with soik's done (thanks ue, hibiki, gsblank, tebi, tng, yellow, noriko!), it's about time to call it quits on tournaments -- serious play anyway
since this has been a major part of my life for nearing 8 years now, i wanted to at least write something as a send off. from early tourney days looking up to chaoslitz and digitalhypno until playing alongside some of the best tourney players in modern day has been a crazy ride
this will be an incredibly long-winded thank you note, and not much thought has gone into it so i'm definitely going to miss a lot of people and i'm very sorry:
elysion and www pretty much inspired me to play this game after starting it a year earlier and take it seriously. www's make a loser ss in tourney pushed me to start getting better all round
riktoi, noobsicle, ezipie, ibrocky, kano, yay, janga, antsa, dain and all early rivals/friends who i can't think of right now
the entire australian squad whether it's owc, old and current friend groups, old teams. a lot of you are current friends still so u know who u are. this goes out to all the international guys that still hang out with us too
all the international tourney friends i made along the way! whether i played with or against you, you had some sort of impact on me in this game. tw, hk, jp, u guys are so cool and thanks for teaming with me so much
the chinese boys; david, kurumi, crystal, milktea - i first played david in cake cup 5 years ago in ro32 and near every map was an acc battle since early pools back then were all 5*. david and kurumi are pretty much like my brothers, feels like we've known each other for ages even though relatively it's been pretty short since we've actually started talking. early on it was just me looking up to u 2, and then later on the troll teams, your teachings, getting to know crystal and milktea has been such fun
the players who i kept running into day in day out in 2020/2021 - names that really pop into my head rn are thepro, hammy, nisan, headstack, tfge, poggerscz, a lot of americans, that whole crowd of ppl - thank u so much. it was truly a great tourney era, so much fun and pushed me to keep improving during that time. a lot of u guys have already moved on but i hope everything with you guys goes well
the hippo squad - david, miles, eiger, malt, clp, seegii, noriko - thanks for my first and only badge! my favourite tournament ever and what an uphill battle it was. til this day i've still never played a match that went til 6am on a monday
kii - u already know
big final shoutout to exarch and maj - i never enjoyed the game more than with u two. exarch at one point was 8-0 against me or some disastrous w/l like that. u two inspired me like no other. whether playing together or against each other it was just always good bants. i could write a million things here. hope all is well with u 2.
i already know i'm missing a million people but maybe i'll add to this list as i remember.
as for tournaments, i'll probably still pop up here and there to play for fun (especially regional tourneys). international tourney scheduling is terrible and i don't want to be playing osu at 3am anymore. although i think the scene will continue to grow, some of the "main" people in and behind community tournaments killed my motivation.