GESL

After MLG, Xeris drove binski, Caliber, Golden and I to the NASL studio, turning it into the team LighT daycare center for a few days while nobody was there. We played there for three days while Xeris worked. Notably, binski, Golden and I got 11 TSL4 qualifier points. It was super painful to play those though lol… Xeris lives an hour away from work for some god forsaken reason, so we woke at 6:40ish am and commuted. We were staying for a week since Caliber, Golden and I had received GESL invite spots.

My stay at Xeris’ house was super painful in general (wah complain complain ^.^). Personally I hate having animals around, and Xeris has two cats in his apartment… I slept in his closet to avoid the cats and cat hair. +_+ Cat hairs were also super bad for my allergies lol +_+

Friday

Day one of the GIGABYTE invite tournament was very annoying. We were told to show up at [b]9 AM[/b] for a player meeting which I missed, but apparently there was no impact. We also needed to be there for the random live group drawing, but the players were not involved in the drawing in any way. It really ticked me off. They also said they wanted to avoid groups with the same race and teams and did some arcane way of putting players in pools. Group A became group Zerg; my group had four terrans in Ryung, Clide and Beastyqt, as well as a teamkill in Caliber and my friend HwangSin. Nice. Since I was in group C, my first match started at [b]7 pm[/b]. Luckily I brought my pillow and blanket, but I was severely pissed off.

My first series was against SlayerS_Ryung where I lost 0-2. Going into this, I was expecting to lose (awesome mentality I know) since my TvT is pretty bad in my opinion. On game 1 on Cloud we both went FE builds and I held a slight advantage where I went bio to air against his mech play. However, I failed to secure a 4^th + 5^th base for very long since he kept pushing one side and the other. I stupidly moved my slow air army across the map over and over without doing anything about his 4^th and 5^th bases, basically gifting Ryung the game. Eventually Ryung built up a Viking ball and crushed my air. Upon reflection I would have won easily had I countered his main as he went for my bases, and just defended his mech army with my air.

In the second game we had cross spawns on Entombed Valley. I went for a 1rax FE build once again and held his cloak banshee losing a SINGLE scv. We took our thirds pretty quickly but I had a pretty significant advantage. I gifted my entire army like a retard with my first move out killing pretty much nothing and the game evened out. Then he took the middle and slowly destroyed me with slow positional attacks and I lost the game in 37 minutes.  I was angry at myself for throwing my huge early game lead.

My next game against SlayerS_Clide I threw my games even worse and lost 0-2 once again. In game 1 on Antiga  I went for a FE into marine 3 tank Viking push against his gas first banshee expand (huge bo advantage lol). I even cancelled his (stim?) and siege upgrade when I pushed below the main cliff. Then I made 3 bunkers and sat there……………… he killed off half my main scvs with a double drop and cancelled my stim……. I pushed into his natural 5 minutes later, lost my army and lost the game when he did a big 3base push………… game two on Entombed Valley we both FE’d again, I went for bio and he went for a big mech push. I set up half my bio units below my natural in the small valley but he went for my third instead. When I stimmed in half my units didn’t engage until the other half already died…. And I lost instantly. I was super super super angry for the rest of the day and didn’t say much. Xeris drove us back to his place and I slept in his closet again.

Saturday

Today we had to come early once again since Golden had to play more pool play matches, but he was already set since he went 3-0 the first day. I on the other hand went 0-2 and had to 3-0 in order to guarantee advancing, so my hopes were not as high. I spent the first part of the day playing in one of the campus’ Super Smash Brothers melee tournament lol. @@ I lost 0-2 taking 1 life off a guy called CommonYoshi or something, and then a girl in the loser bracket (I think I got like two or three lives? Xd). I played a bit of SSB on the N64 playing mostly Pikachu and Link just with my friends in the past xD;

Me, Caliber, Gerbil and Binski also played Time Crisis 3 at the campus’ game room. Gerbil literally spent like three of my dollars before I even spent one; he’s so bad lol T-T;;

When it was finally my turn to play at 5 pm I had very low expectations. As I said before, I had to go 3-0 against HwangSin, Caliber and then Beastyqt.

I started off with a 2-1 against GoSu’s HwangSin. I won a pretty one sided 20 minute game on Daybreak, lost a (40+ minute? Don’t remember the time) game on Entombed with some bad engagements and a ton of pfs + nukes, and did some freestyle expo -> 3rax marine tank attack with a 4^th rax floated for vision in imba spawns Tal’darim. Hwangsin expoed into blink stalkers and decided to go base trade while building a small group of units + immortals. When we did our first crucial engagement I was down to my last tank and he target fired it with every unit; I pulled it back and he lost his immortal and many stalkers. I was able to repair the tank with a mule and make enough marines from my landed 4^th rax to finish off his base.

My second series against my teammate CaliberLighT was very weird. Since we both knew our usual styles I decided to play very unorthodox to beat him; I won game 1 with a 4rax marine scv allin (the first wave failed and I closed it with a second wave xD). Game two I went for expo -> cloakshee into a marine tank scv banshee push against his nexus first into 3^rd with no robo and won quickly.

My last series against Beastyqt was super important to qualify, but I had the least confidence going into this set. I avoid practicing TvT and I knew Beasty was very experienced at late game TvT. I expected to lose unless I played like I had against Ryung the day before. In the first game he opened proxy marauder on metropolis and I went bio expand… I probably had like 20 supply left. After several blue flame drops I was reportedly down 50 supply. As I secured my third and scouted his third with hellions I was greeted by his 4^th and 5^th command centers… and I just wanted to leave. Luckily Beasty sat until he was maxed with 5 bases and neglected antiair. I got out a large group of Vikings with 2 banshees, targeted his thors with my bio, killed his Vikings and forced his tanks back with my banshees. By the time he had antiair I was pumping out bcs from 5 starports and won an unwinnable game.

In the second game on Shakuras I held a pretty big lead in economy and position, having the center on Shakuras. However, I failed to deal with Beasty’s drops on my 4^th/5^th bases and never got a half map turtle going. Beasty’s late game experience took over and I lost the game in an hour, 10 minute and 6 second game. I later learned that GHOSTCLAW from Liquipedia won $10 and Korean barbequeue betting $7 against several of the GESL casters that the game would be over 1 hour and 10 minutes at the 37 minute mark. I laughed when I heard since the last several seconds of the game all I did was stare at the screen, shake my head and wait for a bit. I was seriously sweaty and my eyes teared up during the game since I didn’t blink much, so it looked like I was crying. In the final game we got cross spawns Entombed Valley. Once again I went bio FE against his FE to mech opening. I held his mech push really easily unlike my game against Clide and held a huge advantage. I started teching right to BCs and then saw Beasty spread out his tanks way too thin all the way to his 4^th, so I went right into his main and sniped 4 of his starports and fusion core. I attacked with my 5 bcs + Viking army and won quickly afterwards, placing third in my group.

Sunday

The last day of the Gigabyte LAN… I lost 0-2 to violet, the eventual third place of the tour. I lost quickly to a roach ling bust as I went fast third, and lost game 2 after getting my stim blown up by five random banelings thanks to my tech lab being at my natural ramp on Antiga. My marine hellion timing got held easily and I lost in the late game.

I spent the rest of the day cheering on GoldenLighT in his tournament run where he got fourth, and finaly started playing Diablo 3 (I’m currently a level 31? Monk and just beat normal). As I left for the night, Ryung waved at me and said Kawaiiiiii~~ lol;