^^ Cool T-shirt, for girls about guys. (See, we really love you all!)

Keep your hands off their balls, boys!

The way I see it…

The whole point of supporting a team, is if you actually admire/like them enough to want to do it. And if you actually like them enough to want to do it, you will have to put up with their quirks and preferences.

Like not replying to you when they don’t feel like it. Like not posting because they don’t want to. Like me posting in pink because I like pink. ^^

While it is entirely human to expect reciprocation, it is not logical to expect it with regards to the current situation. It’s very simple. Zenith guys and Asterisk* girls don’t really know you taggers. (And if we do know you personally, you can just drop us a PM.)

Thus, the relationship is one-way. In other words we are not obliged in any given terms to respond.

This is not to say that we will not provide updates. But updates will be given when the time is right (or when everything is certain/stabilised). Not on a demand-respond basis. So while it may greatly inconvenience you not to know what's going on, it can't be helped. GLHF! =Þ

firstly, i dont see why any normal team has to answer to their supporters. they don't earn a living from gaming, its an interest to them as much as it is to you. maybe if they go seriously pro, then yes, you "loyal fans" out there have a right to request for inside info updates. as it is, i dont see why they cant choose to keep quiet about some things, should they want to.

secondly, so what if their attitude sucks? they aren't teachers or parents or anyone set to mould the future generation of singapore. like i said, they're just gamers, mostly immature still and waiting to grow up. havent heard of the word "humans" or "mere mortals"?

i tire of the modern mindsets of kids nowadays and yearn for the time when policemen still wore shorts.

and we have limited blogging because most of the authorised bloggers prefer not to have their thoughts splashed on a high traffic site to become the next juicy piece of gossip. or they dont deem it worth their while, unless they're seriously bm-ed or misunderstood.

As much as I feel the need to put up some unglam (ewww what kind of word is 'unglam') picture of MusiCa, our article's star, I fear it wouldn't be good for his self-proclaimed image as "TEH GLORIOUS EYE-CANDY OF WIN". In my own words of course.

Taken from a Zion.Net tournament last year in Malaysia. Picture chosen because I'm being strategically covered in it. Musica is very prominent in this picture! Unfortunately, not because he's the guy in the front, but because he's the only guy that isn't wearing a black jacket. As a side note, I kinda like my shoes in this picture.

The origins of Musica's name are shrouded in mystery. Apparently it's a reference to some anime character. Or it's to indicate his preferred choice of personal entertainment. Regardless of how his nick might have all kinds of dumb reasons for being chosen, it does have a nice ring to it. Plus, he has stuck to the same nick for as long as I've known him, which is always a good thing. Somehow people who stick to the same nick tend to have a better impression T_T. For me anyways.

Musica's recruitment into Zenith, on hindsight, seems to be almost too lucky. It just so happened that a few of us just so happened to be with people who talked about him, or played a good game with him once, and poof, there you have Musica in Zenith. Of course, him becoming a key player in Zenith is hardly based on luck.

Musica has one of the best distance judging in lane that I know of. He is one of the few people who could beat Tofu consistently in 1v1 in a lane when Tofu wasn't blowing. While his last-hit timing might not be as precise, Musica is simply fearsome to lane against. It isn't common to see someone like Musica who can abuse his seemingly heightened judgement on distance in a lane to gain a substantial advantage in harrassment.

Moreover, Musica can be insanely aggressive, which is usually a good thing in a lane. He is able to and will regularly completely dominate his lane. In lane, he is often able to catch competent opponents off-guard by forcing a fight when they least expect it.

This of course leads to Musica being someone overly aggressive at times. He takes horrendous risks when catching, and often is left very very dead from picking a fight that goes horribly wrong. This manifests itself most in the mid-game portions, but occasionally happens when Musica is in lane as well. For an example, one might look to his THD in a THD Pudge lane with Tofu in the first match of WGT against Gamers Inc. This makes Musica a rather frightening teammate since he will often place himself at a position just milliseconds away from losing you the game, but fortunately doesn't actually throw the game away that often.

Musica also seems to have his... forms. At different times of the year, he can go from being very damn good to being pubby-like. However, one should give credit to him for generally displaying exceptionally amazing play very often, in a variety of farmers and AoE heroes. The moments that show Musica as an outstanding player aren't actually that few and far in between.

That being said, there are some heroes and roles that Musica simply is far from adept at. Supporting is simply not his style. Then again, we don't need Musica to play support, so I'm simply trying to find flaws here T_T.

