Official vVv Gaming Introduction Thread

Born on 9th October 1984 in the Czech Republic, Jana "Babytoss" Otahalova has been a gamer since the age of six. Mostly RPG's, starting with old classic titles like Diablo, Daggerfall, Baldur's Gate & Ultima Online, these games influenced her as a person, venturing into medieval reenactement and swordfighting, which became an influential part of her life. She was also a competitive player of the old action title, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, which had quite a big community back in 2004. Being effectively one of the best duelists in her country, Jana had her first glance into competitive gaming. If it wasn't for her physical health declining, you'd probably not see her today in the StarCraft 2 community. Being unable to perform swordfighting anymore, BabyToss was looking for more challenges for herself, to fill an empty void in her life.

Jana started playing StarCraft 2 in late 2010, although it was not until the second half of 2011 when BabyToss realized the challenge of and her own love for the game. Learning slowly from low leagues, BabyToss would struggle, as she walked the path. Facing a lot of factors hindering her, such as low-confidence and general anxiety, she takes up the challenge to fully grasp the game of StarCraft 2 with one goal – to become as good as possible.

Originally starting to climb the SC2 ladder from lowly Bronze, BabyToss managed to reach the Diamond league and she aims to reach Master level. She truly wishes to stream, entertain and coach newer players later on, along with participating regulary in both online and offline tournaments, overcoming her personal hurdle of being shy and un-confident through contributing to the StarCraft 2 community. Suffering from frequent severe depressions, BabyToss took a long break from consistent practice and training, resulting in huge drop of her skill. She is currently trying to get back on her feet, to reclaim what she once had, in order to be able to follow her dreams and further progress in StarCraft 2, as well as a person.

By the end of April 2012, BabyToss joined international team and community, vVv Gaming, considering herself to be StarCraft 2 player in training, still hoping to reach her dream of becoming one of the best; regardless of where that takes her, as ultimately, growing stronger, facing challenges and improving is, what keeps her ticking and going on.

BabyToss participated in her first international event, DreamHack 2012, where she was forced to face many of her personal struggles, which ultimately helped her to realize, that the road is here and she just needs to walk it. She also created the idea of a training environment for upcoming dedicated StarCraft 2 players, an Academy team of sorts, which would help these people to grow in a team environment. Then, finally on 4th July 2012, Aspire: StarCraft Learning Consortium was born, with BabyToss taking up the role of its' manager and captain, finding herself on yet another undiscovered venture: being a leader. And that is where new paths and possibilities opened for her and she intends to do her best, in all she does.

Born on July 5th, 1992, TJ, "Fearful," Lopez has been playing games ever since he was four years old. The sad part about that was that his very first game he could remember playing was Resident Evil. How crazy is that? He played all sorts of games, but he really loved to play Pokemon because it was all about strategy and knowing what you could do to beat your opponent. He says that it was way more strategical than what most people think.

After playing games like Pokemon, Smash Bros, and Mario, he stumbled upon Starcraft when he was 12. He never played Brood War because the original was what he liked best. He started off as a Protoss but ended up hating the race. He didn't feel like he could mass up units and overwhelm his opponents. With that mindset, he switched to Zerg and played much more happily. He started off rough but eventually got really good and won game after game. He always stayed in the channel "Cristal." After all his friends stopped playing Starcraft, he left the game for a while and left gaming for a while as well.

He eventually stumbled upon Warcraft 3 and only played Reign of Chaos. He really liked the Undead race because it had a little bit of a "zergy" feel. His favorite hero was the Dreadlord. He then created his own clan called "The Reapers." They were a pretty good clan and went against other clans. But after a while, he got tired of Warcraft 3 because he liked macro much more than micro. And Warcraft 3 was very micro intensive. After he left Warcraft 3, he got addicted to Assassin's Creed games and played Modern Warfare for fun.

After all that, he soon learned of the release of Starcraft 2. This was it. He had been waiting a long time for this and had the opportunity to play his macro-oriented games that he loves so much. When he first got the game, his computer could not handle even the lowest graphics and ended up with his motherboard being fried for the longest time. He quit the game at a silver level and saved up money to build his own computer that could handle the settings.

With the fresh install of the game and operating system, he played again and picked the name "TheFearful." He played by himself for a long time until he met a guy named "Ghozza" on the ladder. They were both silver at the time and he ended up beating Ghozza. Ghozza was a Protoss player and at the time, Protoss was Fearful's weakest matchup. They practiced together and learned of a clan called Nyquist Gaming. Together, they met a lot of good players and got better. By the time it was May of 2011, Fearful had ranked up all the way to Platinum League.

