In the recently concluded ESWC 2008 Grand Finals, WE.Pepsi.TeD defeated SK.Reign to clinch the bronze medal, achieving the goal he has set for himself in his first major international competition. After the match, TeD updated his blog to share his experiences in the US with everyone.

This is my first time participating in a major international competition. Besides having to overcome my opponents in the game, jet lag also proved to be a huge problem. This affected Sky and me for quite some time. From the first day until the last day of the competition, both of us returned to the hotel as soon as we had finished playing our matches. Because of the time zone difference between the US and China, I woke up early in the morning at 0500. After that I could no longer fall asleep so I listened to some music in my PSP until 0830 when I had to report for my games.

The first group stage was a breeze for me. Besides the game on Secret Valley vs DeMuslim where I got greedy, there were no other upsets. After finishing my games from the first group stage, I asked the marshal when the second group stage was going to be played. He told me that it would only begin at 1500. Sky and I decided to return to the hotel to have some rest. Later on, 000 returned to the hotel as well after staying back to find out the drawings for the second group stage. He told us our groupings. I found out that I was drawn with Lyn and Soju. 000 forgot who my other opponent was. I was in a daze so I went to wash my face. Then I packed my equipment and headed to the competition venue to make my preparations.

When I found out my first opponent was HoT, I was quite surprised. HoT plays with a non-confrontational style against Undead. In the past I had watched a couple of replays of his and I know that he likes to use the Archer + Talon strategy. On Twisted Meadows he also prefers to build a Tree of Life early. When we were playing on Turtle Rock, both of us made some critical mistakes. In the end he managed to catch me off guard and played brilliantly. At that point in time, I was at 74 food with N number of aboms, 3 meat wagons, and 4 statues. I wanted to morph the statues into 4 destroyers and I was certain that I would not lose if we fought directly. However it turned out that when I was preparing to creep an expansion, he managed to flank my forces and split them into half. 2 of my statues and 3 of my meat wagons were destroyed. Because of this, the tides had turned in his favour and my army was swiftly wiped out. When I was fighting him on Terenas Stand, perhaps he had never played against an expanding undead before. Later, he made a mistake, losing his level 3 Warden to me. I was certain that victory was mine after that mistake. In the final game on Twisted Meadows, I took a gamble and sent my ghouls to check if he was expanding. It turned out that I was right. When I was attacking his expansion, I saw a Priestess of the Moon. In my mind, my first reaction was that he was going to expand with his archers. Therefore I didn't mind burning a Town Portal to destroy his Tree of Life which was under construction. He picked the Keeper of the Grove as his second hero and I had a rough idea of his strategy. He was aiming for a War of Attrition. I gathered my thoughts and prepared a counter. As soon as I met his Keeper of the Grove, I sent him back to his grave (altar) for revival. He lost his heroes much more often than his economic advantage brought him. Naturally his army couldn't keep up with mine and he was gg-ed.

As soon as I met his Keeper, I sent him back to the grave

My second opponent was SoJu. After fighting HoT I watched SoJu battle it out with Lyn on Echo Isle. Looking at how SoJu controlled his godly Panda and Demon Hunter, I gained a deep admiration of him. SoJu took a short break and we continued our games. I realised that Korean elves always played Secret Valley against undeads. On the other hand, I am very confident of my play on Turtle Rock. Before the match, I specially watched several of SoJu's replays against undeads. In all of those games, he always play with the Beastmaster. However when I played with him this time round, he was using the Demon Hunter. At that moment I was reminded of how I lost the entire series in ROTK because of a mistake and wanted to avoid making the same mistake twice. So I told myself not to be too hasty and to take it slow. I did not make any mistakes and my games went smoothly. When my frost wyrm was out, SoJu had too few dryads so I managed to take the first match without too many problems. In the second game on Echo Isle, I made some preparations against the Dark Ranger. I intended to rush him hard. If the elf has two barracks and is able to repeatedly heal at his moonwells I would expand instead. SoJu clearly hasn't played against someone who rushes with his ghouls as soon as the Death Knight is summoned. I felt that his archers were running around in a mess as he was not prepared for a rush. Surprisingly, I managed to take the win with a successful rush.

