enough, and I was sweating like hell. I ended up losing the first game after a 45+ min series on Shakuras Plateu. I was badly shaken up and I got even more nervous. I picked Xel Naga because TvZ is ridiculously imbalanced there in favour of Terran, and that game ended up in a close nailbiter where none of us had resources left and I barely won due to having a more powerful army. Third game I had identified some of his early weaknesses in his build and realized he was playing extremely greedy early on and I had to punish it not to fall behind, I ended it rather quickly with a reactor hellion FE into a 3 rax/hellion bust.
After that it was with relative ease that I breezed through the open bracket with one hiccup against Vile.State where I basically did tons of damage early on but neglected to build a bunker on my exp and I died to a quick warp-in counter. I reached the last round of the open bracket and I was up against coL.Cruncher. My worst watchup, and it was the last round. My goal from the start was making it to pool play, and If I won I would've made it. I lost 1-2 where I fucked up badly in the third and last game on Tal Darim. Worse army management has never been seen I think, as I basically killed myself with poor control against storm/colossus. Ghosts died without getting key emps off, vikings got picked off before dealing any real damage to colossus, and it was just 1a move victory from there for Cruncher.
After I lost that It felt like I was out, even though LB existed. I was just so mentally drained because even though you only play like 7 bo3s in the open bracket, the waiting time in between varies from 1-2,5 hours and you are not allowed to bring food into the venue. Which is problematic because if you by chance miss when they are calling you up to play, you are forfeited if you are not there in 10 minutes.
Since I was in first round of LB Championship bracket I also had to wait like 5 hours til I knew my next opponent, which turned out to be another protoss, White-Ra, who owned me with ease in a quick 2-0 series.
I barely missed my goal and I felt miserable not being able to show a great performance when dignitas had put trust in me and flown me out there. Again, doing something like progaming which is purely based off your individual performance, is sometimes mentally draining like hell. You are at fault and no one else when you fuck up, but it's also you when you are winning, a double edged sword to say the least.
I had an awesome time again as always when I go to events overall, I got to hang out with SeleCT again whom together with SjoW i've become pretty close with since we've all been in the team for the same amount of time. SeleCT is like the sickest fucking baller ever if you didn't know that already, hanging out with him is never boring. Meeting all the fans and people was so energizing and having people ask you for autographs every now and then when you were just walking around at the event gave me a confidence boost every time.
MLG Anaheim also let me experience what it's like for people going back and forth to tournaments in different timezones. I had 1 offday between MLG and Assembly Summer, and my sleeping pattern was on US time, but Assembly is played in Finland. I woke up at 3-4 AM in Finland when going to bed at like 12 AM. I felt miserable and out of my element. I performed horribly and went out in groupstages, again losing to AiSeiplo, barely winning vs Fuzer 2-1 and losing 1-2 to mouz.MorroW.
I felt like the Summer had been a let down, I had practiced my heart out but I barely didnt make it out of groups at DH:S and I missed pool play at MLG with an inch. I did have one more chance for redemption though and that was Multiplay UK i43.
Multiplay UK i43
It wasn't a very high profile tournament, me along with dignitas.BlinG were probably the favorites to win it. But it was an international LAN event none the less, and it was ~2000€ for 1st place.
The greatest thing I learned there was dealing with constantly being the favorite, because thats what I was. I was the favorite from beginning til end, and in the finals, it nearly broke me down. I was up 2-0 in a bo7 vs VP|Fargo, since I came undefeated from the winner bracket. I had also beaten Fargo in the WB-Semifinals 2-0, with relative ease. The series turned out to be a sick nailbiter where I took 3-0, then proceeded to lose 3 games in a row and then I got myself into a quite big disadvantage in the last game. But I managed to pull through and turn it around and win 4-3 and take my first 1st place at an offline event in SC2, netting me nearly 2000€ in price money as well.
Even though the tournament itself didn't have much prestige it was still important to finally win something offline, also going to a tournament where everyone expects you to win is harder than it sounds, again, it's so taxing on your mental strenght.
It ended my 3 month "trial period" of doing SC2 fulltime with a Victory and all in all I was quite happy with how the Summer went. I got to try the progaming thing for REAL and I did measure up vs some of the best players in the world in the events I went too. Assembly Summer was bittersweet, but also made me realize why players like IdrA or HuK can go out to complete no names in tournaments when they have to travel a lot, jetlag is a fucking bitch, and travelling overall is really phyiscally/mentally draining.
The fall of 2011
The fall has kind of been a repeat of what Spring of 2011 was. As I returned to Law School when summer ended I started losing more again, and I didn't have the time I needed to practice. I went to ESWC and got knocked out in groups, I went to Dreamhack Winter and barely made it out of groupstage 1, after playing one of the most embarassing Bo3's at an offline event of my life vs Adelscott. I did win though, which was nice since he knocked me out at Dreamhack Winter 2010. But the level of play from both me and Adelscott was fucking terrible, not worthy of a high profile event like Dreamhack Winter.
I went out 0-3 in Groupstage number 2, losing to Naama (surprise..), Ret and ThorZaIN. My games vs Ret (1-2) were quite good except for game 2 where I forgot siegemode and lost in an embarassing fashion vs muta/bling/ling.
And this is where my story of my Starcraft 2 this past 1,5 year ends.
Reflections/Summary
All in all I don't regret anything i've done in SC2 so far. I still believe (naive & ego still there) that I can compete with the best if I just do this fulltime. Trust me, I really want to do this fulltime for at least one year and see how it turns out. But as of right now it's all unclear and what's in store for 2012 is still a mystery, I won't quit, I love the competition and the game too much, and quitters never win!
I've gotten to meet and know a lot of awesome people, I've gotten to visist countries I never thought I'd visist such as Ukraine, and countries I always wanted to visit such as France, the US, England. Surprisingly (and no offense Ukraine) my stay in Ukraine, Kiev, was only topped by MLG Anaheim, Kiev is awesome!
I'd like to think my ego is not as big anymore and that i've gotten more humble, I try not to think that im better than I actually am, and I try to work as hard as possible and let results speak for themselves rather than being delusional and thinking im hot shit and flap my mouth. I've experienced defeat, time and time again, but I've gotten back up each time and I feel like I've gotten something valueable out of every defeat I've suffered. And I finally got to grab one win and net me some prize money at an offline event, even though it wasn't a very prestigous one.
My Team, Dignitas, has been there supporting me all the way through it, even though I still haven't given nearly enough back, which I am extremely thankful for. Not every organisation would keep supporting a player like me for such a long time.
I'm living "the dream" I had like a young teenager, and so far it hasn't been disappointing at all. Although I just hope people don't have a too skewed view of what e-sports and progaming is at this time. It's not glamerous, it's hard work, and for 90% of the progamers it's little or no return. Sure you get to visit new countries and you are being flown around the world, which is awesome, but also extremly frustratring and stressful at times. Which is why I love seeing fans and would like to emphatize how important they are. Fans are what keeps most players going, and even things such as watching your favorite progamer stream and disabling adblock to help us gain that little extra money is something that is extremely helpful, at least for progamers in the middle/low tier.
All in all I hope 2012 has even more awesome things in store for e-sports and SC2, and if you did manage to read through this fucking giant wall of text, I hope you found some of it worth reading.
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