MLG Anaheim Day 3 Diary [possible spoilers]

This is basically a running diary of Day 3 of MLG Anaheim. Being unable to get out of work for all three days, my friends and I opted to go for the finals Only. In the course of the day, we met up with several pros, took in the sights, made a couple of New friends and had an extremely interesting interaction with the Bandana man himself, (T)

qxc.

[notes: my times and order of events might be skewed]

We arrive around 9am, and we must take our first picture

- Sup MLG, and yes that's a korean flag displayed on an iPad

It was still pretty early in the day so the scent of nerd sweat wasn't strong yet, but immediately upon entering you see the dr. pepper booth. That would be the lifeblood of many a nerds at that venue, since they were giving away cans of the beverage for FREE.

First order of business: get free shit

Snagged a drawstring bag from the dr. pepper venue to help carry my stuff, however while we were hanging out around there, SlayerS (T)

GanZi and SlayerS (P)

Alicia enter from the Lobby and walk towards us.

I make awkward nerd eye contact and reach out to them, GanZi does a swift bow of the head and Alicia shakes my hand as I say "Good Luck!" Only to Remember later that Alicia was eliminated from the tournament already. facepalm We also forgot that we had cameras dbl facepalm.

That moment was essentially the sign to get our cameras ready to meet nerd superstars.

So we decide to head towards the main stage Only to run into this:

TLO and

Tyler facing off against (P)

iNcontroL and (P)

CrunCher

- Notice Ms. Prosser supporting right behind iNcontroL

Eventually we tear ourselves away and head towards the numerous "ooohs" and "aaahs" and the nerd scent grows stronger. We are amongst our people and the people are watching (P)

White-Ra vs (T)

SeleCT, and already at around 10am there were not enough seats.

- An example of the crowd, and the lack of seating

Then during one of the breaks we saw the infamous shrug

After White-Ra's heartbreaking toss loss, cheat code "hunger overwhelming" activates so we head outside towards the lobby and run into a swarm of people. Others hustle towards the swarm and add to it, and who else would be in the center of it other than the Nerd God himself: Day9

- The closest I ever got to him, and all I wanted to ask was "Why no Apple in AHGL?"

Eventually we make it to the lobby and begin our Feast on BACON wrapped hot dogs and free dr. pepper. After we finished, that's when many of the pros ended up showing up and the pictures began. It all started with (P)

NaNiwa. I did not get a picture....the man is really tall and intensely intimidating, but was actually rather nice, he just seems so imposing. Luckily next to him were these guys:

- the Canadian Toss Liquid (P)

HuK, whom was extremely accommodating to fans and had a wicked sense of humor

- The Gorilla Terran, extremely cool and laidback guy, he also seemed very tired. As a fellow Terran Player this was a dream. I hope he gets some rest and good luck in GSL. (T)

Jinro Fighting!

Of course on the very far left of that last picture, I'm sure you could make out the name on that jersey and trust me, the All-Killer of IM will feature largely in this blog in just a bit, but in the meantime we were able to snap this picture:

- Mr. Riley is by far one of the funniest pros, and also is so great with the fans. You don't want to hear the joke he said about our fists [see: NSFW]

Meanwhile, my buddy, a zerg player, requested we snap a pic of Steven " (Z)

Destiny" Bonnell. He was very kind, and more than willing to hook my friend up:

- Thank you Destiny

It was around this time we loitered around the lounge area where most of the pros would go and chill out, and we did see the SlayerS team and noticed (T)

MMA's new haircut, and the Emperor himself, and (Z)

DRG, and

MVP were hanging out there as well. Unfortunately, we did not snap pics at them while in the lounge with the thought being we don't want them to feel like animals in an exhibit or maybe it was the glaring security guard in the yellow shirt, but later on we took a pic of the area and it looked like this:

- Very close for fan interaction and as I said GLARING security guard

Now let me tell you this, I remember going to a friend's house Way back in early 00's and talking about playing starcraft brood war, and how we would find the few korean channels that were shown up in LA and we heard how people watched blurry cable programming of starcraft games in korea, and playing UMS and BGH and talking about how great the koreans are, and that's when I first heard of (T)

BoxeR himself. To finally see the Emperor in person was truly amazing and let me tell you this: THE MAN IS A ROCKSTAR. Always kind to the fans and just great to see how he carried himself, seemingly very Happy and very professional. So when he left that lounge to go Face Off against Rain, we had to be there.

