The tournament that started it all. I'd considered joining RMOT but the idea of a rapid tournament with no teammates to teach me the ropes was too daunting. The team I joined was a haphazard team made of LFT players but I had the incredible chance of having Civil Oath on my team. He was basically god. I remember the qualifier pool coming out and being unable to play any of the maps. Civil Oath meanwhile was playing the nomod maps with doubletime. Being a primarily nomod player I struggled hard on all tournament maps that weren't simple NM maps. I couldn't play tech,alt,low ar, basic HD maps, basic HR, high bpm ft. HD was impossible since I never normally played it, who can hit circles that you can't see, where are you meant to look? HR was a huge challenge because of AR10 OD10. I was 30k at the time and any ar above ar9.3 was almost unreadable. I had to grind the HR maps every week to be able to even come close to playing them. DT was similar to HR but more doable. Sadly we only made top 16 because our team as a whole wasn't the best, but I still had a blast and learnt a ton from a player I consider my first teacher, akirakai18. We exited the tournament losing on the TB, Brooks Brother - Not Just Yet. I still remember having a massive combo, missing right after the break, then losing by 100k because of it. I think despite all the maps I couldn't play that excruciatingly close tb loss motivated me to keep signing up for more tournaments.


This image summarises our run. I would hard grind a map and FC with terrible acc. Dirty Cabbage would somehow combo game with absolutely horrendous acc and Civil would sightread FC for the best score in the lobby. Civil Oath was one of my big inspirations to get better at the game and one day I'd like to be better than him. I think I am much improved, but still leagues away.

This tournament was an absolute mess from a practise standpoint. I don't think we practised as a team once the whole tournament. Playing with the team I got was hilarious though. Phoph was mega emo every week despite being the best player on the team. Smead never wanted to play everything and could only play hr/dt. Riwaka was a HDHR one trick that we eventually realised was super abusable on FM, Nova- didn't show up any week because he was outscaled from week 1 and Arbusion was the most mature despite being 16. I still had a lot of fun despite the tournament being quite stressful. (It did help that we placed quite well). I had one of the best matches of my tournament career in loser's bracket of that tournament against Germany setting a few scores that even now I struggle to replicate in solo. Overall I'll look back fondly at this tournament as one of the few I got to play with phophicles.

When you're building a lineup there are many things to consider. Skillsets, the language everyone speaks, team chemistry and a whole myriad of other factors. The team I ended up playing on was what you get when you throw all that out the window and pick a bunch of aussie cunts to game with. I was actually already on a team with a bunch of crackhead players, but when I was asked to team I completely forgot I'd agreed to play on that team and accepted the invitation to play with the aussies. We may have not placed well but damn if I didn't have a ton of fun playing. Every week was a different shitfest of trying to mess around more than the previous week. One week Prosal would want to leave early to eat his pizza. Another Tonka Truck would start playing clash of clans mid match. Lammy would ask to play the stream map, Ezipie would constantly complain about having to play any map at all, Trainjumper would FC retardedly hard maps and say absolutely nothing in the vc. It was quite the wild ride and my first introduction to eastbound and down, the best warmup map. we went out early but it showed me a new perspective on how to have fun while not taking the tournament too seriously.

Another tiered tournament with a relatively new format. Instead of tiering by ranks the tiers were divided based on skill only which made the tournament very very competitive. I was initially upset not to be drafted into tier 2 but after seeing the level of play and reflecting on my own performance I am glad I ended up a late pick in tier 3. I mostly got into tier 3 just off of daanit knowing me haha. Connections really are everything in draft tournaments.
The tournament itself really highlighted how weak I am when on a team of strong talented players. My team was made up of the best of the high and low 4 digit scene and it really shows when you consider I played less than half the maps overall. I felt every week I would sub myself out because my teammate was better and we would win or lose on my teammate's performance simply because I was not good enough. I still feel I learnt a lot from this tournament. I've a new appreciation for the level of skill in the 3 and 4 digit scene (damn there are some good 3 digits that I've never heard of) and a renewed resolve to grind my way to a level of skill worthy of being in the same lineup as the teammates I benched myself for. I don't think I'll get there soon but in a year or two, who knows?

A weird tiered tournament that a lot of people thought was an inferior version of Conyoh Cup 2. I didn't last long in this tournament so I can't really comment on how it went. Normally meeting top players is a immensely disappointing experience but this tournament was different.
I got to play with Monk Gyatso for the first time after narrowly missing out on teaming with him in Calamity Cup 2 which was awesome. I'd seen his excellent mindset and charisma on stream before and he has been one of the few top players to live up to the glorified image I had of them. He brings an energy to whatever team he is on and I hope to emulate his leadership though I know my personality is slightly different.

Perhaps I would be ready to play this tournament in 2 years. The pools started insanely hard from the get go and my skill just did not live up to the price I'd been hired for. I did meet some fun new gamers who I hope to team with in the future though. Some emo ones aswell but that's life. This was the last of three draft tournaments I played in quick succession and it reaffirmed a few things I heavily dislike about draft tournaments. Firstly, every match is at 2 or 3 am. This sucks for my sleep schedule and especially for Monday morning classes. Secondly, I can't control my teammates. Normally I look for teammates who I get along well with and have synergistic skillsets with my own. Not being able to control the most basic things like whether the people on my team even speak English really puts you at the mercy of whoever drafts you. And finally due to timezones you can almost never practise as a team or even chat that much. This probably isn't nearly as bad in an American or European timezone, but that's just the Asian timezone for you. For the previous reasons I have a new interest which I did not have before to be a captain and not just a player in a draft tournament, but first I want to reach a skill level high enough to make sure I can live up to the responsibility.

Oh boy this is gonna be a shitshow

Honestly a great return to form for me. I played 5wc Minor league 2024 and holy moly was I bad at the game. I don't feel bad about 2024 given I had like 2 weeks practice before the tournament started but I could not even stream 180bpm for that tournament. 2025 I knew I wanted to play and grinded for like 5 months for the tournament. I wasn't really happy with my speed and I didn't really play low ar for it, but I feel like I've finally committed to a reliable practice schedule that will help me improve. We had an honestly crazy run and an awesome team and I hope to grind for 1 more year and make 5wc A team next year. Kind of crazy that I'm still playing tournaments 8 years into osu and post entering the workforce.