WCG Croatia 2009

This time something totally different! As I went to this years World Cyber Games in Croatia, we will (just for this time) let that topic take place of my usual babbling and theorycrafting. How did W;CG Croatia 2009 went, who won and did I have great time? How to improve our WCG and was it better then last's year presentation of gamers Mecca and Medina? Read on and relax.

Just to mention, all pictures (+ video of Ptak playing one of his Starcraft matches, also in RAR file with pictures I uploaded on Rapidshare) and replays you can find below this text that I'm about to wrote. I decided not to put any pictures in this article because you can freely download content if you would like to see it or simply go to ICCup gallery that is part of my ICCup account and see all the pictures.I will indeed write this article from my own perspective just like you were under my skin living and playing the game you love for this exciting two days (or three if you count my "recapitulation and regeneration after the event)

First to say, last years World Cyber Games in Croatia was not such a treat. It was lazy organization of whole event mystified and organized in last second. Making comparison is often ungrateful thing and I avoid it as much as possible, but this time I can only say that WCG Croatia was made in very little time and it was big question will it be held after all. We can freely say it was organized in less then five days. Plan that I go to this years WCG was already settled few months before it started and my main focus was to enjoy good company, meet some people that I only knew online and to have good time in general - and of course play some Starcraft and try to do my best.

Right now I am stationed at island of Rab and I'm living with my girlfriend. In order to get to Zagreb where WCG Croatia (4.10) was held I needed first to set my journey to city of Rijeka where my friend Thunda.cry is currently living with his girlfriend where I would sleep and second day we would all go together (most of the guys from clan) on World Cyber Games. So I set my journey after lunch 3.4.2009. and was in Rijeka for about three hours as I didn't travel by sea (in that case I would travel one and half hour, depends on weather). I did came to Rijeka late that night and boy it was a bit cold out there as I was calling Thunda.cry that I arrived and took bus to his place. When I arrived we had coffee and some cigarettes with couple of chit-chat sessions but suddenly phone rang and our friends from Osijek called to inform us they will be coming to Rijeka late this night at about 00:00. Excellent! We did put up some PC's and get Starcraft ready and good to go for a practice whole night. Our plan was to meet up with other two guys in morning (7:00 in morning - sharp) - Ajmbek.cry from our clan and Arcanis, great guy who would drive us to WCG. Guys from Osijek came, we had great time and started to play Starcraft for whole night and I personally didn't sleep at all, I was still awake in 7:00 playing against Destroyer.cry and trying to rank up on ICCup. Just to mention, Osijek crew was made from Destroyer.cry (who would end with bronze medal this time on WCG) and Star.cry (who would help admins at this years Croatia WCG) and they both didn't register as players but Destroyer.cry went on spot as player because of lack of people that didn't show up but did register.

As morning vanquished the night and 7:00 was closing by, all but me and Destroyer.cry had a bit nap or half-sleep while we were playing (in fact, Destroyer.cry did had some nap and I didn't have any of sleep for whole night, playing like madman). Soon we had two cars, one was in control of driver that don't have 20 years yet - Destroyer.cry and other was in courtesy of Arcanis. Ajmbek.cry and Arcanis waited us at some point in Rijeka while we end up driving from our home (and we were little late as Thunda.cry needed enough amount of time to get himself together) to get something to eat. Some time and consumed sandwiches later we were on our way to WCG Croatia 2009. I was in car with Arcanis and Ajmbek.cry while Destroyer.cry, Star.cry, Thunda.cry and Star's girlfriend went with other car and followed us to the city of Zagreb.

Funny thing is that in one point Destroyer.cry went to bypass us and in end he got wrong turn and needed to drive all way back and get right turn :D Time just went by in good company so we came to Zagreb relatively quickly and started to search for Expo Center that was host of WCG Croatia 2009. When we found the place we gathered into the main hall and started to register but not before we drink some coffee and beers because there was a bit slowdown when registration started and many people were already in line to register. After some relaxation we went and joined up with other Starcraft players and wait to be divided into groups. We also got our WCG badges but I was personally not satisfied with fact only people who go trough group stage will get WCG T-shirts. I think everyone who participated in this event needed to get at least a badge and a T-shirt. But never mind that, we have been divided into groups and went to setup our PC's configuration and etc.

Myself has been put into third group with: Thunda.cry, Quirinus.cry, DD-Marco, NrG.Besiger (who was 3rd placed bronze medalist on WCG two years ago) and Arcanis. After some sound issues with headphones and waiting for others to prepare I started my first game (as group stage was BO1) versus Thunda.cry on Destination. Just to mention, we could thumb down one of three maps that are at our disposal: Colosseum 2, Destination or Blue Storm. I always thumbe down Colosseum 2 because I just can't stand that map nor the any matchup on it but many players also 90% thumbed down this desert-themed map. I disassembled Thunda.cry in PvZ and then went to play DD-Marco who won the game on Blue Storm with pure Zealot rush. It was 1-1 for my side of stats and I went to play PvZ versus Quirinus.cry on Destination. This game was really a treat, full of action and great moves but in end Quirinus.cry won in tight game and I went to play Terran player and 3rd placed on last WCG - NrG.Besiger. Game was played on Destination and I went 2 gate proxy in his main and it was successful and with that in mind I won that game with ease. Now stats is 2-2 and I need to face Arcanis. PvP on Blue Storm went too good for me and I won - and got myself positive stats of 3 wins and 2 loses.