At that time, Nyquist was falling apart and some of the better players moved on to different teams. It was at this time he met a player named Zorro who used to be on Nyquist. Zorro was a Zerg player and he had just gotten accepted into the vVv Gaming community. He inspired Fearful to do the same when he applied in May. After he applied in May, Fearful practiced with a lot of the players and even got coaching from vVvTitan. After he had gotten coaching from Titan, Fearful won a Platinum tournament and won $5. After that week, Fearful had just been promoted to diamond and had just gotten accepted into vVv Gaming.

From there, he remained Diamond until a year later where he finally made it into Master League. He is there now and has just gotten accepted into the vVv Aspire Team. He is practicing very diligently and is improving day by day in hopes to go pro someday. Maybe it will happen, but only time can tell. He is in college studying Computer Engineering and is focused on his studies as well. He has a family and a girlfriend of over 2 years now. With all these things going on, he still manages to find time for Starcraft 2.

Adam Son Tran was born on April 3,1990 in Philadelpha, Pennsylvania. Adam "SonTran" Tran started gaming at a younger age, and it has been his passion ever since. The first ever RTS game he played was Warcraft 2. When he first got his new computer, he played the first Starcraft expansion, titled "Brood War". He was just eight years old when he began his trip down a road of gaming in Starcraft. The first race he played was Terran, and now, in his early 20's, he remains playing that race. His idol has remained SlayerS_BoxeR since then, and he has fondly looked up to him.

After taking a few years off from Brood War, Starcraft 2 was announced and he was so happy and pre-ordered the game. He couldn't help but feel a profound happiness, and fond memories of the past playing Brood War. He waited, what seemed like endless days, and finally, the game was out. Adam started out on Starcraft 2 with playing campaigns and playing against the computer, still unsure if he'd enter in a placement match. After long month's of practicing, he finally took his placement matches. Since then, he has blew past many leagues, and even beaten players in higher leagues.

After playing, learning, and watching people like Husky, Day[9] and others, and watching Starcraft tournaments, he wanted to be on a team. He had many Starcraft friends, and soon found out about vVv Gaming. All he wanted was to be on a team, and to feel the rush playing with a team name. He filled out an application, and after days of anxious waiting, and pondering, he was accepted.

Now, Adam is practicing every day, learning new builds, and is even inspiring Friends and Family to begin playing Starcraft.

He is honored to be included in "Aspire" and continues to practice as much as he can everyday.

Ryan "NazGuL" Lee Thornton was born in 1985 right at the start of the NES generation. He grew up playing all the originals: Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Ninja Gaiden, Super Mario bros and about every other NES game he could get his hands on. As Ryan grew older and wiser so did his games, In his teens he mastered Warcraft 2 and brought peace to Azeroth. When Warcraft 3 came about the only thing he really did was play DOTA. DOTA led him to really love PC gaming. He also became very fond of the various FPS titles available for the computer.

One fateful day as Ryan was at a close friends house who told him "look man DOTA is good but you need to play SC2!" He didn't really believe him and it had been ages since he even played an RTS, Ryan hadn't even played Brood War. After watching some casts from HDStarcraft, and being amazed at the level of skill and the variety of the game, Ryan purchased a copy of Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty. Quickly placing into Bronze, he manged to secure a top rank in Gold his very first season in. By season 4, with under 250 games played, he hit Master leauge on his first true RTS ever! In hopes of bringing his gaming to the next level, he began to look for a team to practice with. This led him to vVv Gaming.

When Ryan heard about the new Aspire team he quickly made a huge effort to join! And low and behold he made it! This is just the first step for Ryan. He is planning on taking his gaming to a pro level and placing well at tournaments to get vVv's name out there as well as his own. He plans on playing his best and playing often every day, so he can do well at an online tournaments and perhaps end up on a live stream!

Aside from Starcraft 2 you can find Ryan reading Lord of the Rings. Not watching the movies, as he feels they take away from the seriousness and philosophical implications, that the author had illustrated in his telling of the trilogy. Although he is dedicated to his practice, he still makes time for his loving wife Rebekah, and his pride and joy, their son Zackary.