SoJu had too few dryads

My third opponent was Lyn. It was awkward when we were veto-ing the various maps we did not want to play. I veto-ed Secret Valley while he veto-ed Turtle Rock. I picked Terenas Stand as it was the map which I felt I had the most chance of winning. On this map, I feel that as long as the undead is able to creep without too much trouble, the orc won't be able to handle the undead's pressure. Lyn displayed obvious signs of greed when he repeatedly chopped my crypt fiends with his Blademaster. In the end I wasn't able to save them. At that moment I thought Lyn was overexerting himself and that he didn't expect his Blademaster to die. When he realised that his BM was at red hp, it was too late. When his level 2 Blademaster was slain, I knew that I had won already. Because if the orc makes a small error, it is very difficult to fight off a huge number of crypt fiends. When I tried using orc to fight ud, it was obvious that as long as the undead is able to creep perfectly, the orc will be faced with huge difficulties. In the second game on Twisted Meadows, both of us were very focused and cautious. This could be seen from the early skirmishes between our heroes, the pace of the game, and the change in tactics used. I could sense that both of us were constantly thinking of our opponent's next move. I forgot that Lyn would expand and when I finally scouted his expansion, it was too late. Even though our army strength was roughly the same, it became apparent that undead is unable to fight the Blademaster and Shadow Hunter combination without frost wyrms.

Watching my army dwindling in size, I felt depressed and typed gg. Before the third game started, Who and Lyn were discussing on how to fight me. Lyn was sitting across me and Who was standing at the side talking non-stop. Because I heard some undead related words, it was obvious that they were discussing on how to beat me. At the start I had no idea what Lyn was up to. I only planned to use the new strategy that I had prepared before the competition. It turned out that Lyn was following me around with his Blademaster. I prefer to play against such a style as the orc would always remain in my sight and I would know for sure that he would have no tricks up his sleeve. I managed to take down two grunts at the shop and I played carefully after taht. After I crept to level 3 I used a Rod to summon skeletons for scouting, thus I knew his army movements. At the moment he reached level 3, I hired a Pitlord at the tavern and morphed a single destroyer. Then I rushed him. On the second day of the competition before our games, I was sitting next to Lyn. The day before, he told me that my timing was perfect and that my lone destroyer was the mvp. I laughed when I heard that comment.

My lone destroyer was the MVP

After the first day of competition ended, I wasn't thinking about too many things. I retired at the hotel and went to sleep. At 2100 I discovered that many eateries were closed already. Bread is the main staple in the US. Thus I ate some the snacks that I brought from China such as biscuits and porridge... The three of us went back to the hotel to sleep. We woke up at 0500 in the morning. I heard them tossing on their beds and asked if they were awake. They asked me the same question and I told them that I was unable to sleep any longer. I got up and found some friends to chat with. I chatted until 0700 and I went to take a quick nap since the games started at 1000. In the end it was apparent that I couldn't sleep because of the jet lag so I lay on my bed to play my PSP. When it was almost 0900, a Taiwanese friend of mine, Yingli specially bought american breakfasts for us. Many thanks to her for specially flying down from Los Angeles to San Jose to watch us play. Yingli's english is superb and she helped me to translate many things which I did not understand. She also promised to take us to San Francisco to play. Ha ha.

On the second day of the competition, my first opponent was Tod. On the previous day before I went to bed, I was constantly thinking on the best style to counter Tod. I also mentioned that I had a few new strategies that I wanted to test out before the competition. Therefore I decided that I would test the new strategy out if the first map was Echo Isle or if I had won the first match. When I was training in China, I lost less often with this strategy. Therefore I figured that humans outside of China would probably not have seen this strategy before and will have a hard time fighting against it. When we played our match, I could tell that Tod was panicking. When he was trying to expand he suddenly realised that I had placed blight nearby and I was upgrading a nerubian tower. A couple of my crypt fiends were there as well. He had no idea how to fight back. His army was also in a mess. However there was some point in time where I nearly lost the game. He had a huge amount of flying machines, peasants and breakers and he rushed towards me with his entire force. My level 4 Death Knight and level 3 Panda all had less than 100 hp. I was a little frightened. I knew that the game would be over if I had lost both of my heroes. I realised that undead's nerubian tower together with the blight and the healing statue is a little imba. I had a hp regeneration of about 20 hp/sec.

