I have been so busy lately and havn’t caught up writing about it. I will get back to it asap. I start with yesterday’s IeSF qualifier that I won!

Before the match

I have to be honest. I didn’t feel like playing in the qualifiers. It’s always very messy and I didn’t feel like travelling again. I didn’t feel prepared either. As my manager said in an interview with Swedish TV last week, I don’t practice enought at the moment. I mean, I usually still play quite some , but with everything else going on in my life right now I barely had time to play at all during the past ten days. Last weekend I spent four days in France to cast StarCraft 2. I’m also preparing and training to compete in the Swedish championship and world championship qualifiers in street workout and I have a lot of work to do on my Ph.D. I’m blogging and casting and doing all the things that I love, but wanting to do many things also gives me less time for each thing and that includes playing. For me, my StarCraft 2 skill is perishable. If I don’t play for a while I get a lot worse.

The finals

The finals was played at the LAN party Birdie. I was playing against QueenE, like so many times before. As I started to play I got small electrical shocks. During the warm-up I even got one in my ears. That sure was a first. I changed my inears, hoping that was the problem but it continued. It was a very interesting experience, I continued to get the electrical shocks and got another one in my ears during the finals. I felt like a scared child jumping out of fear haha. Not sure about the reason for it but yeah… was interesting. The venue was super cold but I had my Millenium hoodie to keep me warm :). As I felt no pressure I wasn’t nervous at all. I didn’t play very well, I missed many injects and got supply blocked quite often. But considering how little I played lately I’m happy with my performance. As I sat there on the stage I was happy that I went there to play. I knew why I started to play tournements in the first place. The feeling of adrenaline and the eager to solve problems. The challenge and the chance to test my skill.

The games

I won the first map and the second. I didn’t have any plan so I just decided to do different openings in all games and try not to be predictable. In the first game I played fairly standard, upgraded Zerglings into infestor into Brood Lords. God I love to play Broods again! The second map was Expedition Lost and I started with an expansion on the gold and followed it up with a fairly fast Roach + Ling attack that gave me an advantage and then I managed to contain my opponent on two bases while I went up to four. I lost the third map, a heavy supply block when I saw units moving towards me prevented me from making units and I lost far too much economy. My Roach + Hydra + Viper follow-up was not enough to come back and Emily played well. Shit happens I thought, I knew what I did wrong and it was just a minor mistake. The fourth map I decided to go three fast hatcheries to get the economical advantage. I used the fact that we played on a big map and relied a lot on upgraded Zerglings and played similar to game 1. Vods can be found here, game 1 starting around 25 minutes in.

In the end

Fun games and despite not feeling like going to the event I felt very happy when I won. I also gained motivation to play more! It’s always a great feeling to win. 3-1 and a spot at the IeSF female World Championship in StarCraft 2. I still don’t know when it is and I’ll update you on what will happen when I know.

Maybe it could be fun to represent Sweden at the female world championship in both street workout and StarCraft 2 this year? You know, breaking stereotypes and all ;). What do you think?

More pictures 😉

I will upload some more on facebook as soon as I get the chance!