Chris "PoSeR" Clauson is 27 years old and lives in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He has a girlfriend (pretty much wife) Sarah and a 5 years old son Emerson. He owns a bar not too far from home. So between the family and business PoSeR is a very busy man. Nonetheless, he always finds time to get his games in. He is a gamer at heart, and his passion for gaming has always come from StarCraft. He started playing Brood War when he was 12 years old back in 1998. He was waiting for StarCraft 2 to come out ever since. In that long wait for SC2 to come out, PoSeR used to play Brood war with RockEr. In his Brood War days, he was on many teams (i2, 88) cF) with players like Incontrol, Idra, Clawson, Jiang and Artist. So when PoSeR saw his friend RockEr joined vVv, the team really spiked his interest. He asked him how he could join and RockEr guided him through applying. Chris knows that RockEr is no longer with vVv, but he has really grown to love the community, as well as the fact that the team has an impressive history with a lot of different games. PoSeR loves playing StarCraft 2 and it really gives him a release from all the stress life could bring him. He is a very competitive player and hates to lose. PoSeR works hard on not letting the losses to get to him and practices almost every day, hoping he will be a Grandmaster soon.

Thomas “vVvTuFF” Parker was born in 1995 in Redwood, England. He spent a year in England and then moved to Canada where he lived on the east coast in New Brunswick for 10 years, then moved to the west coast in Edmonton where he lived for a year, and finally he moved to Barrie, Ontario where he lives now.

Thomas describes himself as an easy going person with a light nature.

Tuff has always had an affinity for video games, playing and loving games such as Crossfire, Super Smash Bros. and other RPG’s, but it wasn’t until Starcraft 2 that Tuff became interested in competitive gaming. He first learned of SC2 from a friend who showed him a cast of Husky, he watched those games for 3 months before even buying the game. As a result, he won his very first ever game, and was hooked. After being in many clans, who all disappeared eventually, Tuff sought out a more permanent residence, and found vVv gaming.

As a member of Aspire, Tuff plans to give as much as he can, and absorb all there is to offer. Tuff's plans for the future are to sell coaching and to get into GRANDMASTER!

Ott Madis "Oakwarrior" Ozolit is currently 21 years old and resides in Estonia (that's in Northern Europe). As a child of summertime, he was born on the 3rd of June 1991, notably the year when Estonia was declared fully independent from Soviet rule. He started playing games at a really early age, made possible by his family's geekiness and good relations with technology. The first game Ott played was Superfrog on the Atari, but the first RTS game was Dune II, and remains a great favourite even considering the game's age by now. The first experiences concerning StarCraft, though, came in mid-1998, when his brother was lent a Russian copy from his classmate and brought it home.

Already being somewhat well-versed in English due to TV shows, Ott played through the campaign and thoroughly came to admire the Protoss, always playing that race in Skirmish mode and possibly even emulating battle scenes and voices in the forests near his home. Brood War came shortly thereafter and the admiration for Protoss continued, mostly confined to single player due to internet connections not being as good as they are now. While still playing the game, he would not seriously put time into it until 2004, when he was gifted a SC: Anthology key by an online friend. It was at this point that Oakwarrior switched races to Zerg.

Not really registering the potential of the game as an eSport, Ott would continue on with playing other games, including Dawn of War 2, whose eSport potential was recognized and realized through the Electronic Sports League. Now that StarCraft II is released, all Oakwarrior does is play SC2 during most of his free time, honing his skills. The skill-honing in particular came to a certain point where Ott realized that he should join up with a team to have a solid practice environment constantly available. This led to him applying for the Aspire program in vVv Gaming, and he was lucky enough to be accepted into their ranks. vVv Gaming is the first clan that Ott has been part of in StarCraft II, and he is loving it so far.

Poche "Reere" Hu was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1985. Growing up with a programmer father with interest in technology meant video games & computers were no strangers. His first encounter with competitive gaming was back in 2000 with Counter-Strike Beta 0.7. Internet cafes were booming, and CS was the game of choice. In 2002 Reere's CS team represented Indonesia in WCG Korea 2002, but he was not able to make the trip to Korea due to visa issues. Since then, Reere took a step back in competitive gaming and focused on studies.

Fast forward to 2011. No longer a child, married, and a stable job meant one thing missing; a passion. No matter what Reere tried to take up, he was eventually drawn back to gaming. After watching much of Tastosis and GSL earlier that year, he's finally found it. The missing passion was competitive gaming. A complete newbie at RTS, but Reere knew this was the path he was looking for, and he hasn't turned back since.

Taking his placement matches & starting in Silver back in April 2011, Reere worked his way up the ladder where he hit Grandmaster in July 2012. The whole journey was recorded on Twitter where he would tweet his thought process daily and share it with the SC2 community. Grandmaster rank however is just a stepping stone for Reere. His ultimate goal is to become a top tier player competing internationally. As Reere once said, "Hitting Grandmaster is where my journey actually starts. This is not the end."