What ensued ended up being one of the most epic TvT games in SC2's short history.

- not pictured: the massive throng of humanity behind the camera and you can see on the edges of the photo, people were beginning to spill over Into halo's and CoD's areas.

That match became an endurance test for a fan, especially if you're not able to sit, but let me tell you what kept us going, it's one thing to see casts and replays of the games, but you can never call yourself a true fan until you witness one of these games played Live. The energy, the atmosphere, the holding of breaths, the cheers the expressive "OOOOHS!" and "AAAAAHS!" are truly something. This game was something else, it was tense and the jokes from day9 and djwheat enticed nervous laughter and it was great, but when they essentially hit that stalemate with their two massive aerial armada's, I noticed that Kevin " (T)

qxc" Riley was right next to us watching as well.

I posed the question to him: "What do you do in this situation?"

I honestly believed he'd give me an abrupt answer or rather answer in just a few sentences, instead, qxc being the awesome guy he is, literally held a straight up analysis with the group of us and went over the details of the unit counts and composition and pointed out that as (T)

Rain was able to lower BoxeR's tank count with offensive mules, he was able to be proactive in pushing towards BoxeR's base with his own tanks, Which would essentially force BoxeR's hand to do something lest he start losing his production facilities and cut off all his other expansions at the 9 o clock position. qxc also mentioned the higher Raven count would prove to be important as well as micro. qxc proved to be right on every point, and honestly, thank you qxc for spending time with some starstruck nerds in the crowd during this moment. You are a scholar and a gentleman good sir.

After finishing up the series and seeing BoxeR's triumphant ceremony, we had to take a step back and decided to play around with more of the booths.

We went over to the National Guard booth where I hammered out 69 straight pushups, and subsequently won a water bottle and t-shirt then got hit on by the booth babes from alienware. Yes they are paid booth babes to flirt with you, but I'll pretend they were interested in me.

- no hover hand here

So at this point I have a massive craving of starbucks, on the way we meet CatZ, whoseemed very tired, but was extremely gracious enough to take a photo.

- Thanks CatZ!

And while in line at starbucks, there was this guy wearing a 20th anniversary Blizzard Entertainment jacket, and I ask him about it. Turns out I was speaking to Cole Eastburn a 3D Artist for World of Warcraft, and he told me how within the company, it's fan events like this that really make his work worthwhile and how blizzcon alone really boosts the development team's morale. He handed me his card and went on his way.

Then back to the venue we went, and once inside, I was able to meet (P)

Xeris of Team Fnatic, and he shared a few words, then I got to meet Fnatic's own (T)

KawaiiRice. I'm actually a fan of his stream and as I mentioned I'm a fellow terran player so it was great to take a picture with him.

- KR was very softspoken and incredibly nice, good luck in college. Also pictured, Crota the shoutcaster is right behind us.

Afterwards, it was about the time all the Koreans started squaring off against each other and so we scrambled over to the main stage and started watching MMA vs DRG, and I have to say MMA's TvZ is always entertaining, and combined with DRG's dynamic play and his insane muta harass, this series was pure joy to watch.

And then I hear a security guard say something behind me, and there was qxc again, Only this time he tried to sneak in a chair from the player's area Into the standing area. Extremely funny moment as the security guard essentially confiscates the chair away. So with qxc here for this tvz series I posed another question to him:

"Who would win in a mixed martial arts match between you and MMA?" =D

The jiu-jitsu trained qxc looks at me and states "ME" with a face that says "obviously." Hilarity ensues as a young lady next to him said MMA would win.

Teamliquid, can we make this happen? MMA vs qxc in the octagon?

From that point on we stopped taking pictures and simply stood and watched in awe as we saw the most entertaining TvT's ever, and all I can say is nearly everyone in that building had their eyes glued to MMA vs BoxeR as we dwarfed the Halo and CoD's crowd easily.

and of course we all know what happened the rest of that night.

PS: thanks to CDRdude for hooking us up with some of those Sexy Team Liquid Pins, Amtrak for getting us there, and MLG for an amazing event.

Also, I would Love to buy jerseys or team apparel, I hope we can have some sales of those at these events, those Dignitas sweaters are pretty boss, and a SlayerS Jersey would be Epic, but a SlayerS jacket would be LEGENDARY. Thanks for reading.

MLG Anaheim Day 3 Diary [possible spoilers]

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