EPTA TL;DR is at the bottom.
So I converted one of my friends to liking Starcraft 2 and the professional scene of SC2. I figured it would be a pretty neat story to blog, so here is the story of how I converted my friend...let's call him Tommy...to the way of ESPORTS.
It all started with me viewing the TSL3 finals. After those amazing finals, I figured it would be a great start to convert Tommy into the pro SC2 scene. I've been knowing Tommy since 3rd grade, (we just finished 10th grade) and we were both gamers. Throughout all of our middle school years, we always had a deep hidden passion for RTS. We'd exchange stories of Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology, and Dawn of War every once in a while. Unfortunately, those games could never hold our attention for long, so eventually we locked our hunger for RTS deep down inside our subconscious. We did not know about SC1 at the time (well I did, but I'll explain that in another blog), and SC2 wasn't even announced. I cannot speak for Thomas, but every once in while from 6th to SC2's announcement, I actually would spend a few hours looking for new RTS's because I love the genre so much.
So fast forward to the beginning of this year. I shared the same lunch and an easy class with Tommy. I talked about SC2 all of the fucking time to him. He thought the idea of big $100,000 tournaments for a video game was ludicrous. Except, they didn't really have a recent super epic tournament with great production value to get him into SC2. Then the TSL3 finals happened...
Immediately after I watched the TSL3 finals, I invited Thomas to my house the next Wednesday (yesterday). I couldn't do it sooner because of work/homework. It was a good thing because I could spend all week hyping the day he would come to my house to watch the TSL3 finals at my house, and it gave me time to download the 720p vods and hype videos. (Naniwa enters, Thorzain's delivery, Thorzain vs Naniwa in other games, and the two highlight videos)
So the day comes, everything is downloaded, and it is actually the last day of school. School ends, and I crash course Tommy on Starcraft using comparisons to DoW on the way to my house. I explain how it is an economy centric game, and it doesn't resolve around super units like DoW. The basics.
I set up the playlist of all of the games/hype videos in order. During the pre-finals highlight videos, I explain all of the common units for Terran and Protoss. I wasn't gonna confuse him with Zerg; I just told him they're like the Tyranids. During those highlight videos, he said that the Psi Storm was retarded. (as in OP) Lol, looks like we have a mini-IdrA in the makings.
Game One: I start telling him what the production structures do, but right when Thorzain starts his all-in, I shut up and like Day9/Chill do their casting magic. He commented on his love for Thorzain's "sitting in front of his base and being an asshole" strategy.
Game Two: Nothing super exciting happened, but the tactics that Thorzain and Naniwa used were pretty interesting. If I recall correctly, he commented on how warp-ins were bullshit. After the game finished, I asked him what player he was rooting for. He said he didn't know anything about the players. I told him just to base it off of appearance; he went for Thorzain. I started to root for Naniwa just to counter his pick.
Game Three/Four: He said Protoss was so fucking gay because they have force fields, blink, warp-ins, and storms. Thankfully, Naniwa didn't use DTs. Ahaha. He really wanted Thorzain to win just because he wasn't Protoss. I said that the chances of Thorzain winning were pretty slim. (even though I knew the results lol) Overall, he was really enjoying all of the games though.
Game Five: Tommy said that Thorzain needed to stick to being an asshole and sieging in front of his base.
Game Six: When Naniwa used all of the forcefields to block the army in the natural, he called out bullshit. But when Thorzain held, he was really happy.
Game Seven: When the Colossi were attacking the natural and Chill lagged out, it was 100% intensity from there. Day9 was doing an amazing sudden solo cast. Tommy wasn't saying anything, just watching the video with extreme focus. Right when Naniwa GG'd, Tommy screamed out a fuck yes.
Well he had to leave, but he told me how he really wanted to try SC2. We agreed that next time we would both have free time, he could come over and play the campaign. (I think the campaign would be extremely fun for him) And the last comment he said when leaving my house was "my heart is pounding." And that is how you convert someone into ESPORTS. I'd like to thank Day9 and Chill for the awesome cast to make it comprehensive and strategically interesting, Hot_Bid for the amazing observing, Thorzain and Naniwa for the amazing games, and everyone involved in the TSL3 to make a tournament awesome enough to actually make someone who never seen Starcraft 2 be immediately interested in it.
TL;DR: Show friend TSL3, now he wants to play and watch more SC2
