Hello guys! My name is Jian Fei Wang, part of Fnatic’s SC2 squad and I have finally found some time to blog =]. Just a little background info on me, I am 19 years old, originally from China and moved to Canada when I was 6, so basically I lived here my whole life. I am currently enrolled at the University of Toronto studying Chemical Engineering (2nd undergraduate year). 

Some of you are probably thinking “how the hell do you have time when you are studying engineering?!” well it’s because of my passion for the game. Initially when SC2 Beta came out I did not want to try it as my greatest fear was to become addicted and school was going to start in one month. It was only until the real game came out and a friend convinced me to “try it”. I’ve been a competitive player in BW for a few years already, playing in tournaments and climbing to the top of the ladder is what I strived for in my gaming career. This opportunity presented itself in SC2 and I got hooked instantly. In the beginning I was unfamiliar with the game and I was losing so much, achieving only 50% win rate in some days. It was very depressing because in BW I would rarely lose to no-names. However, I knew I had the mechanics from BW and I only needed to develop game sense and builds orders to reach the top. Thus, I played as much as I could, with a minimum of 10 games per day to a maximum of 60 games per day, depending on how I was feeling and how free I was that day.

 I want to apologize to my lovely girlfriend, who, although is very supportive of my gaming, had to tolerate this! Sometimes I would be so into the game that I couldn’t listen to her while she was speaking to me, in real life or on the phone. You know when you are being 4gate rushed and are in a very INTENSE micro war, fighting for 20 points on ladder and then your girl friend is asking you questions, it’s REALLY hard to form a thoughtful reply. Then when you don’t tell her you were actually playing SC2 , she will think you are ignoring her! L But I like her oh so much ^^

Ok, enough with the personal stuff, time to talk about the serious stuff! I’ve been to many large tournaments in the past, but a week ago I played in my first SC2 tournament and it was also my first time representing Fnatic. The event was called WCG Canada, held in Montreal. I went there with two of my buddies (slained & sky). We left on Friday night and arrived 8am Saturday morning. It took 8 gruesome hours as it was very difficult to sleep. The seats weren’t comfortable so your butt is taking a lot of damage, it was also freezing on the bus and it was impossible to sleep without your head falling to the side.  When we arrived at the venue it was huge!

The tournament began shortly after we arrived. Since it was a BYOC event and I did not bring my computer, Elek have allowed me to borrow his computer so I can play when my matches were available. Not only did he lend me his computer, he helped me setup and everything went very smoothly, a very nice gentlemen! In the round robin I went 5-0, then against my last opponent where he proxied 2gate outside my base and I lost. At that point it didn’t matter anymore because both my opponent and I have advanced from our group. Entering the Ro32, I won against my opponents fairly easily until Ro8, where I had to face slained, followed by Taurent then KiwiKaki in winner bracket finals. After knocking Kiwikaki into the loser bracket finals I was very nervous because I would have to play either Slush or Kiwikaki in the finals. I didn’t have much practice versus Zergs on both ladder and team practices because of the lack of Zerg players, so I knew PvZ wouldn’t be favored for me. However, Kiwikaki is an extremely good player as well and I do not know if I only defeated him in the winners’ bracket by luck. Turns out Kiwikaki defeated Slush 2-1 and I had to play him in the grand finals.

As I’ve mentioned earlier I was playing on a friend’s computer. When the head admins told me that I was going to play on the big stage for the finals, I told my friend as well. He then left along with his computer. 30 minutes later, we were told that we would no LONGER play on the stage because Counter Strike finals was taking way too long. I had to scramble around to find an appropriate gaming platform. After some thinking we decided to hook the admin’s laptop to my friend’s monitor, everything was set up but we had one problem! The laptop did not have a PS2 plug and my steelseries keyboard required a PS2 plug. We then had to scramble for another computer because time was very limited and we had to finish the finals ASAP. Luckily my friend Mihai (ahhboxxah) allowed me to play on his computer. Once I sat down I had literally 2-3 minutes to get ready for the match, I wasn’t very comfortable with the settings and graphics yet but we had to start as soon as possible. After 5-10 minutes in game, my eyes have adjusted to the computer graphics and I was able to play normally. After three matches, I went 2-1 against KiwiKaki yet again and took gold. I was extremely excited and nervous during the match that my throat went completely dry. The first thing I did after the match was to grab my water bottle and went to get some water, however I had some difficulty getting out as the spectators were all blocking my path. I’ve been asked “how do you feel” so many times and I don’t know how to reply with anything more than “happy”. I informed my girlfriend via text messaging because I knew she was anticipating the results J It felt great, it was my first large tournament in SC2 and I was able to win it especially against the likes of Kiwikaki.

Now I am hungry for even more tournaments and more money. WCG Canada was a really fun experience and even if I lost, I would go again. I met some really nice people and just socializing with other gamers and discussing the game is really fun. I suggest all of you who can attend these events please do go! It helps with sponsorship in SC2 in the future and the event itself is an interesting experience. This concludes my blog and I’ll update you guys again when I can. J