Follow Grubby on his Pro-Gaming Adventures: Warcraft 3 Rollercoaster
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Warcraft 3 Rollercoaster

Finally something to write about again, as the Warcraft 3 scene is propelled into a rollercoaster of events again!

NGL ONE's been a constant source of entertainment for me personally. Day-in, day-out, there were interesting games to be seen. Now sometimes I wake up, look at the day's match ticker and think: what the hell, no matches to watch today? Boring! But I think back to the year 2005 or so, and I remember there would sometimes not be online match coverage for a whole week or so. And it'd just be waiting and looking forward to the next big LAN event (which I'd usually be part of). So in a way, we as an eSports community have come a long way, and it's changed for the better. Now a match-less day is the exception!

How has 2009 been so far? Events-wise, we had a very slow start. I remember it's been one of the longest lulls of my tournament history yet, where in the months February & March I had nearly nothing to play at all. After that, the pace started picking up and the summer has been quite filled. The most recent tournament was one of the most important to me, namely BlizzCon. Unfortunately, I made it to be only 2nd place. Fortunately, I made it that far even after dropping to LB in Round 2 already. My game against the Korean Elfs was up to my expectations, but I failed myself a bit in the Orc vs Orc matches.

2009 hasn't disappointed me so far. My goal at the start of the year was, to make it my year. I'm going to have to step it up and take no prisoners for the coming tournaments to make that true. I feel like the hardest part is yet to come. The end of the year is going to be very interesting indeed, with IEM Chengdu coming up first. There's a sick player list, namely: Sky, Lyn, TeD, Moon, FoCuS, ReMinD, DeMusliM, Check, Grubby, Fly100%, infi and TH000. (4 humans, 4 orcs, 3 elfs and 1 undead).

I'm still anticipating WCG Netherlands Qualifications, WCG world finals, possibly a WEM (it was said that the eStars champion will be automatically invited), and possibly more.

September is free from tournaments. Time to get in monster shape as the rollercoaster starts riding in October. My break (Las Vegas holiday + recuperation time from wisdom teeth extraction) is come to an end, and preparations start in earnest.