Sunday, May 19, 2013

Future and beyond.

    I've been hiding a lot lately. Or just being lame. I've been staying at my friends (@Jwonggg and @Floejisan) place ever since we lost. I can't sleep much. I can't even think straight. It's hard to see how much I've come since the beginning of my fighting game days. I've thought about everything that I've accomplished, everything I've failed at, and everything that I can hopefully do in the future.

    I've apologized to countless people over the past week about losing. MadCatz has been supportive and they're probably the ones that keep my head up the most. I love Markman (@MarkMan23) and Leang (@userSDK) because they seem so genuine in helping me get back on my feet. The more and more I come out of hiding, the more I realize how much I start to appreciate everyone being there for me.

    So what happens now? In nine days, I'll be traveling to my home country, Vietnam. I wasn't actually born there though, but hey I'm Vietnamese, so in the end, I had to have come from there somehow ya? I'll be gone for about 2-3 weeks to clear my head, and to figure out where everything goes from here. My plans aren't as foolproof as much as I want it to be. I actually haven't been to Vietnam in ages... Last time I went was probably when I was like 5 years old... That's muddafuggin 20 years ago.

    I remember when we had to poop/pee into a "toilet" that didn't flush and we had to pour water into it so it would flush... Taking a bath outside in a big round plastic thing with a hose in front of everyone... Imagine if I had to do that now... So many people would go blind! I wasn't as big back then I promise! But my mom has told me things has changed, and they're up to date with technology now... And I mean if Saigon Jokers is around, that has to mean something!

    As for the future... I'm going to be practicing League of Legends a lot. I haven't given up. Yes, a lot of people will doubt that I have the skill to be good at the game, but I know in the end, I can be good. I'm not there yet, and I understand that, but I've tried to do worse things before, and for some reason I always am able to do what I feel like I should do. I'm going to become the best mid that everyone talks about. I will change the world. I will make people understand that through sheer willpower that anything is possible.

   Yeah, I knew I wasn't ready for the big leagues when I benched myself for ecco... But in the end, it's better for me to cut some reliance on everyone, and have some reliance on myself. When I had to just watch my team slowly lose in a fantastic series to VES... I was devastated, heartbroken, and felt so bad that I couldn't do anything about it myself. It wasn't ecco's fault that we lost... It was collectively everyone's, including mine.

    I wasn't one of the top managers... I know that. I made a lot of mistakes. I did nothing as I had planned for the team. I was enjoying the ride too much. I sucked. I'm horrible. And it's not something that I'm willing to do over again. I'm going to become a better person. I'm going to show the world that people do change. I cared about the way my team looked too much with shirts. I cared about the way my team was presented. But I shouldn't have. I should've been more productive.

   In the end, I'm looking towards the future more and more everyday instead of hiding in the corner hoping everything will get better. I have to do it myself and not just let pure luck come at me. It's going to be a long and tough road but I'm sure I'll make it... Because I dreamed all of this for the very few hours of sleep I had. This whole blog, I dreamed it.

Shirts will be made available for pre-order for 2 weeks only. This is probably the last you'll see of my shirts. If you had pre-ordered on my website before, you have been refunded / cancelled. If you've paid for my shirts before through me, I have either shipped out your shirts or refunded your money. I can't do all of this anymore especially by myself. So I found help in one of the best clothes I've ever worn / seen. So you can find and pre-order shirts from www.brokentier.com.

Sunday, May 12, 2013


So. The dream is dead.
    I was going to make a vlog, but even writing this, I'm getting brought to tears so I'm just going to keep it in text so I don't get made fun of. Fat guy crying is usually always funny.

    Back even when I was in fighting games, not even making much money. My brother told me "Live your dream, do whatever you want. But at the end of the day, if it makes you happy, I'll support it." I've ALWAYS looked up to my brother. You could say that in my eyes, he's my hero. My parents were always busy working trying to provide a life, and my brother would not go to the University he wanted to, to stay home, go to a local university and take care of me. He's always been the one I wanted to make proud because he sacrificed so much for me. He's been the one guy who drives me to try to be successful in eSports because it's my dream to be. I always believed that one day video games would blow up as it did in the LCS. So this is where the story begins.

