After playing in the ESWC for 3 days, I felt pretty satisfied with my results. Before the competition, I set a goal for myself. I wanted to be able to represent China in the grand finals, and I managed to achieve it. However, at that time during the finals I wanted to become the champion. Unfortunately my wishes were not realised as my performance was poorer than usual.

In the group stage, when we were drawing our groups, Like and I saw that we were in the same group. ForDream and xiaobei were in the group together with both of us. In total there were 5 of us. However xiaobei and ok did not turn up. This puzzled me. Why did those who qualified fail to turn up? Furthermore they weren't the only ones, it seemed that every group did not have someone showing up.

On the first day I was more relaxed. After Like defeated ForDream, King told me that I only needed to defeat ForDream to make it to the next round. In the first game against ForDream, I made a couple of mistakes. However he made critical mistakes later on which caused him to lose the game. In the second game it seemed that ForDream knew he was not going to make it. I rushed him and emerged victorious easily. After making it past the group stage, Like and I were awaiting the results from the other groups.

During lunch, Like and I discussed our next move. But most importantly, we hoped that both of us would be able to play until the finals and qualify for the grand finals. Like merely chuckled. I discovered later on that from the upper bracket, sai will be in the 2nd group, either infi or xiaot will be in the 2nd group, and suho will be in the 2nd group. From the lower bracket, TH000 is in the 2nd group, Lyc and either Like or me.

This is how i entered the legendary "Group of Death". After knowing that I had entered the Group of Death, my mind wasn't thinking of too many things. Since I had entered it, I just needed to kill everyone to come out on top. At that moment, King asked me whether I was frustrated because there were 3 Night elevs in my group. I said yes, after all my training against Night elf I didn't believe that I would lose to elf again. King told me to relax and have a good rest. He also wished me luck for my games.

On the 2nd day upon arriving at the competition venue, I tried to adjust my feelings after setting up my equipment and told myself to relax and concentrate on the competition. This is because I had to make it out of the Group of Death alive then I can prove to everyone else that my ROTK performance wasn't a fluke victory.

In the first round against suho, I felt that suho picked the wrong strategy to use. Archers and talons were unsuitable for fighting against ghouls. First of all, Secret Valley is a map with fountains of healing. It is difficult for night elves to gain a huge advantage during the early game. Also by using archers and talons, he was forced to give up on using the Naga, which means that he has to give up his ability to pressure me in midgame. Secret Valley is also a difficult map for night elf to expand. A war of attrition will certainly benefit the undead. I feel that I was able to develop my game pretty nicely without making any major mistakes and thus I was able to win without too much trouble. In the 2nd game, I had even better luck. In the decisive battle Suho failed to notice my Frost Wyrm at the back.

When the Demon Hunter was getting focused on by my Naga, he did not choose to cast rejuvenate on his Demon Hunter but instead chose to preserve him with the Staff of Preservation. Because of this I was able to kill all of his bears with my Frost Wyrm still alive. I feel that if the Demon Hunter wasn't staffed back to the base I would have probably lost the game.

In the second match against lyc I knew that the first map was Echo Isles. During the two weeks before ESWC I was preparing new strategies involving necromancers. In my mind I was thinking, since it was a BO3, even if I had lost the first game, there were still another 2 games, so I should use the first game to test my tactic out and see how it would work out after spending so much time preparing for it.

During the competition it was apparent that lyc had never seen this tactic before. He was playing messily. Since the beginning after his Demon Hunter was surrounded, I was basically controlling the entire game. He also picked the wrong units to counter my necromancers. I have been practicing with this strategy for half a month and I realised that as long as the undead has good timing and attacks the night elf early, it would be very difficult for the night elf to defend. This is because the nightelf will have no bears or faerie dragons if he chooses to expand. Then the undead who does not expand can make use of the opportunity to gain the upperhand when he lacks these units.

In the 2nd game, I made some serious mistakes. When I saw lyc expanding I was too eager to stop him. However I was stopped by his DH Naga and archers. At that point in time I felt that I was greatly disadvantaged. I tried to rack my brains to think of ways to win. When lyc got his bears out I was still at tier 2.

Then I thought of following the human style of defending my expansion with spirit towers and ghouls. It proved to work out. Even though he managed to secure an expansion, lyc's entire force only consisted of bears and had nothing to counter air units. He also made the mistake of attacking my expansion once more instead of expanding a 2nd time and try to last until late game. When the opportunity arose, I took out both of his heroes. Lyc was probably very upset after losing his games despite a huge lead.

I fought sai in the 3rd match. In the 1st match, he didn't want to let me expand. As soon as the Warden reached level 2 he came to attack my towers. I chose to use a single goldmine to fight him. As soon as I was tier 3, his Warden reached level 3 as well. His tech was a little slower so I knew that I would win for sure. He typed gg as soon as my army arrived at his doorstep. In the 2nd game the strategy that I chose was not too good. Frenzied ghouls are suitable for fighting Warden and Panda, but the solo Warden will be able to slay them easily in a matter of seconds at high levels. When I had an advantage, the level 6 Warden came into my base and wrecked havoc, eliminating my advantage. In the 3rd game I didn't make the same mistake as I did in IEF. I lost two ghouls to 2 archers and a Warden, this time round I told myself not to make such mistakes again. I was able to play better this time round, reaching tier 3 without any major mistakes. In the end I was up against the solo Warden and was able to win.

Infi was my 4th opponent. I felt that he was my toughest opponent. I hardly practiced against human because I wanted to leave this matchup for later as my first priority was to survive the 2nd group stage. I was concentrating all my practice for elves and orcs. Infi has always been excellent against undeads. I knew that in this matchup you only need to play well for the first 7 minutes of the game to win. In the 1st game, I managed to catch Infi expanding with his Mountain King. When his hero died, he gave up. I feel that the 2nd game on Secret Valley was the most exciting game.

After watching the replay I realised that my average apm was 305. This was probably the highest in my entire career. I had the upperhand early on. When Infi casted Blizzard at the back with his Archmage I used ghouls to attack him until he nearly died. I was microing my units nonstop. I feel that at that point my mind was constantly thinking about infi's next move. In this match I think that both of us did not make any mistakes. Even though I lost the game, I felt good after the game. In the 3rd game I got lucky as I had a close spawn. However his luck wasn't bad either. He had the Scourge Bone Chimes. However due to the close spawn I was able to gain a greater advantage through harassment. When he was attempting to expand, I prevented him from building his towers. Later on I chose not to build meat wagons but destroyers instead to counter him. It proved to be the right choice and I managed to win without any major obstacles.

Since I knew I had already qualified, I had no pressure when I was against TH000. I lost my first game against 000 but I realised that if I came in 2nd I would have to face Like so I had to win at least one game to become the top player of my group. In the end I managed to secure a 2:1 victory over 000 and returned home to await the semi-finals the next day.

On the night before the semi-finals, Like and I shared a room. I asked him about some details regarding the orc vs ud matchup. From then I thought of how I should play and adapt against Future accordingly. However, I did not sleep well at night. My mind was filled with thoughts of the different strategies to use on each of the 5 maps. This was because I was not sure how the maps were selected (veto or selection). If the maps were to be chosen, it means that I would have to prepare every single map. Therefore I spent the night thinking about the game.

On the morning of the semi-finals I got up feeling pretty ok. I went to get some fresh air and went down to Wuxi Concert Hall to wait for my match. I thought I was going to play in the 2nd match. Turns out I had to play Future first. In this match I felt that Future was more nervous. He was unable to unleash his true potential which could be seen during practice. I also feel that I was thinking too much yesterday and ended up stressing myself.

Like and 000's match was shown on stage. On Echo Isles, Like played brilliantly. His Blademaster was single-handedly able to delay, pressure, and defend. Everything was played perfectly. Even ducui said "*Zhang Fei can finally read books, it was really played very well." However at the end he made an error in judgement, causing him to lose 30 food worth of units. 000 used the chance to counter attack and Like lost the game regrettably.

In the 2nd game both players spawned next to each other on Turtle Rock. 000 seemed to know that Like was weak against tier 1 towers. He started towering Like right away. Also the close spawn was very unfavourable for Like. After the match Like was resting on the stool, feeling very depressed. We were watching Like on stage as he kept on rewatching the replay and shaking his head. After keeping his equipment, he said, "I always screw up at the crucial moment." King also told him that it would be his last time losing to tier 1 towers from human. Like laughed a little and kept quiet after that. After the CS ladies semi-finals we went to eat our lunch.

In the 3rd-4th placing match, Like played much better. In both games although he did not really gain any advantage in the game, Like had better micro and he managed to defeat Future with a score of 2:0. Despite the win, Like still told me regretfully that he was unable to go overseas this time round. Sigh... Actually I was able to understand his mood because before the match I knew that if I was unable to make it to the finals, I would be filled with regret as well.

During the finals, I think that my form was poorer than usual. On Echo Isles I did not send my 200 hp ghouls back to base. Thus he was able to use his Paladin attack them once and cast Holy Light on them, killing a lot of my ghouls. I made many mistakes at the early stages of the game. At midgame, I was unable to destroy the tower being repaired by N peasants even with 7 ghouls and a Naga.

This made me depressed because when I was playing DCup a few days ago, I was able to use 2 gargolyes and a ghoul to destroy a tower being repaired by 7 peasants. This left a deep impression on me and caused me to think that I would be able to destroy the tower with only a few ghouls. In the end the tower was completed.

I don't think the audience really knows what bug was used in the 2nd game. 000 actually hired a Beastmaster, but what I saw on my screen was a wisp at the Tavern. I knew he was going to hire a neutral hero and I stationed my ghouls over there. But in actuality I only saw a black shadow. I was unable to click on it. Suddenly a quilbeast came out from the shadow, giving me a fright. He could attack me but I was unable to directly attack him. I could only target him by using the attack-move command. I was also unable to see his life. We had a re-game in the end. I felt disappointed with this game. A few of the staff were at my side asking me a lot of questions. The game had already started and I knew that if I paused the game, the live telecast would stop as well. The staff members were asking me if there were any more bugs for about 5 minutes.

I actually think that 000's elf is quite strong but I still felt depressed because my standard was certainly not that bad. I played horribly and lost. After the match Like was at the back stage looking at me. I remained silent as I was feeling down. Why was it that I failed to show my best? I was always able to survive any "Groups of Death" in WCG 06, CEG 07, IEST etc. Why was I such a failure in this competition... This caused my mind to spin up till the prize presentation. I knew i was the runner-up and that the highest position on the podium was not meant for me, however I will be sure to step on it in future!