EPTThe trip down to Atlantic City was a short two hour car ride from my hometown in New Jersey. I was accompanied by my good friends ETgoBoom and Matt. For those of you interested, yes, his NA ladder tag is Matt. Together we three formed the fellowship of the IPL3 media ring for Wizard World Inc. We arrived late to Bally's Hotel & Casino and were happily greeted by the IPL staff after settling in and checking into our Hotel. I was more than ecstatic when my badge had my neatly typed out name and the company I was contracted with. We decided to make our way to the main stage and were greeted by a practically empty auditorium. It was to be expected, after all it was a Thursday at noon.
I made a small wager with my friends while sitting on the auditorium's plush red velvet seats. That wager involved my presence and how it attracts Asian people from all around the globe. I will not go further into why I possess a specific magnetic personality. Just as Boxer stepped onto the stage, something magical and mysterious happened, I felt a presence and nerd chills too strong to ignore right behind us. Sitting directly behind us were Select, Mr. Chae, Sleep, Ryung, Thorzain, MMA, and Jessica. A royal flush of E-sports most popular characters, pun was directly intended as we were at a casino. My jaw crashed onto the floor and waited patiently to receive attention from these well-knowns, just as soon as Boxer's initial matches were finished.
Much to my surprise Mr. Chae's and Ryung's English was quite good. I solemnly asked them all to sign my IPL3 swag bag shirt. A small conversation brewed and I introduced myself as a [Cho-baap] Terran. My Korean is very poor and the slang I do know was taught to be by a good acquaintance who, at the time, was teaching me the slang for the word baby. MMA and Mr. Chae were laughing for quite awhile and told me my pronunciation was very good. This would not be my last meet and greet with MMA or Mr. Chae at IPL3.
I worked my way over to the Bally's media box and player lounge. I got a small interview with Strelok in the player lounge and asked him about the community of Starcraft, the Ghost, and his current weaknesses in the metagame. The press room had a shared Ethernet port and luckily, plenty of friendly people in there. I was never able to stay in once place for long as there was always something new and exciting happening just around the corner. I started chatting with IPL staff Mike and Jessica about their routine and if they are liking the scene.
ETgoBoom and Matt joined me for dinner at the Wild West buffet. The food was bland and not properly cooked, much like the grandpa's dinner and brain after a cup of applesauce and pills. Still it was refreshing to be reminded of that there are better things in life. The fellowship marched onwards to Bally's where we, by luck, bumped into iNcontroL and his uNcontroLable. Please the ignore the notation of ownership in the last sentence, I just liked the way it was structured. In the TSL1 iNcontroL casted the game between Sheth and ETgoBoom, a great ice breaker for the conversation to follow. Most people cannot grasp just how large of a lumberjack iNcontroL actually is in person, I myself included.
iNcontrol explained to us about the possible EG excursion to Korea and entering in the GSL. It was all hush, hush nature of course. I proceeded to tell him that the sponsor rant between Tyler and iNcontroL during State of the Game was edited from the MLG VOD. In addition, I explained how I wanted to bring a pack of Stride gum for iNcontroL to sign, but I regrettably left the pack at home. He heartily laughed and uNcontroLable explained that when they first heard of Tyler's sponsorship with Stride, each of his friends bought a pack of gum other than his sponsor's product and proceeded to chew it in front of him at the next major event.
ETgoBoom, Matt and myself trekked back to Caesar's Circus Maximus for the final matches of the night. The many games of Day 1 at IPL3 was coming to an end, but Night 1 of IPL3 was about to commence. Where is Will Smith when you need him the most, because we are going straight to the wild Wild West.
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[Night 1]
Matt and I were the only members of the troupe to go and mingle with the IPL staff. I was happily reunited with Mike and Jessica at the bar, and we decided to chat for awhile about tomorrow's schedule. Jessica had the honor of taking Slayers out to lunch the following day and Slayers_Jessica made her a special Bulgogi || kimchi packed lunch as thanks for her help. The bar atmosphere was amazing and by talking about Jangbi and Fantasy at OSL final, I met a large portion of the liquid staff without knowing it.
p4NDemik was the most friendly staffer besides flamewheel. Waxangel was the toughest character in the room. There was a lot of love for UpMagic between p4NDemik and myself. We started reminiscing about Flash before he was well known and cheesed most of the veteran players successfully. I was introduced to Smix by p4nDemik and we, as a group, spent sometime outside getting some air and talking about Korean food in New York City. When we arrived back inside PainUser, HDStarcraft, and megumixbear where mingling with the fans and staff of IPL.
PainUser is incredibly tall and very friendly. I had opportunity to meet Mr. Chae at the bar and decided to approach him. We talked for sometime on which Korean dish is better, for those of you who want to know, it was Bulgoi Dol Sut Bibimbap or Haemul Sundubu.I removed myself from his table and returned to p4NDemik and his friends. Later on that night I met Mr. Chae again and because of where we met he nearly fell over in laughter.
The night slowed down and I found myself alone at the bar with a pint of Yuengling and a deep sense of satisfaction. I left at the bar at 4am and woke up the following day at 1pm and much to my surprise, not a single game had been casted. The great internet outage affected all of the participating IPL locations in Atlantic City and for this sleeping beauty it was a God send. Day[2] begins.
