EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ySn5gFn.jpg)
The middle of this year has been very, very busy for me. In June I was lucky enough to go to Dreamhack Summer and had one hell of an experience which I blogged about previously here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=420250. After I got home from Sweden I had a series of online tournaments such as the WCS NA qualifiers. This involved two whole weeks of adjusting my sleep schedule to sleep at 8pm and wake up at 4am every morning. Then, in the span of ten days, I headed to Adelaide for the AVCon tournament, Melbourne for a small event and then back to Melbourne again for PAX. It was suddenly the end of July and time to fly off to Finland for Asus ROG which I was happy to receive an invite for.
I had one whole week devoted to nothing but practice between PAX and flying to ASUS. This was not as much practice as I've had in the past, but at the same time, as my schedule grows busier and busier, I've become a lot stricter in my training. Coach Dot (my girlfriend and manager - yes I'm a lucky dude!) actually made a big change by forcing me to not look at anything on the web in between games. During practice sessions I now only allow myself to play music. When I lose a hard game, I have to swallow that shit and move on. There's just no time to be frustrated or even slightly mad. It's just one step up the mountain of self-improvement. I still punch my desk or shout abuse sometimes when I have a really hard loss, but the key thing is it's dealt with in 30 seconds and I'm back to analysing what I can improve and thinking about the next game. One of the key reasons a player plays worse when they tilt is they simply aren't thinking about the game they're in, but the ones they have just played. They're letting emotional scarring hinder their current perceptions. Everything they see is foggy and their play suffers for it.
After such a busy month of falling behind in skill and the meta, as always happens when travelling, I was surprised by how quickly I got on top of my practice. By the end of the week I'd gotten two accounts on KR masters to over 1900 points (at the time, top 10 masters on the server). The increased focus, not tabbing and reading reddit/TL while practicing, was actually vital to this week of practice being so positive and successful. I was playing really quite well and my ZvP especially was making me very happy with a 65% winrate. My ZvT still showed only a 45% winrate for the season, but considering how badly I tilted vs hellbat-drop play earlier in the season, I knew my practice this week was much closer to the high 50's. ZvZ was its usual strong self, I knew I had a few particular weaknesses that I didn't have time to fix but I wasn't too worried. I have so much experience with ZvZ in tournaments (go SEA!) that I'm usually confident to adapt on the spot and come out with what I need. Overall I was feeling like I was in over 90% condition, and as long as I got a decent group at ASUS ROG I'd be in a good spot to get some momentum and carry it through to a very high placement.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uFhKwgK.jpg)
Waiting to board my next flight
The afternoon of Sunday 28th July came around and off I flew to Helsinki via Singapore! The first leg was on British Airways and I was really happy with the well-sized seats and solid service. I'm someone who is naturally hyperactive and hates just waiting around with nothing to do, so whenever I'm flying around and transferring planes I go into zombie mode and just listen to music/watch tv shows and read my book, leaving just enough of my active brain power on to figure out where I need to go and at what time. Arriving at my transfer desk at Changi that evening I was told "You're in business class seating, but still economy/coach service". I was like "ok, cool thanks" not even listening to what they said and started heading off to my gate in zombie mode. I decided to look at my ticket to see which part of the plane I'm in and saw I was in row 6. It slowly started to dawn on me how close to the front of the plane that is and I started to freak out and realise what had just been said to me!
I WAS GETTING TO RIDE IN BUSINESS CLASS FOR A FRICKING 12 HOUR FLIGHT YESSHHHHHHHH!
I was soooooo damn happy. The first 8 hour flight in the daytime, watching movies and eating food is easyyyy. But it's always once you get closer and closer to 25-30 hours of total transit time that you get fidgety as f*%k and really just want to lie down somewhere legitimately comfortable. And my prayers were answered! I stepped onto the plane feeling like a boss and found my epic-as-f*%k robot seat/bed thing and began to set myself up for the flight of my life.
