| aTnClouD Italy. January 18 2013 09:42. Posts 1942 | Profile Blog # |
I've been doing some funny stuff here as of late. Last time I wrote here I was dying of laughter while typing and as a consequence I was asked several times to write another blog about my penis or some of my amazingly awkward girl fails. But today all I plan to do is share with you guys some of the life experiences and feelings I had during my life as a progamer and how much such an experience can change a man, his personality and his values.
I became a Starcraft 2 progamer right when the game came out in 2010. I was one of the very best foreign players in Starcraft: Brood War and when I first started the transition to Starcraft 2 was really fun. I loved the game at first and even though I played Protoss in SCBW I switched to Terran in SC2 because I thought it was by far the most challenging and fun to play. After doing well in online cups I was contacted by the professional team Meet Your Makers and once they proposed me and Naniwa to both move and live together in Germany to play the local tournament (ESL Pro Series) we both agreed instantly knowing that was the start of a new adventure. Since then we've played many tournaments together and had a lot of fun, even though he snores like a truck and I had an hard time going rested to any of them.
After a while Naniwa got kicked out of EPS and had to leave Germany, and suddenly I was alone. It was going to be hard staying in a foreign country doing such an unstable and alienating job but I knew it could become one of my most important life experiences and I decided to keep going.
My stay in MYM had its up and downs. My results were ok but not great, I won a good amount of money overall under their flag but at the same time I didn't make any major international breakout. My mental condition was not the best at the time since I came from years of major depression (which I explained in this post) and I had a really hard time finding motivation to practice at all or appreciate the game. At the time the most successful players were very gimmickish and relied way too much on brainless all ins and I refused to play that way. I was way too stubborn for my own good and this made me learn afterwards that no matter how much you think you are right, at some point the right decision is just to adapt and go with the flow.
I went to many tournaments in many different countries, and while my living conditions were far worse from what I had in Italy I was so happy to compete and meet my online friends. I had the chance to know for the first time some of the most interesting people I've ever met and whenever I lost in a tournament I could feel how much more I wanted from myself as a player. The fact that whenever I won something I was so incredibly happy and whenever I lost I had a feeling of a thousand suns burning in my stomach made me feel like I was alive for the first time, and even though I didn't like the game at all I kept playing for this sole reason.
After a while I met Take and we got along pretty well. He was the manager of Team Alternate and when my old contract expired he got me a nice deal to join them. I wasn't doing well in EPS but I got a really nice placement in ESWC 2011 after beating Thorzain in the ro16 and losing to Stephano in the ro8 on stage. At that time Terran was already struggling a lot and when the Queen patch came out I basically stopped doing any result whatsoever. The game became just too difficult and even though I practiced harder and harder winning against Zerg consistently seemed impossible and in fact I don't think I won a single bo3 against a known Zerg after that. Players that were average at most suddenly became top progamers and this was very painful to see, especially because Blizzard failed to realize the mistake they had done and never changed it back to how it was. This however made me work really hard to get some results and even when I failed I learned to be happy as long as I knew I gave my best. One thing that I really appreciated is that Take always gave me his full trust and support. Maybe they were only words but it was very important to me and made me realize that trusting and encouraging the people around you can be one of the best things a person can do, and I'm extremely grateful to him for this. In my last period I lived in Germany I also had the chance to live with Monchi, who moved there to play EPS and work together with Take. He is a great guy and a great player and I learned to be a lot more positive from him.
I did much better in the last tournaments I played due to my new training and mindset (with the exception of Homestorycup) and I finally felt I was going in the right direction. Eventually I would leave Germany and my team but I was satisfied with my personal growth and while many people say my career as progamer wasn't successful I couldn't disagree more.
To me the whole progamer thing is not about winning money and be famous. It's about following your own dreams without any certainty and fighting every day to change yourself so you can experience better results in every aspect of your life. It means realizing what's truly important and who you want to be, even when everybody points their angry fingers and judge you for your choices, trying to make you feel you are doing something wrong. It means forcing yourself to find a way to be happy with your life and more resolute in what you do. It means sharing your dream with your friends and be happy or sad with them. Some of the bonds I've made in the past 2 years will last forever and no person will ever be able to dent my inner confidence again. I've gotten something so important in the past 2 years that no amount of money would ever have been able to buy me. And if this is not being successful in what you do then I sure don't know what it is. I'm so happy I choose to be a progamer, it made me become proud of myself, and even though I am still far from being the person I want to be now I know that I can find my mistakes and fix them, learn by every experience and get better every day.