    When I made Team MRN, people actually don't know I made it off of gambling and winning a huge amount of money a long time ago and sponsoring a guy named "Wolfkrone". It had it's ups and downs, and to be quite honest, I lost a lot of it gambling even more so it sucked and he left the team. And as funny as it sounds, Team MRN consisted of just.. Marn for awhile.

    I had been friends with ClakeyD for awhile and I always feel I see a lot of potential in players. Yeah, everyone will hate on his jungle but to be honest, he's never liked jungling in the first place. It's something I forced him to so I could also help him live his dream. Playing video games for a living. At first, I was on the team, then I kicked myself off the team because I was bad. Truthfully, I would rather sit on the sidelines now after playing fighting games for over 12 years. And so blah blah Cinderella story. We made it in.
   
    It's been a fantastic three months with my team. We've had our ups, and a lot of downs actually. We fought a lot, we roster changed Nientonsoh in and took out AtomicN. But Atomic still lives with us and we are all still friends. Except Atomic and Heartbeat. That shit is mad awkward. We've practiced almost every day for 8 hours. We've watched anime together. Drank together. And just did stuff that genuinely made all of us happy, while being provided a life by Riot.

    But in the end, all of it didn't matter. We all knew we were going to break up Team MRN if we lost and we practiced so hard to NOT lose. We planned everything out, played a lot, practiced a lot, and in the end, we couldn't execute what we wanted. Why? As an LCS team, yes you get to play for 10 weeks against NA's best and you're going up against an amateur team. Should be easy right? In our eyes, it actually should've been. But what happened? We played like crap. We played like we were the same team at the beginning of the season. We played like our lives were on the line. Nervous, scared, let our opponents control the pace of the game. Yes, it is advantageous but it's also a disadvantage. LCS teams are playing with their lives and past three months on the line. Amateur teams I would imagine doesn't feel as much pressure as LCS teams.

    Yep, our record was shit. But the improvement that the whole team felt we had was just fantastic. Everyone thought everyone was getting better. Everyone said Clakey has gotten better than before. Everyone improved. But when I watched and Clakey got every objective out-smited... I never remember the last time in LCS he got outsmited. He's always been on point and I just couldn't believe it when I saw it. All of what happened just didn't make sense to me.

    So now, in the end, my dream is dead. So what next? Hopes for next season? Probably not. Because I feel like I had one of the best teams in the palm of my hand ready to go to World Finals. Yes, if the Lakers lose Kobe Bryant, they'll still find someone else. But I loved these guy more than anything and it sucks we have to part ways. MegaZero probably on the other side of this computer probably going why the fk is Marn crying but he doesn't know I'm typing this.

    I hope in the end, everyone gets back into the LCS, no matter what they have to do. MegaZero is just too good to pass up for any team. Nientonsoh is a god. Ecco/Clakey/Heartbeat/Atomic may not be up to par with reddit standards but I truly believe all of them are great players and this shouldn't have happened the way it did.

    I hope to come back stronger but right now, my drive is gone. I really just want to go into hiding. Because I feel like I just lost family. So the dream is dead. Team MRN is gone at least for now.

    It's not about quitting. It's the feelings I have that I disappointed my sponsor MadCatz, disappointed our fans, and worst of all, disappointed my brother. I've never had high hopes in my life so I wouldn't be disappointed... But in the end I disappointed everyone else.

   Before I end this, if anyone on my team reads this. Thanks for letting me live my dream, thanks for the good times, and thanks for just believing in what we could do even if we couldn't do it. I am grateful that you guys gave me this opportunity. It's definitely been a happy experience. But if someting starts, it has to end.

TLDR; Suck my fat. If you don't want to read it because it's too long, then what's the point.