I decided to use my standard overnight flight build-order that I've been refining over the last year:
*Ready self with full water-bottle, book and noise cancelling headphones
*Remove shoes and place under seat in-front of me --> I'd never done this step on this map before but apparently flight attendants will just come up and tell you that you can't leave stuff under the robot-seats in this section, then bag your shoes and put them in overhead for you. Jeez I hope they didn't smell.
*Read book until the plane reaches cruising altitude and entertainment comes on
*Select movie
* Drink 1-2 glasses of red wine with dinner
*Transition into a deep and happy sleep as the movie finishes
*If you're in business you also get to do all this on a seat that just turns into a bed underneath you, so that's kinda damn nice too. I actually could sleep in multiple positions and it was AWESOME.
Arriving in Helsinki after a lovely sleep I came out through the airport and it was still only about 6am in the morning. I chilled on the airport wifi talking to people and watching some streams for a little bit before buying a transport pass and heading into the city.
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Seeing Helsinki for the first time on my bus ride into town
I had a somewhat complicated accommodation where I couldn't get in till 4pm but the office that manages the property agreed to hold my bags until the evening so I could explore the city. I'd originally wanted to practice a bit this day but the only net cafe with SC2 on it was dismantling all but five of their PCs and setting them up at Assembly. So this day was pretty much just a day to relax and enjoy the Helsinki Summer.
Well as it turned out Google Maps lied to us (Dot and I) and decided that the office was 3-4km from where it actually was so I ended up taking a LONG time and sweated a buttload wheeling two bags all the way there. It's ok though, I started getting a better feel for that area of the city and then embarked on an exploration of the city.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lkkVc8e.jpg)
Aleksis Kivi was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, Seven Brothers. Thanks Wiki!
I didn't know where any buses went so I basically just hopped onto one going in the direction I wanted. Luckily enough every bus seems to go to the city centre so it worked out. I wandered around a bit. It was a beautiful warm day and the architecture in Helsinki is quite old and beautiful. I went down to the Botanical Gardens and wandered around. Chilled out in a park and read my book for a few hours and then wandered along the water and even onto a small peninsula island park place. It was really sunny this day and I actually got slightly sunburnt! Probably the most embarrassing thing for an Australian to get - in Finland of all places! I actually started to feel very tired this afternoon as the jetlag caught up to me and started to feel really weak. I had to stop into a bar and buy a coke and just sit down for half an hour before I felt alright again.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/w3DuSDX.jpg)
A pig riding a tortoise
Eventually I made my way back and figured out which bus goes to the hostel office, got my keycode for my room and went to check it out. It was a really weird type of accommodation where they take an old apartment building and turn all the bedrooms into their own "rooms" with each apartment's bathroom and toilet being shared facilities. I had the best shower of my life. Anyone used to flying to the other side of the world knows what I'm talking about!
I bought some fruit, muesli, yoghurt, bread and cheese and muesli bars to stock up my fridge and headed into the city to get some Thai red curry for dinner. I decided to get take-away and eat it at my place where I could watch some streams on the wifi in my room on my Gigabyte notebook. Unfortunately I didn't realise the girl giving me my food had no clue how to pack takeaway curry.
I carried the curry in a paper bag with handles and it was all fine. I got on my bus and sat down only to have some small 3 year old child come up and poke my leg and say "BlugBlug!” Assuming this was some sort of Finnish greeting I replied "BlugBlug!" and raised my right hand in the universally understood Vulcan symbol for "live long and prosper". The kid just looked confused, poked my leg again and continued to walk down the aisle after his mum. "That was weird" I thought to myself before dismissing it. I then realised I can feel something wet on my ankle, looked down and saw red curry F*%KING EVERYWHERE. Somehow red curry is smeared all down the side of my ankle and on my leg and I'm like WTF how did this happen? I opened the paper bag to see the girl has packed my curry in a container with some breaks in the plastic and it has been steadily gushing out and through the paper. As it has been carried by my side it has also oozed onto my leg.
Awesome. I'm in a foreign country dripping red curry all over the bus and onto myself. F*%k.
I see my stop isn't far away though. I try not to draw attention. So far, only the tiny kid seems to have noticed anything anyway. The puddle of curry at my feet is growing as the bag loses its structural integrity. Oh god please get there soon, bus!
Finally, I see my stop ahead, smack the stop button and prepare for a quick exit. I figured out how I’ll carry the bag to drop minimum curry on the way out and avoid getting any more on myself. The bus grinds to a halt, the doors come open and up I jump, bag in hand. Unfortunately the curry gets left behind, as by this point the bottom of the bag has completely disintegrated.
"I didn't f*%king buy this dinner for nothing goddammit!"
I scooped up the curry container, spilling hot curry over my hands, grabbed the rice and ran off the bus trying not to imagine how ridiculous I looked, and trying to not feel too bad for having left a steaming pile of sh&t-curry all over the bus floor, including a paper bag that was steadily turning into papier mache.
The remaining rice and curry actually tasted quite good and even though I lost at least 50% of the curry there was still somehow more than enough for a huge serving. I watched some streams and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning bleary-eyed. My body felt sore all over, my throat felt scratchy and I really didn't feel like getting out of bed.
"Oh f*%k, I'm sick"...
On Tuesday and Wednesday I was meant to head to a PC cafe called 'Pelitalo' where they had a few practice PCs set up for us to practice on. I made the wise choice of thinking my stop was 1 stop later than it actually was. Realising this just after we went past I hit the button and thought to myself, "it's fine, it'll stop in a few hundred metres". Of course, the road turns into a major highway and a huge bridge crossing the river, with no stop till 2.5km down the road. FML. Yet another long, annoying walk. But hey, at least I got to enjoy a great view walking back across that bridge
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QyS876j.jpg)
Me at Pelitalo
I began practicing. I was the only pro to show up on Tuesday so I set up and started practicing on my own. Despite feeling not so great I won almost all my games, but I wasn't playing the absolute top of GM, despite my account still having very high MMR. I assume many players were either travelling or my high BP and lack of playing on the server since DreamHack meant my MMR needed to build back up. All the people there were helping set stuff up at Assembly and in the middle of an intense ZvT with Kas apparently they all left the building, leaving a scribbled note next to me saying "close the door when you leave and call Stella".
Well I didn't even have a SIM card that works in Finland, nor a phone number for Stella, so I couldn't really fulfill that request. I could close the door though. Oh wait? That means I can't get back in. Gahhhhh. So my planned lunch-break at 5-6pm ended up involving me drinking tap-water and eating the muesli bars I brought with me. I finished practicing until 9pm. I went and got some generic cold medicine after finding nothing open and having to settle for McDonalds for dinner.
As Wednesday came around I felt a little bit worse but I started taking the cold medicine and that made me feel fine to head off to the practice place again. Harstem was staying with me and he was arriving today so I was going to meet him there. A few other players, like Bunny, Runa and Sjow, were there as well as Teodice (Team Property manager). It was cool to see some friendly faces and our practice was quite relaxed that day. We spent a lot of time chatting while we played and ran into each other on ladder repeatedly.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1Zn6qjW.jpg)
Found one of my sponsors at the event. Gogo Gigabyte Notebooks!
Most players were staying right near the venue so Harstem and I went off our separate way to the city to find some decent food for dinner. We got some Italian and had a good feed before we had to play the next day. It's always fun sharing eSports drama stories and secret gossip when hanging with pros from the other side of the world
. Despite the practice being a bit more relaxed today, I'd been dominating Protoss on ladder and I spent that night re-watching some BabyKnight and Stardust replays with Harstem to get some pieces of advice. His advice was priceless. I'm sure just about everyone in the SC2 community knows Harstem quite well by now but I just want to emphasise how honest and kind of a guy he is. He really loves what he's doing in eSports and was a really good friend/roommate through this event despite me being a sick downer most of the time. Whilst I already felt prepared to take on BabyKnight and then Stardust and make it out of my group, Harstem pointed out some very small tells in Stardusts play that I could use to abuse him and so I felt exceptionally excited and confident to face off against him.
About 15 minutes after I got into bed I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.
