my i44 + IPL4 UK qualifier blog!!

Alright guys, so seems I had such a blast at i44 last weekend I thought I'd make a blog summerizing how awesome it was :D

I will apologise in advance for my terrible english, I put effort into it but dyslexia's a bitch

So first off, most of you wont know who I am. My names Robert Pugh, I'm from south Wales and I'm a masters protoss on Team Enigma. I really love meeting new people and socialising and I like to think I'm a pretty friendly/happy person! I also have a crazy amount of confidence so going right up to a pro and speaking to them is no problem, I'm also pretty hyper and whacky/will do most things for a dare!!

So for those of you who won't know what i44 is, it's Insomnia event #44 which is the UK's biggest BYOC lan. They have 3 a year and i44 was the winter event, which means its alot more competitive. In total there were around 900 people there playing (compared to 2500+ at i43) and I have no idea how many showed up to spectate! The Iseries attracts players from all over the world and alot of british gamers attend which makes it a great place to socialise and meet your fellow gamers. The event is normally 5 days from thursday evening to monday afternoon and its totally non stop gaming :D

My story begins on the friday, I couldn't get work off on thursday so me and my mate left about 7 am friday morning. We got someone to drop us up there and we arrived at around 10:30, we got setup pretty fast and chilled with some of the other SC2 waiting for the opening ceremony (freebies).

Opening ceremony.
The opening ceremonies are always awesome, the exhibiters always throw free stuff into the group and some will give away very expensive items and make people compete for them lol. I was well chuffed with what I caught, a rocat sense mousemat and a steelseries qpad ct mousemat. I give the rocat sense to a friend seems thats the exact one I was using and kept the qpad for myself (and a shoutout to dignitas MrDogBert for throwing it to me :D).

IPL dude on stage during the opening ceremony.
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Push up competition for £150 speakers
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After the opening ceremony me and my mates went back to our pc's and just gamed it up for abit in prep for the tournament which started at 3.

Tournament time.
I believe there were around 50 people in the SC2 tournament and around 25 masters all competeting for atleast top 16 (top 16 get put into IPL4 quals), after that its just seeding. So first 2 rounds are pretty easy, after them though I have to play my masters league teammate who plays zerg. This is a fairly important game because whoever wins will be top 16 and qualify for IPL. I end up winning 2-1 and am put into the WR08 against Infused.Randy which I then lose 2-1. Next game is against Link Slyce and its at 10pm so I'm pretty knackered so its a quick lose 2-0 and time for drinking

Luckily because I wasn't top 8 in the open I didn't have to play on saturday so me and my mates chilled and gamed/drunk til the early hours. At about 2-3 AM me and my mate decide to head back to his room, hes staying at the student accomidation and we haven't checked in yet. So we get there and the dudes all like only 1 per room, so I'm all like fuck and catch a taxi back to i44 where I crashed in a friends tent. So I carry on gaming for alittle while longer and then we head back to the tents (which was like 15 minute walk wtf). We also brought our drunk teammate who couldnt get into his hotel room lol and he had to play at 10 am, which he lost.

Saturday.
So saturday was pretty chilled, I didn't have to play in the tournament so I started drinking midday and just playing/socialising with players. Later on saturday I found out the brackets for IPL4 quals and it was against EGDemuslim!! Was pretty happy with that, he was the homecrowd favourite and hes a pretty cool bro. What was really awesome is just after I found out I was playing him I walked through to the exhibition/stage area and he was walking through lol :D Most of the pros arrived saturday night and got setup so I spent alot of time chilling with them and drinking. Saturday night I managed to stay in one of the hotels which was much nicer then a spider infested tent!

Sunday.
I get woken up nice and early at around 9 am and head to the venue (which was next door pretty much). I warm up on ladder before my games against demuslim.
Game 1 against demuslim was on antiga shipyard and I should have won. I dodged his marine through the smoke built a pylon and he never found it so I 4gated. Somehow tho I forgot warpgate tech by like 30 seconds which didnt help at all! In the end I think I gg'd abit to early (I'll post replays).
Game 2 on shakuras was much more standard, we both FE'd and I went to put on some damage as he was moving out. I had a pylon with a observer to warp into his base which pulled him back. Then I went up his natural ramp and forcefielded his main ramp killing scvs and forcing a liftoff. The battle was going well until I messed up my micro alittle bit and he jumped on it. I did alot of damage with that push so I don't GG just yet, I wait and he pushes out with a nice little force of MMM. He pushed up my ramp and took out my forces so I call GG! I'm knocked into losers round 1 where I have to play my teammate Xivol!

