EPTI'm one of the other Admins for the MLG PC Circuit, inspired by Ender's Blog, I decided to create one of my own and I have some videos I'd like to share with tid-bits of info I thought the general public should know about the MLG event.
As admins, we started working with MLG in 2007 and have worked every single PC event at MLG. We both have gained several years experience playing in and running competitions in Brood War, CS and WoW. I've worked and played for several notable Esports organization such as SK-Gaming, Fnatic, and CheckSix Gaming before eventually landing a gig with MLG running WoW events (oh god here come the WoW flames). But truly, we're both veterans of the E-sports community starting with ClouD Ladder, Kali.Net, and WGTour. On the side, we're running the ArenaJunkies Open and ran the Fullerton LANfest in Orange County (planning another OC LANfest soon with Xeris).
Honestly, we learned everything about organizing events from running clan wars with our old bw b.net team called "[e]lement", which mr.NonY was once apart of nearly 10 years ago. [e]lement's old website
This may get confusing, but the asian veteran referees at MLG are both referred to as the "Trance Twins". Myself and my brother, Matt and Brendan are our real names, are mid-level diamond players and were the only two admins other than Ryan Moore (the Tournament Director) that referee'd both MLG Raleigh and MLG DC.
Anyways, I had things I wanted to comment about the event as having the best seat in the house for every match and witnessing all the back stories that somehow escaped the media coverage's eyes and a couple awards I'd like to give out:
- PainUser's Legend Slaying, The Stamina Award of MLG DC
For those of you who have met the PainUser, he is one huge individual. Not huge as in overweight, but huge as in he's like 6'6" and towers over everyone else. He's also the most eccentric player that I've met so far at MLGs in conversation.
Taylor had the hardest path/bracket by far as he had to face TorcH, a GSL1 qualifier, in the very first round. I'll comment on TorcH's play later, but for anyone that watched all his replays in TvT, he tries to pull the same gimmick vs. every terran and eventually someone caught onto it.
Being knocked the Loser's Bracket after the first round, PainUser fought valiantly against top-tier opponent after opponent and easily played the most matches overall at MLG DC.
Let's stack up his opponent list:
1) TorcH (GSL1 Qualifier)
2) ThisIsJimmy (Sponsored CheckSix Player)
3) RooT.CatZ (RooT Team Captain)
4) UNC.oRe Sama
5) White-Ra
6) LiquidRet
7) RooT.Drewbie
One thing we should have put our foot down on was that PainUser would storm off after each match vs. LiquidRet or White-ra due to their intensity/longevity to collect himself before another round. As admins, we're suppose to keep the players in there seats but we have to watch 3-4 matches each. So catching him from running off wasn't something we could enforce especially in the extremely long matches he was producing vs. Ret/White-ra.
Anyways, I thought he should have gotten some credit for his "legend slaying" of the BW pros.
- Day9 is a Shout-casting Beast!
Day9 actually had a back-up shout-caster that never got to debut, which is probably great for all the viewers but sad for him. Day9 absolutely refused to take breaks although JP and djWHEAT took turns very mechanically.
Day9's backup was suppose to be the WoW/HoN Shoutcaster, Igoaf, who's a 2100 rated Zerg on NA servers. I'm not quite sure if anyone has ever heard of a Southern Man shout-casting SC2 but it would have been his debut and he's quite a character on stream.
- SeleCT and IndA PoV Videos
I managed to take a few videos with my iPhone4 of SeleCT / IdrA's screens while they played. Watching SeleCT play in person is much like watching the screen speed of an BW Pro as his effective use of his 300~ APM is really inhuman.
*Excuse the shakiness in these videos, in the future I'll be sure to be more professional.
SeleCT:
(I did a close up of SeleCT's KB while keeping the screen in sight)
IdrA:
- Highest APM Award: SeleCT over KawaiiRice
MLG's coverage team wanted us to take notes of players' APM
but eventually it became an information overload on-top of recording match times and results for 3-5 stations while trying to keep your players organized.
As this wasn't really a surprise to any of the other pros, SeleCT easily had the highest APM at the tournament while KawaiiRice was an easy 2nd.
- Most Down to Earth Person(s): eg.iNkA and LiquidRet
Being a SC1 -> WoW -> SC2 crossover, I can tell that a lot of the SC2 players act a little elitist towards WoW players. I'm not sure just because they refuse to socialize with them, but most of the WoW players watched the entire SC2 event since they all play SC2(Nadagast is actually the #1 rated WoW player in the World, as per arenajunkies.com).
But for being "Down To Earth" individuals: HuK, InkA, Ret, and PainUser seemed to be the least likely to be elitist towards anyone. Machine and IdrA were actually really cool despite all the elitist talk I've heard on TL. In fact, they all just wanted to chill and meet everyone before/after the tournament.
HuK really impressed me in Raleigh as an extremely fun person and Ret did the same to me at this event. I also heard iNkA is a beast pong player.
- Notable People in Attendance
Ronald "Rambo" Kim
I saw a picture in another MLG DC blog with Day9/IdrA:
![[image loading]](http://www.67250.com/nokarot/Photo_Related/MLGDC/web/9.jpg)
What's funny is the 3rd person wearing Gunnars in the background is none other than Rambo of Team 3D, one of the greatest American CS players ever. He actually checked out the entire SC2 tournament and is a high-rated terran player on live. These days, he works for Astro (one of MLG's corp sponsors) and attends all the events. Be sure to say what up to Rambo at Dallas!
Rumay "Hafu" Wang
Someone mentioned this on TL already but Hafu was working at MLG DC for a sponsor that was supporting her BLC team. For those of you who don't know who Hafu is, she is the only Female in MLG history that has won a tournament vs. other males and is one of most accomplished females in Esports.
![[image loading]](http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/3885/img1196a.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/629/img1197bu.jpg)
Recently, she won the NA Bloodline Champions cup (A game similar to DotA/HoN without Neutral Creeps/Objectives) and was a top TF2 player. As a WoW player, she won two MLGs and placed 3rd at BlizzCon.
After watching MLG DC, she's hard at work learning SC2.
Blog written by Hafu about MLG DC:
http://www.blgaming.com/content/more-mlg-dc-coverage-hafu
There's a few more interesting characters I'd like to list, but I'm not sure if they have any published content for me to present.
-This lady from Denmark was working on her PhD thesis at MLG, she was taking interviews with all the players and staff and stated she would publish her thesis in the eSports yearbook later this year ( http://esportsyearbook.com/ ).
-If you saw a tall lady doing interviews and coverage with all the players, her name is Kate "Millies" Heffernan. She was host of a free live stream on NerdStomper.com (one of the sponsors of RooT gaming and a few other gamers including Nadagast). During the last few events NerdStomper has a wireless stream hosted on their site showing a live feed of players in computer area and plenty of interviews/freelance coverage of MLG events.
-I'll be at Blizzcon, making sure I take plenty of photos and getting my SC2 box autographed by BoXeR! xD
If you have any questions feel free to ask.
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