The healing of the statue and the blight was like a bug, giving me 20hp/sec

After that I managed to win with some RPGing of my heroes when the hero level difference was too huge. In the second game, I was still deciding between a ghoul or a fiend build. I eventually decided to use ghouls because the chances of winning if I spawned next to him was 70% with ghouls. Furthermore there was always a third game even if I had lost. Even though I was lucky enough to spawn beside him, he was fortunate to get the Scourge Bone Chimes along with the Tome of Experience. I managed to surround his Archmage when he was expanding and force him to TP and I knew that I would probably win after that. Since he failed to expand at the far spot, he would naturally try to expand against at the goldmine near my base. I also didn't lose too many ghouls at the start and together with my Lich and ghouls, I managed to finish him off. After defeating Tod I felt happy. There were numerous people beside me, saying that my game on EI was very imba. After the match Tod kept asking me how to fight the tower rush. Hasu, Dowaq and Fix all surrounded my computer to watch the Echo Isle game. I felt a great sense of accomplishment... hehe, how narcissistic of me.

When I found out that my opponent was Sky, I felt the burden being lifted off my shoulders since both of us were from the same team. Both Sky and I reckoned that no matter which one of us won, we stood a better chance of winning than the Koreans. Against Sky, I was too hasty in my third game as I wanted to win quickly so I tried to rush but Sky dealt with my attack calmly. Naturally, I ended up losing the game as half the battle was already lost due to my state of mind.

Before my match against Reign, he said, "imba imba uvu imba man". So I replied, "sososososo". Actually before the match I was thinking of the various strategies Reign could use on me. Fast tech with crypt fiends, DK DL ghouls, normal crypt fiends. I never expected him to use Lich and ghouls to fight me. Personally, I feel that I have the best chance of fighting against Lich and ghouls. Reign used crypt fiends on me once during ROTK and I knew that he was pretty strong with them as well. However against Lich ghouls, I feel that I only have to play a strong early game and I would win. If he was unable to gain an advantage at the start, I would be able to control the entire flow of the game. I won the Turtle Rock match pretty easily but Reign put up a good fight on Echo Isles. He managed to steal some kills at the start and in mid game he managed to get both heroes up to level 3. He pushed me with all his might and killed everything except 2 crypt fiends before TPing. When I attacked him once more, I also realised that he lacked gold, causing his army to lack enough gargolyes. He had to fight my army of crypt fiends and frost wyrms. I also felt confident with my micro. After I defeated Reign, Hasu told Yingli that my ndead mirror was the best in the world. (Actually the person I wanted to play against most was Reign because I had never beaten him after the loss against him in Janurary.) Now revenge is sweet.

I felt confident with my micro

Sky and Who's match was spectacular. Who perfectly countered Sky's strategy. After the games, Sky was very depressed and upset. When we returned to the hotel, he was silent all the time. I also didn't want to disturb him... Too many people are unaware of his hard work and practice. I only want to say, please understand Sky's feelings. He is under a lot of pressure to become the champion.

At night, Yingli brought the both of us to eat. There was a burrito shop at the roadside and we went in to eat. I realised that the food in the US always come in ridiculously huge portions. I ate three meals in the US. Not once was I able to finish the food I had ordered. I feel puzzled at the Americans who aren't fat. I feel that their eating habits are quite extreme when I was observing them in the restaurant - they are able to gobble up N big hamburgers in a few bites. After eating for a long time, I was still unable to finish my food. I was also afraid tht I would lose my appetite for the rest of the day if I had finished up my food...

We went to eat some burritos!

Before this competition I told myself that my aim was to place in the top 3. In the process, I was able to defeat many gosus and I feel satisfied with my results. I only hope that I will be able to achieve even better results in the upcoming competitions. I realised that after this competition many people agreed that I am the no.1 undead. Moon, Lyn, Hot, Hasu, Tod, Reign, Sase and a few others who I don't recognise were discussing about me. I discovered that I was the only guy without his name on the ESWC namelist. I felt sad as I was mistaken as a random competitor. I saw others with their names written on their IDs, but mine lacked a name. However, I feel good after this competition. After two years of sweat and tears, I eventually managed to gain the recognition of many people. I also wish to work harder for my future competitions and invent many more strategies to strengthen the undead race!

Original Replays.Net post can be found here (in Chinese).