"Wtf?"
And again. Oh f*%k, I need to run to the bathroom.
Great. The sickness that felt not too bad had now escalated to full on f*%king irritating, distracting and extremely uncomfortable.
The next day I popped more cold medicine and ate breakfast, knowing that I'd need energy. I didn't really look around the venue and just went straight to the playing area as that was all I was focused on. I knew I was in horrible shape and needed to just get through these games so I could go collapse into bed at my room and hopefully be better for the ro16.
I practiced some ladder and did very well against Titan in custom games, despite feeling like I was making a lot of small uncharacteristic mistakes. Soon enough it was time to play against BabyKnight. I knew his style inside and out and was ready to blind-counter him extremely well. I spoke to Dot before my matches and she asked how I was going with the illness. I told her most of my symptoms were under control with the medicine even though it was getting worse. "Just my head is a bit fuzzy and it's hard to focus - but no excuses! I will win this!"
0 - 3
I got crushed. It was so one-sided I couldn't believe it. I must have made some faulty decisions. I must have been overconfident. What the hell went wrong? Oh wait, before I can answer that I need to run to the toilet to shoot the fires of hell out of my ass.
I sat back down and watched the replay. I needed to understand my mistakes before I went on to play Pro7ect in the losers match. Watching the replays was kind-of horrible. I was missing early game injects, completely failing to multitask and losing situations which I have won every time in practice. BabyKnight played really damned well, but it was clear that I was playing at a level where he could have beaten me with one hand.
I just needed to try harder. I knew how to beat these players. I knew I could play better than them. Just because my body is uncomfortable and my brain was fuzzy was no f*%king excuse. I didn't fly to the other side of the world to just lie down and f*%king die. This group was my ideal. My ZvP was at an all-time high, and the overall lineup in this tournament was something I was exceptionally confident against.
And so I played my f*%king heart-out against Pro7ect. In hindsight, the games were kind of horrible at times, and kind of great at others. I got the score to 2-1 and managed to get to a max of ultra-infestor on Neo Planet. I thought I was in a winning position but his marauder count was too good and he was too far ahead for too long earlier in the game. In the final game on Star Station he did an old-school, really fast marine-helion-medivac timing which I should have recognised but it didn't click in my brain. I fell far, far behind early on and then had to fight as hard as I could from there. I made the game close as I possibly could, but ultimately failed.
I watched the replays and saw the same uncharacteristic errors in my play and felt sad. This was an opportunity wasted. I knew that this just wasn't my fault for playing this way... I got unlucky. But no matter how much I told myself this, I felt guilty and horrible. Not only did I miss a huge opportunity but I couldn't help but feel that if I didn't get sunburnt and explore so much or run around spilling curry everywhere and just relaxed that first day, maybe I wouldn't have tired myself out so much and gotten ill? I didn't really know. I just knew it felt f*%king bad and annoying. I also didn't socialise as much as normal because I felt like sh#t and so it just felt very depressing in general to be at this amazing event, play so poorly and not even get a chance to catch up with all the people there. It was a sad day.
Luckily after that I started to feel better, more positive and still had some amusing experiences over the next few days.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/spC5xdi.jpg)
One of the gaming areas at the venue.
Naniwa released his blog calling TLO the most fake player in SC2. We all had great fun at the event teasing TLO whenever he said anything sarcastically, calling him a "fake piece of shit" and a "two-faced mofo" which, if you ever meet TLO, is just so funny in itself because he's so damned nice.
Harstem showed me r/askreddit which I'm now addicted to
I learned that I really suck balls at micro battles and that BabyK, TLO, Targa and Harstem clearly play this custom WAYYYY too much
. We also played some Raynor party and some other maps which are always a blast, as well as the micro arena tourneys which are always fun despite being imba as all hell ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4pv9u9c.jpg)
The ASUS ROG venue: Hartwell Arena.