Musica has been very dedicated to the team. It was very easy to settle any team issues with him while he still was in Singapore, made easier by the fact that I lived opposite him. There are many things to commend him about, but perhaps it would be enough to say that he made the choice of flying down to Singapore during his school term to play WCG and WGT for us.

Overall, Musica is polite, reasonably cheerful and considerate enough (for his team members at least). He might be rather shady at times though... but he never fails to exclaim to the rest of the world, and very often too, that he is some sort of God on Earth. My own words.

the problems of an extended team.

- who plays and who doesn't

solution : people who are willing to sit out, forcibly benching weaker players, or just conveniently failing to inform certain people that there is a match/compie.

which leads to

-team politics

solution : no solution. just yell it out.

there's always this stigma of being in the "second" team. second connotes "weaker".
fixed team of 5 vs 9 rotating players, probably with up to 3 core players?

no idea.
save me from my sleepless disjointedness.

We seem to have had a sudden increase in the number of maphack accusations in draft matches lately, which results in a nice BM war between the accusee and the accuser which we're only happy to indulge in.

While we're much complimented by your accusations, apparently the new metagame involving heavy warding seems to have made people forget about map awareness and prediction. Oh well. I seem to recall writing an article back in the early days of the blog about this.

The future looks ready for... MORE EXPANSION OF THE TEAM!! As more and more people take long-term leave from Zenith (my turn comes soon), you're going to see the team lineup on the right column grow and grow. Now, when all those people return from their long absences... well, that's an issue for far too long in the future for me to think about.

Today's writeup will be short, about our new, and sadly less idiosyncratic member, ZX, which makes for a less spicy article. I write ice's name with a small 'i', because that's what he writes it as. Unfortunately I'm not doing the same with ZX even though he writes both letters in lower case, because having a two-letter nick makes a lowercase 'zx' far too insignificant amidst a bunch of text.


The history of ZX's relations with Zenith members actually goes way back into 5.84c in the days when Tofu, LuX, and GPS (and Shoury and Lu.cK) were still known as DsD. Known then as custommapplaya (and thus being called 'papaya' by all of us until just recently), he was LuX's senior in TP and was busy serving his NS. He was originally intended to be a stand-in for DsD but unfortunately had NS commitments.

Fast-forward to two years later, after IGC. Dk-Mag3 was originally slated to join Zenith to replace the NS-going LuX after IGC, but had chosen to stay with Micronology, then suddenly decided to join Zenith (for what was only going to be a week or so), bringing ZX along (i.e. ZX was originally merely "part of the package"). Unfortunately, the week that Dk-Mag3 joined was fraught with inactivity due to many members of Zenith being too busy with MYM, and he chose to return to Micronology since he probably didn't want to leave hyhy and Bouncy behind.

ZX however, chose to stay in Zenith, and well, that's the story.

The origin of ZX's nick is a no-brainer for someone called Zhen Xiang. Anyone wants to hazard a guess? We did get a nice comment from some European in IHCS though (DotA inhouses in Quakenet). Since ZX's GGC account is "mynameiszx", he was asked "is your name really zx?" to which of course he confirmed. "Wow. That's wicked".

Initial opinions about ZX were mixed. He came in around the same time as NutZ, and we went into CAPL with the lineup of GPS, ZX, NutZ, Tofu, ice, and I. Constantly playing a pure support role in Micronology, we were unsure about his skills, but his performance in that CAPL was really beyond expectations, at least not something that I expected.

ZX's weaknesses are actually rather trivial. His most major one would probably be his ability to sometimes simply NOT USE a skill or an item that would save his life, as if he has simply forgotten that it exists.

ZX also sometimes, usually when playing a late gamer, gets caught at the worst time, but this doesn't happen in competitions at all, so it's a minor fault at most. He also can be crazy to a fault, often charging right into death, and unfortunately sometimes having his teammates leap in with him.

ZX used to be one of those flash-engagers too, where all of a sudden, he would cast a spell to start an engagement without any warning whatsoever, surprising his enemies. Unfortunately, his teammates, who would probably be busy retreating, would be even more surprised. However, he has since gotten over not notifying his teammates of his sudden movements.

ZX also used to engage pretty badly with certain heroes. His Sandking used to NEVER epi-blink into battles, even when that was clearly the best option. His Enigma used to be almost unspeakably horrible. However, he has since improved tremendously in this aspect, which is a testament to his good attitude towards improvement. He still however, stays a little too quiet in game, a little like NutZ (^_^), speaking only when it's too late.

