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Hi, I'm Ty2. You probably don't know me and that's fine. I like to play StarCraft (The first one). That's all you really have to know about me. I've gotta say first of all, I've been using the internet too much. I've especially been on reddit a lot and what ends up happening is you become so incredibly passive. I've read about how you become a mere receiver of information and you don't form opinions of your own, and I have to say it's true. It's hard to form a real, original opinion, especially while I try not to step on any toes in the smallest of ways. This blog I will try to form an opinion though, even multiples ones, and actual thoughts, if my brain will let me. I suppose I've already made one which is a good start.
Now, about StarCraft (The first one), I'm a part of the foreign (outside of Korea) community which means I play bad and am not good. I do consider myself one of the lesser bad ones, but it really depends on who you're talking to. It's a small world, the foreign community, yet divided into many deep pockets. The pocket I'm a part of, and from my perspective, central to the foreign scene, is the Foreign Broodwar (FBW) discord server. For some reason the "Brood" and "war" are put together, and the war isn't capitalized, and it's been like that since more than a year ago since it was founded by a Mormon who I'm not even really sure knows all of the units of the game, but that's okay. He talks and thinks good and that's good enough for me. Did I mention I was an admin of that server three different times? Three times. (P.S. I just checked as I was writing this blog, and I don't know when, but the Brood and War have been fixed.)
Talking about the foreign community is hard though, especially about the FBW server because people from there are probably going to come across this blog. Just people who are a general part of the foreign community may come across this blog. So, if I really rip into someone, or, let's say multiple people by calling them toxic or something, I might land into hot water. That's the hard part about life, when your actions have consequences and they affect your standing and reputation. It's a tough world out there, but I guess I have to make sure to live by my words and sometimes conflict is unavoidable. Now, I realize I haven't really said anything of substance even though I said I'd do that in the first paragraph. I will be getting to that part soon though, trust me.
Let's talk a little about myself. I've been on winter break until school starts again, and I once again have that e-sports dream to pursue, but I'm actually just playing video games for fun. I've taken some time to actually look at one of my favorite player's FPVODs, Hero (Not Liquid'Hero, the sc2 Protoss). Also, for the first time since StarCraft: Remastered was released, I started playing w/ Koreans using a VPN to circumvent the long wait times of auto-matchmaking. I felt decently good enough and solid in my play to feel like I can take on anyone in the foreign scene. I even had a tiny bit of success placing fourth in a big tour, Have At You! I'm also on the team Soul Gaming, which participated in a South American teamleague, where we won as the heavy favorites. It was a good week and I felt satisfied with my improvement and had some results to show for it with the lovely team I'm in. I think that dream is quickly winding down though as January nears its end, but mostly because my willingness to continue studying and practicing hard lessens.
Oh, by the way, my buddy Just made this awesome video about Qikz: + Show Spoiler +
Before Qikz became the rockstar that he is today, I remember how he got his start. He was but a humble pint-sized organizer with big dreams. His first event, which bears the same name as his proleague of today, was this smaller scale teamleague with a special role-playing fetish concept where people would play under the aliases of actual progamers. So, for example, I posed as this no-name guy, NoTouch (yes, actual progamer), under the SKT team. We had a Hyuk, a Stork, and probably a Bisu, who were all really just a bunch of ordinary people. We had to organize our matches on reddit under these monikers, and it was a halfway organizational nightmare. It's because of this teamleague I can say I've played and beaten Boxer. Jaedong even jokingly plugged this event on his social media.
Then, and I'm realizing this blog is turning into a short history lesson on Qikz, but continuing onward, Qikz finally got his foot in the door by co-casting with big name and community foreign bw mainstay, Sayle. He's kind of like the Day9 of foreign bw casting, but bigger (in people's hearts). And that was how from one Brit to another Qikz got his name in the doorway.
As the FBW server was just beginning all of us non-rockstars were given the chance to interact with Qikz more closely. I can't say it was all for the best though as it revealed a more polarizing part of Qikz’s personality. He held some interesting ideas about the game, and a lot of things in general, that were occassionally controversial, but more often than not were just befuddling and unusual. I won't go too far into details, but don't let your imagination go wild! Most relevant to the video, Qikz would repeatedly vent his frustrations about not getting better at the game. Then Qikz wouldn't really change much and it'd kind of repeat itself in a vicious cycle. His general approach to the game as well is quite remarkable and subject to the occassional blooper. And his notoriety attracts stream snipers which has, for better or worse, given birth to many of the clips in the video.
In all fairness, is the video a bit much? I guess you could say it's just the cherry on top of a lot of teasing underneath. I do think the teasing does go over the line occassionally, and people are less patient and sometimes fed-up with Qikz given his past history. That said, the video is still hilarious, and Qikz found it hilarious too and shared it on his twitter, so I guess there's no harm or foul.
Well, that's all I really have the attention span to write. Another blog will be coming at some point in my lifetime! Oh, and if you're reading this, Qikz, you better not be.
Edit: Also, Just and I are hosting a coolio starcraft (not the second one) tournament on Saturday
1 PM EST. Twitch steam is twitch.tv/bwty2. Further details in this link: https://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-tournaments/540484-lets-go-a-foreigner-tournament
