JK13

JK13
Saber	Staff
Style	Form VII - Vaapad,Tràkata, Staff
Affiliation(s)	The Jedi Academy, The Jedi Academy Aurochs, WoV
Gender	Male
Location	Cleveland, OH, USA
Padawans	of Luke Skywalker

"Pwned."

— JK13

JK13 is a Staff saberist who has played the Jedi Knight series since the release of Jedi Outcast. A former JAT and retired member of The Jedi Academy Aurochs, he is universally acknowledged as an elite skilled staff user who is intensely competitive but always friendly and happy to train others. He is also known as one of The Jedi Academy's longest tenured active members, having joined prior to the JA's official opening way back in 2002.

JediKnight13

JK13 started playing Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast before the The Jedi Academy opened. Seeing a thread about a school for JK2, and thinking he would like to contribute to the school, he applied to become a Jedi Academy Trainer thinking he would fail the trial, but be taken as a student (considering applications to become students were closed). His plan backfired, and JK13 became a JAT. JK13 taught blue stance and some simple red stance combos for several months before becoming inactive.

Next Phase of Activity

After JK13 came back from being inactive, he found himself demoted to Student. Since his last activity, JK2 had been patched from v 1.03 to verson 1.04. This patch changed the saber system drastically, removing saber throw and aerial lunge moves from duels and heavily nerfing the backstab and backslash maneuvers. JK13 was crushed, his saber style was completely destroyed. Realizing he had to rebuild his style and learn new tactics in stances he rarely ever used, JK13 annoyed anyone he could find to teach him new tactics.

Padawan to Luke Skywalker

One such annoyed person was Jedi Academy Master, then Jedi Academy Trainer, Luke Skywalker. Finally breaking down and taking time to train a noobish JK13, Luke taught JK13 the foundation skills of his style, the Yellow Scissors, advancing scissors and diagonal swipes. JK13 improved drastically in the weeks following this training and had a new style, new direction, and new skill set. Quickly finding that his Dialup internet was too slow and laggy to be competitive at Jedi Outcast, JK13 gave up the game to have more time in his RL.

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Soon though, a new game was relased, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, and JK13 was back to see the new game in action. After playing the demo JK13 was hooked on the Star Wars action once more, rejoining The Academy again in the new game. JK13 had fun trying out the new staff saber in The Jedi Academy. However, soon the games would take a back seat to real life for a while and JK13 became inactive once again for a span of several months.

Return of JK13!

Eventually JK13 returned to his staffing ways, joining the JA server seemingly out of nowhere. Finding the place completely changed, JK13 felt strange. Not knowing anyone in the JA was a real oddity to him. Attempting to raise his skill with staff saber and make new friends at the same time, JK13 soon befriended players such as Dane, Tido, and Sauce. JK13 also began to learn important skills as he attended JA classes and practiced his tactics under the tutelage of various players. Eventually JK13 went to PUG tffa with some of his friends from the JA and from this learned an appreciation for servers other than those belonging to The Jedi Academy. From his experience on pug servers and his other favorite pasttime, watching training demos of more skilled players, JK13 began to develop new and more radical tactics to use in his fighting repertoire, including his style of changing lightsaber stances in the middle of a swing, a tactic he learned from watching the wildly popular Austrian player, eviLwindu. His new tactics, combined with strengthening movement skills and a patient demeanor, earned JK13 a roster slot on The Jedi Academy Aurochs, the competitive fighting team which represents The Jedi Academy.

Jedi Academy Aurochs

Taking the name 'jaws' JK13 fought shoulder to shoulder with players like Tido, 3th, Sauce, Deqlyn, Masta, and Kain among others. JK13 was picked for several of JAA's most important matches because of his excellent teamplay qualities: Effective communication with teammates, superior spacial awareness, and boundless determination. JK13's staff saber and ability to score backhits proved integral to the shaping of the Aurochs' vaunted 'kancho assassins' style. The 'kancho' style developed by the JAA eventually proved highly influential in the overall North American JKA scene, as it inspired other teams to play more tffa games and even emulate the 'kancho' style.

Disagreements with the JA

JK13 was well known to have a competitive and fiery demeanor and was also never afraid to speak his mind. This sometimes led others to perceive him as arrogant and combustible but this was never actually the case. That being said, JK13 was never afraid to voice his displeasure with Jedi Academy policies when he disagreed with them, especially the controversial banning of Sauce, a close friend of JK13's. This outspoken attitude wasn't always popular but it did endear JK13 to his friends and teammates, who knew that he always could be counted on to stand for something even if it was unpopular. It should be noted that JK13 could be calm and persuasive when the situation dictated it. JK13s argumentative skills were integral in many important JAA team decisions, such as ultimately including controversial players like Deqlyn and Viper in the JAA.

Unfortunately, JK13s greatest regret was the time he couldn't get the majority of his teammates to see things his way: when the team decided that retirement was the best way to solve their disagreements with the JAC authority.

Last Hurrah

After dealing with on again off again World of Warcraft addiction, JK13 returned to Jedi Academy for a final tour of duty with the JAA. After riding one last glorious time with the Aurochs JK13 felt an extreme sense of closeness and comradery with his teammates.

Retirement

Finally, after 5 long years, taking into account the retirement of a large group of his great friends in the Aurochs, JK13 has decided to end his long and illustrious run in The Jedi Academy with a final retirement:

"Thank you to everyone who ever played or talked about JKA with me, I love you all, etc."

— JK13