At around this time my hangovers kinda kicking in and I just played terrible, supply blocked like crazy and xivol played well so a 2-0 and I'm out of the tournament. So as you guessed it, more drinking and having fun. Alot of spectators showed up for the IPL so its getting busy so I mainly stick around the pc area and play/chill. As it gets later into the day and pros get knocked out of the tournament they start socialsing and drinking.

After the tournament the spectators left and the players stuck on MLG and had our very own barcraft! I can't really remember any of this but I know I enjoyed!! We chilled til the end of MLG and me and 2 mates decided to do an all nighter which was alot of fun. At one point I just wrapped myself up in a quilt and watched dexter at pc. Which was being livestreamed with a cam lol! So I chilled and gamed at PC for a few hours, packed up my shit got ready to leave and waited with friends said bye to people til my lift came. By the time I went to sleep on monday I had been up for around 36 hours and I had a glorious sleep I must say

So that pretty much summerises the event and what happened. Now I'm just going to list some funny things that happened over the weekend!

Being the first person to qualify for IPL4 quals was awesome, I was the highest rated protoss in the open aswell :D
On friday Ryung and Tails arrived and were walking through the venue, as soon as I seen them I asked for a photo and got one :D
I thought Adelscott was Stephano's translater for ages, and when I found who he was I went upto him and chilled for a little bit. Then when I was at the bar he came upto me and I offered to buy him a drink. Then I asked him to sign something and he joined me to my desk to sign it. He was pretty cool.
White-ra really is super awesome like everyone says. At one point I was chilling behind him and Vanq (ttesports/team infused guy) and they got up and walked away, whitera came back and thanked me for being friendly (seriously how awesome) then I accidently dropped his beer LOL! I'm such a dick! Later he sat down next to me during the finals and in the last game when tails had 1 gate he was like 'all in' and tails 4gated haha. He offered me a crisp and I said no and my mates were like 'WTF, when whitera offers you a crisp, you take it!!!'.
Grubby is also a massive legend, such a friendly guy. At one point he was playing and seen me and a friend standing close, so he spoke to us and forgot he was laddering. We all then realise hes in a game against VirusNaama and Naama has built depots all around his nexus, was so funny.
Sase was really awesome aswell, very chilled, relaxed, thought out person. He smokes and asked me for a couple and to get him a pack when I went to the shop. Was quite funny, he said he'd buy me a beer for some fags so I get him some fags and hes like here have this beer, I just had a swig that doesnt bother me so I take it then we make some funny jokes how about it'll turn me gosu lol! Demuslim was there for that.
Was also awesome meeting all the british players again like Bling, Randy, Lau, Jimmeh, Shibs, CLN, Skyda, Indigozerg and then I got to meet alot of more unkowns/people I just hadnt met like my teammates xivol and shodan and slyce, stone, vamp so yeah that was really sweet meeting you guys!
LOL almost forgot, Apollo give Tails a shot of malibu which we found out after koreans cant drink because they don't produce the right enzymes. Should have seen his face go bright red and irrated, poor sod lol!
Also a shoutout to alot of other awesome people like Banks from www.upclosegamers.com , what a friendly and happy person. Bakor, Joe and Kharne, the admins themselves, they done an awesome job with the tournaments! Warden, she was in charge of media and was a good laugh. The pros like Demuslim, Whitera, Sase, Grubby and Adelscott, they were all really friendly and I had a blast chilling with them all!

Some more photos from the event!!
This is when I pretty much jumped on Tails and Ryung!
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Bakor doing the player briefing for the open tournament!
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Totalbiscuit with some of my teammates, left is Shodan (GM), then Xivol (masters) and Mark whos management!
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Me and Sase :D
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Me and Demuslim!
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Me and Thorzain
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The Warden, she was alittle tired on monday after such an awesome event

And I'll have to post a link to this one but this is all the pros at barcraft for MLG!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpuk/6383068013/in/set-72157628043694623

A friend who couldn't go asked me to get something signed so I took a SC2 case and asked the pros to sign the folded bit!
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Sigs on there:
Lilsusie, Demuslim, Grubby, Sase, Ryung, Bischu, Adelscott, Stephano, Thorzain, Whitera, Tails and Dream

Links and infomation:
twitter: www.twitter.com/pughydude
twitch: www.twitch.tv/pughydude
team www.teamenigma.co.uk

my i44 + IPL4 UK qualifier blog!!

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