I will keep playing and getting better at Starcraft and at life. I am now in Italy without team but I'm not worried a single bit about the future. This is what I want to do and this is what I will keep doing. I will change to Protoss in HotS and I will work hard to have my big winning experience on stage, which is something I truly want to experience at least once. I know I have what it takes to stand out as a player and I will do my absolute best to make it happen.
This is pretty much the summary of my progaming experience. I would also love to share other things I learned, which can be very useful and interesting. Here are some of them in a random order:
- People change when they become famous, often for the worse, up to the point you don't recognize them anymore;
- progamers have a bad sense of fashion;
- being a Starcraft 2 progamer makes you able to handle stress better than anything else;
- You Only Live Once, if you want to do something you better start doing it right now;
- some of the very best players have extremely egocentric, socially unstable personalities;
- most progamers are actors in front of people, they will act nice, helpful and politically correct in public and once they are in a private environment they will be selfish, unapologetic and arrogant. By contrast, some of the nicest people in the scene are barely known and recognized by fans;
- the more twitter followers, the more groupies;
- I secretly wish I was a girl so I could have Flash's babies;
- progamers' and casters' ego are directly proportional to the amount of fans they have;
- no matter what you do, somebody will hate, and their opinion will be meaningless. Receiving real constructive feedback is rare and treasuring it is necessary in succeeding in your short and long term goals;
- confidence is the most important trait for anything a person can do;
- selfish people are better at faking a nice personality. This happens because otherwise people would never accept them for who they are;
- the best players don't necessarily produce the best results;
- people would do anything to feel important, they can produce the greatest but even the stupidest things as long as they feel they can stand out from the mass, and if they can't they will rather hate somebody to get attention quickly or give more importance and meaning to what they do and say. This applies to every single person.
I actually have a lot more to say and I left out many things but I'm really tired. If I missed out something you want to know and you have any question or you want to know your favorite progamer or caster better through my perspective you can freely ask me in the comments of this thread. I will be more than happy to answer.
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 FakeSteve[TPR] Valhalla. January 18 2013 09:47. Posts 17062 | Profile Blog # |
| hey cloud you're awesome buddy |
| | Resident League of Legends & Street Fighter guru - " I know alot of words including tabernacle." - FuDDx ~~~ vrok, newest FakeSteve Fan Club member (55)! |
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| Corvi Germany. January 18 2013 09:58. Posts 1343 | Profile Blog # |
"My beautiful ex…"
aww goddamnit! |
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 TheKefka Croatia. January 18 2013 10:01. Posts 8111 | Profile Blog # |
On January 18 2013 09:58 Corvi wrote:
"My beautiful ex…"
aww goddamnit!
that was exactly why I came here
Nice to hear your doing good cloud
your blogs are awesomeLast edit: 2013-01-18 10:02:33 |
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| plasmidghost Czech Republic. January 18 2013 10:08. Posts 1483 | Profile Blog # |
| Don't worry, we all want to have Flash's babies. |
| | "make money make money make money make money make money make money make money make money make money make money make money make money" -iGChuaN | |
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| IRL_Sinister Ireland. January 18 2013 10:11. Posts 598 | Profile Blog # |
| The title as seen from the left is so appropriate when compared to your other blogs :D |
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| StarVe Germany. January 18 2013 10:34. Posts 10087 | Profile # |
Who are the nicest people in the scene, ClouD?