Finally, ZX, being brought up around all his Micronology customs and traditions, is BM. Now now guys, it's perfectly fine to whine and smash anyone you like in teamchat, but when you type in allchat, do keep some things reasonably politically correct!

Even though they may be true.

On to the good part...

First and foremost, ZX is always early.

HOLY SHIT!! Ant is NO LONGER THE ONLY ONE THAT ARRIVES BY THE REPORTING TIME.

ZX is a dedicated admin, and responsibly informs the team whenever he is going temporarily inactive or when he might not be able to make it for a game. To me, this is PURE GOLD in a teammate. He has no qualms (okay, he whines a bit, but he still usually makes the trip!) about taking a 100 minute journey from his home to Katong to meet with us too, and he's a busy SIM student with a social life etc. etc.

ZX can play almost every single hero in the game better than most people, and be useful to the team! Where Tofu also shares this trait, ZX fairs better in that while Tofu individually will do well with a hero, he often won't help the team as much as ZX does.

In terms of skill there is really nothing bad to be said about ZX. He has established himself among the team as pretty much one of the most trusted members no matter what hero he plays, except SP (hah). While he might not have that constant "flair" that other team members have, he is consistently the reason why the rest of his team is doing well.

ZX is pretty good at about everything, but what he is particularly exceptional in is in assisting farmers. It's really quite hard to describe it, but suffice to say that he has often made farming for his teammates very much quicker and easier.

Still with all this, ZX is constantly improving, and has been showing better and better performances ever since he has joined team Zenith (of course, before that, I wasn't watching him so I wouldn't know). Moreover, he won't be taken away any time soon (he has already finished NS) so he looks to be a very promising player in the team.

Since he was mentioned so much in my previous post, I have decided for this post to be a testimonial to our one and only beloved Tofuboi.
Here he is in all his glory (facing us). Pictures will mostly be taken from those I have from the recent Malaysian tournament since I'm too lazy to take pictures from anywhere else.

To explain the origins of his nick, one must look back into a time where his nick was Steaky, of non-existent DoDa fame. Obviously, this was to express his love for Steak. As he puts it, his mother one day cooked tofu for dinner and he found it so delicious that henceforth he was known as Tofuboi. His seemingly healthy switch away from meat though seems to have done nothing to stop his rapidly ballooning physical build, swelling to soon be comparable to his already inflated ego.

Tofu's involvement in the team goes as far back as when GPS & friends decided to form a DotA team for RGN Season 1, and Tofu teamed up with his brother. Since then, Tofu has more or less stayed through, from KODO to DsD to mVp to Zenith.

A citation of Tofu should not be given without talking about the sheer advantage in skill he had in the early days of DotA. Back in the days of 5.84c and for the early days of version 6 (of course, in version 6 he was augmented by the rest of his team quite obviously, but in version 5 the difference in skill was quite obvious), Tofu was virtually unchallenged. I remember his Morphling in 5.84c fending off a push 1v5 (yes, Morphling was overpowered, but it's still 1v5), his Clinks dominating lanes game after game, etc. Back when many people still didn't have a firm grasp of competitive DotA, Tofu was one of the few giants in Singapore (although physically he seems to be twice as large now).

Tofu called most of the strategic shots for most of version 5 and the early months of version 6 (it took something like 1 and a half years of me pitching strategies to him before he finally listened to anything I said). Much of DsD/mVp/Zenith's dominance in the early stages of competitive DotA can be credited to him.

The virtues of Tofu as a DotA player are rather well known around the community. When focused, once given the chance, Tofu will farm insanely quickly. In fact, Tofu seems to be able to farm quickly no matter what role he plays with whatever hero he gets.

While no one will ever admit to it, Tofu is simply good at playing DotA. He CAN play a lot more heroes than late gamers, most of the time better than almost everyone else in the scene.

Tofu has also a rather good attitude towards improvement. He has improved tremendously in his two weaknesses, which are being suicidal in the early game, as well as being completely deaf to the rest of his teammates. Tofu is also much less suicidal in the later stages of the game, though not as cautious as some of his teammates would like him to be. Instead of being absolutely clueless to his teammate's shouts, Tofu now merely has a few seconds of lag between receiving information and comprehending it. Deadly enough for us, but at least he has enough time to retreat when the entire enemy team moves from one lane to another to hunt him down.

Tofu has actually shown rather good commitment to the team, perhaps partially due to his relationship with GPS (meaning that they are relatives, no innuendo here). Aside from a few hiccups here and there, Tofu has remained dedicated to the team, informing the team of any arrangements in advance, and giving team events quite a high piority. He has been a dedicated teacher to NutZ and has shown that he is willing to sacrifice time to help teammates improve in whatever he can help in. He has shown almost full commitment in sponsorship events and whatsnot, attending most with a positive attitude.

Now that we've settled that, let's move on to the more exciting part.

Firstly, Tofu will take risks that are so insane that against many competent players, he will often die, and he will die often, which greatly impedes his fast farming capabilities. Often due to sheer cockiness or simply carelessness or just plain stupidity, Tofu will die deaths that could have easily been avoided.

Which leads to the next point. Tofu can lose the game for you. Tofu has been known to be cocky enough to turn sure win games into losses (or games that are too close for comfort), even for games as high stakes as the quarter-finals in a single elimination tournament OVERSEAS. Tofu makes the dumbest game-costing mistakes ever, getting caught at crucial moments which result in the opponent's push having no way of being repelled, or simply not looking at his screen for an extended period of time after he has been nether-swapped in the middle of the opponent's heroes. To his credit, part of the reason why Tofu can lose the game for you so often is because he gets himself in the position to win the game. Thankfully, he doesn't do it so often anymore in competitions.

Tofu will do tremendously stupid and selfish things in practice games, but at least he doesn't do so in competitions. In fact, Tofu will often be happy to blatantly cause you to LOSE a practice game to satisfy his own sadistic cravings, not really caring at all that perhaps his teammates might have wanted to win.

Then again, his performance in competition hasn't been too bad as of late, so I guess he can be forgiven.

Going on about cockiness, Tofu has a habit of refusing to cooperate against teams he doesn't find very good (unfortunately, far too many for comfort) unless we give him a hero that he knows he shouldn't be playing. It isn't very comforting that most of the justifications for his choice of hero, when it differs from the team's general opinion, is somewhere along the lines of "nvm, chill, we will win, got me". He will also make major draft decisions sometimes without consulting the team, though fortunately this has not happened in competitions for a long time.

Tofu, to say the least, is at least rather entertaining as a person. He has many interesting life experiences to share, and will have no qualms about shamelessly sharing them with you. His rather verbal nature however can get rather unpleasant for the public.

Tofu will shout, very loudly, for absolutely no reason, possibly to satisfy his craving for more attention, which unfortunately can cause great public annoyance and some form of uncomfortability for those around him (partially due to the shock and the absolute unbearableness of someone screaming something high-pitched rather loudly right next to you).

Tofu is uncontrollably vulgar. He uses the word "fuck" in about every possible way you can imagine, for reasons that will elude most, and he uses it very loudly too. This would be fine in most places you hang out with, but when you're eating at Aston's right next to a Father and his about 9-years-old kid, and the word "fuck" comes out of him so loudly that half the restaurant can hear him, one starts to question his self-control.

And of course there's the whole part about Tofu's very warped sense of humour, including acting like a fag, setting channel topics for fun, interrupting serious conversations with irritating meaningless spam, massive irrelavant noticing and spamming etc... which I don't have the right to elaborate on since I'm not a judge of character nor a humour dictator. The many IRC bans and whatsnot as a result of trying to change his warped sense of humour have been fruitless, so in this aspect, Tofu is incorrigible.

Finally, Tofu seems to be a little lacking in moral character. Not that I have any authority over moral judgement, but... well... here's a little story I've told, with a few embellishments here and there.

There is an overhead bridge linking to Parkway in Katong, in the middle of the route from Gamers Inc to Gaming Giant, a route which we often take. It runs over some rather quick-moving traffic.

So if one day NutZ jumps off the overhead bridge, the road is going to be like a trampoline, and NutZ will get run over by a car, then bounce up, and up, and up...

Then if Tofu jumps down, since he brings with him a lot of mass, he will jump down, hit the road, and keep going down...

and down...

and down...

and down...

and down...

You get the point. He's not an evil person, but he can do very very wrong things if it results in personal gain, but then again that's just my opinion. I'm no judge of moral character. As for any examples, I won't be giving them since it won't be very good for his health when a dozen people turn up at his doorstep with Molotovs and any other form of makeshift weaponry.

All that being said, Tofu is by no means an evil person, merely rather undesirable to be with at times, and when all the lobbying has been done, he's ultimately smart enough to not hurt anyone or ruin anyone's future (including his own), and not to mention that he's been reasonably dedicated to the team and is a rather good player, which I guess is good for a teammate.