Quirinus.cry and Destroyer.cry went trough their groups and to not go deep into details, these two titans meet up for 3rd place game decider wich ended into Destroyer.cry's favor. Meanwhile, DD-Jova and Ptak battle it out for 1st place and as you all know - Ptak prevailed and won the whole thing 2-0 as staff did decided that because of lack of time finals will be BO3 and not BO5 wich in my opinion is not good excuse because WCG rules are there to obey. Same thing was with possible tiebreakers in my group if for example three players had 3-2 score. By staff, player who "won against other tiebreakers would advance" but lost for example to other players that maybe I won against (for example, I won vs NrG.Besiger and Quirinus.cry lost vs him and I lost vs Quirinus.cry). Anyways, it dosen't matter really.

We were all very tired, I must say that WCG Croatia should really try to earn some money and supply us with food and drinks on spot and sell it perhaps: win-win situation - we would get fed and they would get money that they need so much. But guys ordered a pizza and guy who was delivering it had hard time finding us [:D]. I also must mention that there was Counter Strike tournament just right beside us and CS guys were so loud and were screaming 80% of time like mad mans. Warcraft 3 tournament was slow as hell and it finished up last and to be honest, one thing was very cool about it. When Warcraft 3 finals started, girlfriend of one of finalist came by him and was cheering and trying to motivate her boyfriend to win the finals. He did it and she granted him a big kiss. eSports in it's finest

Next stop, I meet with my chief editor from PC gaming magazine that I work for - "PCPlay" and Igor "W1k1n6" Sečen and myself conducted great portion of chit-chat while he went to play in tournament for Kartmania. Even if he did play with only one hand, to be precise - two fingers, he done it with joy. Two other guys meet up in finals of Kartmania and for whole time one player played flawlessly just to make simple mistake in the last race that cost him all points he got by doing bit by bit trough whole game. Here we can connect and make line with Starcraft as I always do in my "Starcraft - real life" articles. Trackmania seems to punish smallest mistakes by big proportions and that's connection with the game wich we all love. Guys from Trackmania that played finals were also very good manner and friendly.

At about 00:00 we went out to sit and relax even if it was very cold and discussed our day at WCG Croatia 2009 and how it all went, had a good laugh and went for a sandwiches again

. When we were done eating and our bellies were full, we said goodbye to our Osijek city crew and Arcanis took the wheels to start one and half hour long way to city of Rijeka. Thunda.cry was sleeping whole trip, I had 2-3 minutes of nap and Ajmbek.cry done really great job talking to Arcanis because he knew that people can in fact sleep while driving and that accidents like that can happen. Good job for that Ajmbek.cry!

Finally after some farting (yeah, guys were farting from pizza in car so every now and then we needed to open window of a car to get rid of the smell). Ajmbek.cry shake our hands and took of to his home to get some sleep and Arcanis drive me and sleepy Thunda.cry (who in fact did sleep on chair while attending WCG) to Thunda.cry's flat. I did fetch myself coffee and cigarettes and went to get some info via Internet on notebook (laptop) and Thunda.cry went straight to bed. After some time I also felt very tired and went to get some sleep.

Next day I settled to go home by boat at 14:30 and I did get up 08:00 in morning, again - sharp. After that, Thunda.cry and his girlfriend came to join me going downtown with sister from Thunda.cry's girlfriend and get some things done about college and stuff. After that, I needed to sort some stuff in Rijeka by buying some DVD's and Thunda.cry had to buy some of stuff to and we meet up in local coffee bar. While I was waiting I seen Kasda.cry and some of his friends trying to get pictures of Rijeka and as Kasda.cry didn't attend WCG I called him and his lads to join us for a drink. They did but they didn't drink anything because they were in fact going to school but at the moment they had free time to get some pictures of buildings in town for school project. Anyways, I was very sad "little" (as we call him) Kasda.cry didn't go with us on latest WCG but I hope he will not make any excuses next year. Thunda.cry joined us just a bit later, we had some good talk but we were also very tired as we did in fact lost many hours of good night sleep, especially me who didn't sleep because of non-stop playing and at home I don't sleep to much either as I'm very busy and I am working a lot. Also, I prefer gaming more then sleep

. Thunda.cry's girlfriend called and needed some documents so our Cry team leader told me goodbye, I payed for the drinks and did thank him for letting me stay at his place and we said farewell to each other hoping we will meet up soon.

After that I went to buy some book that I was interested in, got something to eat and went to wait for my journey home. At home first I needed to spent some time with my girlfriend and get good night rest. After that well... you know it pretty much, uploading pictures, replays, writing news, working in office and etc. Everything back to the normal

I hope you did enjoy this article about my experience from WCG Croatia 2009. I will for sure attend next ones and I hope organization will be better next time for sake of Euro eSports and as well for sake of Croatian gamers. My impression from this time is that community is all that we need to go forward and advance, to be honest - relationship with my online friends is 200% better then last time and I hope we will continue to flourish it in next years.

You can find replays and pictures here:

[url blocked]

Pictures in RAR archive for download + video of Ptak playing one of his Starcraft matches.

Pictures in ICCup gallery.

-

ReiKo

Here are final standings:

Starcraft tournament:

1. Ptak
2. DD-Jova
3. Destroyer.cry

Warcraft 3 tournament:

1.huang feng
2.deny
3. Don't know if it was played but game for 3rd place should been: holymager vs razzor

Counter Strike tournament:

1.style
2.noxia

Trackmania:

1. Sunrise
2. Domi
3. CRO_freak
4. CRO_zhi137
5. W1k1n6

WCG Croatia 2009

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming