EPT
First off, maybe the biggest highlight to me was on the first day, after we were all set up in the backstage I figured I would just stroll around the venue a little bit to clear my head and get ready for the big show. While walking around I headed into the player pit, and of course all the Koreans and many foreigner pros were practicing away. None other than SlayerSMMA came running up to me, he remembered me from IPL3 where I had the pleasure of eating dinner with 2 other IPL Staffers, him and Ryung (at IPL I was managing the player practice area). We quickly said hi, and then he was trying to tell me Cameron was also here (another IPL staffer from that dinner), of course he said it kind of like "Camroon" I'm not too sure, but I didn't really understand and I thought he was asking for a camera or missing his camera or something, lol, he rolled his eyes and kept repeating until I understood. BoxeR was on the computer next to where we were standing and he quickly grabbed him and said a few things in Korean to him I didn't really understand too much, but I can deduce what he did say was that I was a poker pro (lol, I used to work in a Casino as a Blackjack Dealer, and we talked about that a bunch during dinner at IPL) and so BoxeR started asking me questions about Casinos, making money, etc, I quickly tried to explain how I didn't play poker but dealt blackjack, he got the jist of it and started asking me questions about counting cards, if its illegal, etc, luckily @Skwag (the floor translator) was around to help out abit. I answered some more of BoxeR's questions, he said he didn't like Casinos and didn't think he could make money at them because he wasn't lucky, I told him I think he's lucky. A little starstruck I continued along my merry way and was ready to start for 5:30pm and super pumped to cast after that. Ultimately both MMA and BoxeR would get eliminated by the to-be champion, Leenock.
Another story people might find interesting is the whole Tumba proposing on stage thing. He had shown me the ring sometime after I got in on Thursday or Friday, so I knew he'd be doing it, and honestly... proposing to someone in front of however many people in person on a stage and another hundred thousand on stream sounds like the something as pleasant as water-boarding to me, so I was kind of like, WELL OK HAVE FUN WITH THAT! Either way when Saturday evening rolls around, the plan was for him to do an interview with a winning player from the main stage (we had a few hours for him to pull it off worked into the casting rotation), and then propose. Well... for whatever reason, not being mic'ed up, the schedule running too long, and god knows whatever else, they kept pushing that interview back by another series, I think he was originally supposed to interview the winner of Naniwa/Nestea... and then Huk/Hero.... and then he finally actually did it for MC/IdrA, but you can imagine Tumba was sitting ready to do it throughout all those matches, while Robin and I were casting on the beta streams, essentially we cast for like 7 hours straight while doing all the organizing of matches etc too because Tumba's proposal kept getting delayed. But that's ok, she said yes! Our streams were actually all finished so I was in the open area of the venue watching while he did it, to be honest still shaking my head that he wanted to do this, but she said yes and it was a nice little heartwarming feeling. lol. (edit: I also have to add that thanks to the constant delays with the proposal, I did get to cast MKP's entire run through the Lower Champ Bracket aside from losing to MVP, which was pretty awesome, he is good at the BitByBit build xD)
One of the hardest parts of casting the beta streams is actually picking the matches (also one of the most fun parts though!), I had the pleasure of doing a few masters/gm vs bronze matches earlier on which was a little painful but also fun, but man, when crunch time came there were too many good matches at once. Let me sum it up by explaining why Haypro/Nestea did not get cast. At the time both red/blue were up, and also beta 1/2, so we had 4 streams, while one round of the Winners Semi was starting, and CLR8, so 5 matches. Basically red/blue took the winners semis match (DRG vs MC I think), as well as Idra vs Puma, so we had to pick two of Hero vs MVP, HayprO vs NesTea and MMA vs Leenock. I quickly took Hero vs MVP (two of my top 5 favourite players I have no choice !_!) and then Robin snagged MMA vs Leenock, so no cast of HayprO vs NesTea :[. I know at the very end of Friday night there were tons of amazing matches from I think Open Winners R5 we could not cast either, particularly Leenock vs Oz, but definitely more. TOO MANY GOOD MATCHES!
On Sunday I also got a chance to cast on the Blue stream with MrBitter which was awesome. Originally we were going to do the winner of MVP/Haypro vs MC, but because that series went to G3 we just jumped right into that game on Metalopolis. Right before the game we were both frantically freshing on the TL LR thread, it was pretty insane because we'd refresh, and ~30 post would say something like "HOLY SHIT HAYPRO FLANKING SO HARD HE'S GOT THIS" and then refresh again and another ~20 posts saying "WOAH MVP IS UP 20 SUPPLY ON HAYPRO AFTER HOLDING THAT" so we really had no idea who'd win. I gotta be honest being on camera felt pretty awkward at first, and during the game until it got going felt a bit awkward too, wasn't really sure who was going to do the player introductions etc (I was also tired from the previous two days <3 and the mainstream casters definitely don't have it easy either) but once the game got going, everything felt super natural, casting with MrBitter was awesome, and that game was definitely one of the best of MLG, definitely check out the VoD if you didn't see it! <3 The banjo, DreamHack is his!
I wanted to keep this relatively short, so I guess I should stop there, feel free to ask me any questions, and any feedback on my casting is very welcome.
edit: I forgot to give any shoutouts, man, I just met and worked with too many awesome people (as always), I'll just leave it at @MLGStephen, one of the many behind the scene guys who makes MLG run as smoothly as it does, and would always help whenever something didn't seem quite right ^^. But seriously, anybody I talked to, you folks are the best.