And that title has to be intentional again... :D
Also, you're going to race switch, that's interesting, going back to the roots, I guess. Last edit: 2013-01-18 10:45:30 |
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| SC2QuoteOfTheDay January 18 2013 10:59. Posts 46 | Profile Blog # |
| Nice post - looking forward to see you doing well as Toss in HotS! |
| | "There is nothing more cool than being proud of the things you love." - Sean "Day9" Plott |
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| cArn- Korea (South). January 18 2013 11:24. Posts 648 | Profile Blog # |
| I can relate to a lot of the things you say, most of what you learnt with your experience are also what I learnt too eventually, and its not only true in progaming but in life in general. I had the similar thoughts when I wrote about mine last year |
| | Twitter : http://twitter.com/cArn_sc |
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| y0su January 18 2013 11:39. Posts 1759 | Profile # |
Changing to Protoss in HotS? 
Well, best of luck anyway.
Btw, I learned a lot from the occasional coaching shows you did with take a long time ago! |
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| Marou Korea (South). January 18 2013 12:01. Posts 998 | Profile Blog # |
| Came for the cut title but was not disappointed by the content. Hopefully the switch to Protoss will be successful for you ! Best of luck |
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| docvoc United States. January 18 2013 12:23. Posts 3456 | Profile Blog # |
On January 18 2013 11:24 cArn- wrote:I can relate to a lot of the things you say, most of what you learnt with your experience are also what I learnt too eventually, and its not only true in progaming but in life in general. I had the similar thoughts when I wrote about mine last year
if only I could be as good as you two  I'm too chobo to understand the message when it comes to SC2 lol. |
| | User was warned for too many mimes. |
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| sMi.SyMPhOnY United States. January 18 2013 14:06. Posts 193 | Profile # |
On January 18 2013 09:47 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
hey cloud you're awesome buddy
i remember watching cloud when i was growing up as a teenager, i played terran but still had much respect ^^
Fakesteve, how are you :D? |
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| Ydriel Panama. January 18 2013 14:48. Posts 402 | Profile Blog # |
Sad to hear you're going P in HotS
Awesome blog as always tho, always bring a smile to my face (and sometimes a laugh).
Keep at it, feed off the haters when you succeed.
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| | <3 SC2 <3<3 Dota 2. Steam ID: HellS |
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| AnachronisticAnarchy United States. January 18 2013 14:50. Posts 2288 | Profile Blog # |
- most progamers are actors in front of people, they will act nice, helpful and politically correct in public and once they are in a private environment they will be selfish, unapologetic and arrogant. By contrast, some of the nicest people in the scene are barely known and recognized by fans;
...aaand now I'm paranoid. Great.
Just minutes ago, I was happy in my conviction that Sheth is a mannerbear, White-Ra is the nicest Ukrainian ever, Incontrol is a baller, Grubby is polite as heck, Artosis loves the game and that Day[9] is the best thing to happen to SC2 to date.
But not anymore! Nope, thanks to this blog, the nice guys are the evil ones and the controversial ones are the ones who aren't acting. But there are actually nice people in the world so maybe two or three of the nice guys are awesome and being controversial gets you attention so maybe some of the controversial guys are pretending to be controversial when they're actually nice guys IRL, but maybe those guys are really mean on the inside, act nice to everyone they know IRL and act mean to the public to get views and money.
Fuck me. |
| | "How are you?" "I am fine, because it is not normal to scream in pain." |
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| Tppz! Germany. January 18 2013 15:30. Posts 1305 | Profile # |
| I'm happy that you learned so much and had such an insightful experience. keep fighting Carlo! Never stop telling the real truth. And good luck with Protoss. I hope you get a lot more achievements in HotS! |
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| surfinbird1 Germany. January 18 2013 16:24. Posts 999 | Profile # |
No cookie monster? Who are you and what have you done with the real ClouD?
Joking aside, nice blog. Good luck in the future! |
| | life of lively to live to life of full life thx to shield battery |
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| iyasq8 January 18 2013 16:37. Posts 37 | Profile # |
| so idra is actually nice? |
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 heyoka Administrator January 18 2013 16:47. | Profile Blog # |
Very good read. Best of luck with HotS, would love to see you at the top of more tournaments.
Ideally with a series of DT drops, TSL2 style. |
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| Teoita Italy. January 18 2013 17:02. Posts 4222 | Profile Blog # |
| If you are back in Italy, does that mean you will be more active in the scene here, playing in ICC and whatnot? |
| | Protoss all-ins are like a wok. You can throw whatever you want in there and it will turn out alright. |
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