WCS + MLG Anaheim by KawaiiRice

First off, I came into this tournament pretty ill-prepared. I spent the last week getting 2^nd in the CSL and CSL All-Stars tournament with a 1-4 (?) loss to qxc and a loss to my teammate in the ace match. I came back home on Monday of midnight, studied for my intro to law final and was set to leave on Thursday.

Thursday

I was picked up at the John Wayne airport by Shindigs, Hazelynut and two others who I do not recall (Sorry T-T;) and they took me to the Red Lion hotel provided by Blizzard for the WCS invitees. There I saw many familiar faces including my teammate binski, areaKitty, Ver, Suppy, Perfect, and Everize who I had never met before (Everize is actually such a chill guy D:..). We went to eat at the Cheesecake Factory and I returned to my room where I found HeavensLighT asleep on one bed.  WCS had given us a room per two players, so we had another room down the hall (for binski and Caliber).

Around midnight papa Xeris came with the rest of my teammates – Caliber, CecilSunkure, KnighT (he got second place at WCS New Zealand ~~!), Golden and Gerbil. After a few greetings and chat we went to sleep.

Friday

This morning Xeris treated the whole team + hazelynut to Ihop kekeke. We teased KnighT a lot for his newly pink hair (@_@). Usually this would be where I put a picture but nobody took pictures. G.g! I ordered a chicken sandwich or something and it was okay I guess? We also saw team Infinity Seven eating near there. Afterwards we left to the convention center to play WCS, which started at about 1:30 PM?

I saw many familiar faces as we arrived at the convention center. I checked in and greeted several of my friends including my close friend NrS.Ranged and many others. Once it hit warmup time they let us into the room so we could warmup.

In my first round I played GoSu.Rhythm formerly known as ppgBubbles in a somewhat dramatic best of 3 series. I lost the first two games to early rushes very quickly. However, the second game was close spawn Entombed Valley on the WCS version, which was not supposed to happen. The admins ruled a regame and I won the next two games taking it 2-2 (lol 2-2 in a bo3 tt). I felt sort of bad but I tried to get over it and focus on my next match.

Afterwards I lost to LiquidSheth 0-2 and QQ’ed about zerg OP because it is.

In the loser bracket I beat Lzgamer in two base trades in the same game on Antiga Shipyard against his brood lords, and in game 2 I failed a proxy 2rax on Entombed and went for a 1base 5rax combat shield marine + scv allin. Luckily Jake didn’t send an overlord in until I was literally leaving my base and I won instantly. T-T;

Afterwards I believe I played FnaticRC.ByuL next. There was about a 20-30 minute delay before I got my game started since the announcer called my name twice by accident – he read kiwiLighT (KnighT) as KawaiiRiceLighT somehow, and I hadn’t listened for who he played against. KnighT ended up losing 0-2 to iS.Crazymoving in a super long zvz and some other game I hadn’t seen.

It was pretty odd looking across the table to see a player obviously much better than me wearing the same jersey I used to wear in the past. In game 1 ByuL went for fast 3base constant muta ling baneling attacks for like 10 minutes and I barely held, lifting my third probably 6+ times and losing every unit. I managed to scrape out a win there as his waves got smaller and smaller lol. Then I lost the next two games where ByuL did the same style but went to ultralisks on Tal’darim and Cloud Kingdom.  I couldn’t tell if ByuL was trolling me trying to end the game super early or if he actually played that way to be honest… although, his computer was supposedly super laggy… and I still lost 1-2 T-T; This was the first time I lost round 1 in the MLG winners bracket @@.

My next series in the WCS USA was against LGTop. I don’t remember much anything about the games other than he went brood lords and made no infestors, and I still almost lost the first game. I won 2-0 though and moved on to play IdrA on the featured station.

I started off against IdrA on Antiga Shipyard in a pretty decent game; we both went pretty fast 3rds and I went hellion banshee which is terrible and couldn’t pressure anything. Creep just spread as queens laughed at me because they’re broken. In midgame I got a decent advantage trading and turtling, having banshees with cloak almost out against his ultra ling bling infestor until his computer crashed. Since there was no significant advantage (I thought I had a pretty significant advantage but my opinion doesn’t matter because MLG admins wouldn’t understand anyway) we regamed. We both opened the same builds I guess out of honor? xD.. anyway I played like utter crap, even building a 4^th cc thinking it was my 3^rd… I was down 40 supply from poor macro alone and lost very one sidedly. Game two on Shakuras I went for a marine hellion attack where I should have killed his third, but I mismicroed and a baneling blew up like 6 units. IdrA defended some of my drops and won the game shortly afterwards with a mass ling bane infestor push, and then I got eliminated from WCS USA.

Saturday

For my loser bracket games we started at 12 today. I matched up against an unknown protoss who I beat 2-0. Then I matched up against Desrow, a player whom I previously hated but I came to respect. I won 2-0 holding off a dt drop in game 1 and I forget game 2. In my next set I played my friend Quantic.theognis and won 2-0; first game was a decent macro game where I won through some big engagements, and game 2 I won quickly with an expo into 3 tank timing against his bio expand on Antiga Shipyard.

Afterwards, I took my revenge on qxc for my CSL All Stars loss, where I won 2-1 in some crazy 40+ min Antiga game where I didn’t have the middle and was down 3base to 5 @_@…

The match that knocked me out was against iS.Crazymoving. Despite the fact that he played Zerg, I still felt confident since I beat him in multiple clan wars in the past. I won game 1 and threw the second hour long Entombed Valley game where I nuked 5 bases worth of drones and was up 50 supply at one point. However, I couldn’t win a single late game fight against his superhuman bl corruptor infestor ling bane ultra army composition. He followed up with a roach bane allin in game 3 on Taldarim where I was building a fast 3^rd, and I got knocked out of MLG. Funny note was that I got knocked out of MLG and WCS by 4 zergs, lol. Crazymoving said sorry to me afterwards and again at night as well… not sure why. Maybe because Z is op?

I spent the rest of the time watching my teammates play, including a rematch between my teammate Heavens and FnaticRC.aLive where Heavens won the macro game and lost to two proxy 2raxes 1-2, a repeat score of MLG Columbus (T_T). I believe my team went like 0-5 against Fnatic at this MLG;;. I didn’t catch any of Golden’s pool play games but I saw him beat Thorzain and then lose to FnaticRC.aLive (another Fnatic loss zzz).

Me and Heavens also played a mini clan war against vVv’s Rocker (no longer on vVv) and Hasu in HotS where Heavens lost and I went 1-1 before they kicked us out for the night. Noo T-T;

After that I went back to the hotel with my teammates where we trolled around on smurf accounts and slept super late.

Sunday

The last day of MLG is usually pretty depressing for me if I didn’t make it. In my team’s case we all woke up super late, watched MLG from the hotel room and played some more HotS. This time I experimented a bit more with zerg army compositions like roach hydra viper infestor, which was pretty funny. It was too hard to control my army with the settings though and they didn’t let us change it… I also tried abusing the early mothership core recall ability and the new factory units from Terran but I played both like one game before they told us to leave. So that was pretty fun ~~

Afterthoughts – I lost to 4 zergs just as I expected coming into this event. Golden finished top 20 once again this MLG, losing 1-2 in the deciding round. Being on the cusp of accomplishing something is the most painful feeling ever and I felt bad for him. It was nice to see everyone again though and I’m looking forward to the next MLG where I will actually have time to train, since I started summer break two days before flying to MLG.