I explored the venue which was epic. It is a massive ice rink where the rink as well as the stadium seating is all covered in LAN tables. It actually looks scary looking at PC towers sitting on the edge of the desks set up in the stadium seating, right over sharp drops to the next row down. There were glowing lights everywhere and sponsor and hardware booths everywhere, lots of cool things around. It was generally a really cool event. They took amazing care of players. We all had our own PC for the whole event, some food and endless free drinks/tea/coffee provided. It was a really nice event and the constant tea made the rest of the days very comfortable :D
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cgRB15q.jpg)
Bubbles!
My final day in Helsinki was quite nice. Harstem and I checked out of our hostel and had breakfast in the city before he went off to get his flight. I wandered down some nice streets and saw some awesome street performers making giant bubbles, to which I literally yelled "MAGIC!!" and ran over to watch for a good 15 minutes. I made my way to the Senate Square and checked out the cathedral and just took in more and more of the beautiful architecture that makes this city such a nice place to visit. I eventually got to the airport, watched some streams on the amazing Helsinki airport wifi and made my way home. When I got back, despite getting some sleep on the flights, I immediately crashed for 12 hours, only waking up at night. All the activity I forced myself to do had taken its toll and I finally was back home to rest.
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Statue of Alexander II in Senate Square
A few days later I was on a plane again: this time to ACL Melbourne.
I took third at this event, losing to Iaguz in the Semis. I hadn't had a lot of time to get back in the flow of things, after over a week in Finland with very little practice, but my matchups were looking very good, with ZvT still needing some work. The games with Iaguz weren't completely one-sided so it was an OK loss. He definitely played better so I was content with it. We also had an amazing game three on Akilon in the group stage that went for well over an hour and was completely insane.
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Enjoying some Chinese food with my Exile5 bros
The best part about ACL was getting to bond with my team. Exile5 is a really great family. We had our two new content/up-and-coming players Stormz and Armi competing at this event. Both of them made it very close to the open bracket finals so we were all very proud of them. I was especially proud of x5.MegaFonzie, our Protoss player, who showed big improvement since his last offline event at AVCon. Fonzie was been a player who shocked me late last year with his phenomenal multitasking and it was really nice to see him finally get a chance to show his skill level at a top level event. The sad ending to his good performance in groups was us being matched up against each other in the final bracket ro12. Just days after I'd been analysing his replays and helping him with his PvZ he had to play against me. I knew his builds, knew his style and so, had a huge advantage. It really sucked for it to go this way and I would have loved to see how far he could have made it against opponents who didn't know so much about his style. x5.Doombie, who runs the Breaking Bronze stream show and community (http://www.twitch.tv/dooombie), also came down to help support everyone and hang out with the crew. I also got to hang out with a few cool people like Hooblie for the first time and chat to a few people I haven't seen in a long time like Alan and Firefly. I was also super stoked that Alan and Elimzke wore PiG hoodies to ACL! I seriously feel so honoured seeing people wearing it. Thanks so much for the support guys!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SuYWLJo.jpg)
My Exile5 teammates looking on x5.Armi as he played in the open bracket
It was really great to all go out and share some Korean BBQ and go drinking with the whole crew on Sunday night. Fries, our amazing GM, shouted us many drinks and took great care of everyone as he always does. He's the kind of manager who doesn't want any spotlight and just wants to grow the team and see the players travel as much as possible and do amazing things. His constant positivity and enthusiasm creates such a positive energy within the team that it's so much fun being part of x5. No matter what obstacles come up he always finds a way through them and does a spectacular job of managing such a huge team. Now after getting super drunk with everyone, I feel closer to all of you guys than ever
I'm finally back home after all this and I have to say that the travel and the experiences in the last three months have been amazing. All the opportunities, pressures and events have helped me become a more focused and efficient person. However I'm still yet to have my real breakout performance. My eyes are set on the future, with events like IEM Singapore on the horizon, and I will be in prime shape for them, ready to make up for what I was so hungry for at ASUS.
Thank you for reading this super long blog! I would like to thank my team, Exile5, along with their sponsors, Nvidia, Western Digital, CM Storm and Cooler Master, for their support. This year has been amazing so far, and there's still so much to go!
