EPTAlthough we've watched a lot of SC2 together, we had never been to any major LAN together. We're a father-son team. He's the good player, Masters level Zerg teenager. I'm "pretty good for my age" as a Plat Terran in the relatively unpopulated 40+ yo division. I've been gaming longer than he's been alive, but we've become esports fans more recently, watching GSL/MLG/IEM/IPL/Dreamhack/Assembly, etc. We have been to a couple Chicago area barcrafts and one LAN organized by http://www.starcraftchicago.com/. We've chatted with Silvare and Elysium at those and had a chance to meet a few Chicago-area players:
qxc, 
Wannabecool, Everize, and xSixVer. We had been looking forward to a chance to completely geek out at an MLG and Columbus being a mere 6.5 hour drive away it was time.Player passes disappeared mysteriously quickly from MLG's site, so we picked up some Spectator passes. But before we hit the road, I posted to reddit /r/starcraft asking for advice. Plenty was offered (wear comfortable shoes, bring snacks), including the fact that there might be more player passes available on site. Also, Sundance posted in reply offering encouragement and saying to come by and say hi. /wave Sundance
We drove late Thursday night and got up early Friday morning to head to the convention center. Gold member and on the player pass wait list? Why sure, here's your player pass. Lol @ twitchy playing under the drlemur MLGid.
Player pass acquired:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eRA4X.jpg?1)
Time to warm up, but where? We head across the street and a block away to the North Market where there is free wireless and also food. We fire up the laptop so Twitchy can warm up for his first Open bracket game:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3FfmW.jpg?1)
Notice the giant green hat we decided to bring for visibility purposes -- so I can find him if there's a crowd and also to be visible on stream if they pan back to the player pit for friends watching on stream. Wrapping up practice we head back to the convention center for player check in and start seeing all the pro players hanging around. Hey look, it's
iNcontroL. What can we get him to sign? How about the big green hat? Okey dokey.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/g47B0.jpg?2)
Anna Prosser is there too (semi hidden). And a lot of the other EG guys are around, and the Liquid players too This is when we first realized we are going to be standing in and among all the famous SC2 players we have been watching at tournaments and on stream for the past year or so.
I have to say that when I first starting watching SC2, I wasn't a big fan of iNcontrol, but I have to say that he's really grown on me and I'm solidly a fan now. He still hasn't quite found his rhythm -- I think he lost to binsky -- but he is clearly the heart of the EG team. And as a team, EG has a real heart. There was always a solid core of EG guys hanging out together and supporting each other. Not a lot of other teams seemed to have that cohesiveness. The Liquid guys are clearly all friends and hanging out, but not quite as visibly. InfinitySeven had a big showing and also had that team feel about them.
We headed into the player area and the pit is really surprisingly intimate with some of the best SC2 players in the world around you pretty much all the time. I didn't take any pictures of the main stage with the thousands of seats (you can see that easily on the stream), but the player area has a really different feel of being upclose and personal with the pro players. It's pretty awesome. You might set up to practice for your opening round match and find
Machine warming up next to you.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6JU8z.jpg?2)
Some random pictures of the pros hanging out around us in and about the player pit:
Stephano, iNcontroL, BlinG![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XtsRI.jpg?1)
NaNiwa hugging DeMusliM while Abbe G looks on:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lz9uV.jpg?1)
Jinro!![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ESSto.jpg?1)
Waiting for the open bracket to be posted --
IdrA sitting on his pillow (so that's what those are for), Anna texting, Stephano and ThorZaIN![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/g2n5b.jpg?1)
It's time to play the first round wearing the big green hat:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/npZIh.jpg?1)
This is the "yes, I just 7pooled him and won, LoL, face"
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PH07P.jpg?1)
Twitchy cheesed a bit and won his first round matchup. Cheese? Well, look, how many MLG's are you going to get to play in and get a chance to win? It's a non-trivially difficult rush to defend and if cheese wins, cheese on, IMHO. Remember when
NesTea drone rushed IdrA at MLG Winter Arena?However, round 2 was against
jEcho and it turns out Twitchy's cheese is not quite up to the challenge of a top 20 GM. That makes him 1-1 and gives us the day to watch SC2 and enjoy MLG until Sat morning's loser bracket. FWIW, jEcho was pretty easy going about getting cheesed (the first game was actually close, I think Twitchy might have had him) and was quite friendly the other times we saw him through the weekend. I'm guessing he's seen cheese before and wasn't that annoyed about it.I ran into Silvare and we chatted for a bit. She was wearing a VIP tag, which I think she got via
Everize, maybe by presenting her as his manager? Whatever, she deserves VIP for all the work she puts into organizing the Starcraft Chicago scene. And I know she was having as much fun as I was rubbing shoulders with the pros.I also got to talk to SirScoots and Raelcun, which was also excellent and interesting. We talked about expanding the esports scene. I shared my thought that there's a real opportunity to attract sports (non-e) fans now. Sports like baseball are just too slow. Football is getting hard to watch because it's clear they are damaging their brains on every play. Esports athletes are probably improving their brains (I actually study this in my day job) although there are definitely days that I wonder if playing video games all day is not so good for your emotional stability. SirScoots agreed with pretty much all of that -- especially the last part, lol.
There's some swag available at MLG, giveaways at various booths plus MLG brand merchandise. I decided to forget my age and go full fanboy, buying an MLG SteelSeries mousepad specifically to go collect autographs. First up, the Liquid guys at the Dr Pepper booth:
Ret, HayprO and Sheth. Ret is very chill and Sheth gives the impression that he's just amazed that people want to watch him play video games -- so manner. HayprO is also totally chill. After he signed, I told him to keep hacking HuK's twitter because it was hilarious. He said it was actually Jinro. Which was even funnier to me.DongRaeGu was signing over at the Bic booth and for some reason, the line wasn't that long so I ran over there, too. I told him I was glad to see he wasn't an overhyped bubble anymore ater winning GSL. He smiled, but I'm not sure he totally understood me.Later, while I'm watching at the featured stations, a guy from GG Swag is chatting and then asks me what race I play. I say Terran and he whips a shirt out of his bag to give away. I wore it Saturday in appreciation.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/riRrD.jpg?1)
One of the things I was looking forward too at MLG was getting to see
HuK play live. His story captured my attention back when he first moved to Korea with Liquid. What impressed me was that when some players moved back home, and others had success (Jinro), he stayed there and quietly practiced his ass off until he became among the best in the world. So it was cool to be standing a few feet away when he played Ret in the group stages:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CiaC6.jpg?1)
He rolled pretty hard on Friday but was obviously under the weather and understandably not able to spend much time doing fan service.
I'm not sure if I've gotten this point across, but at the featured stations and in the player pit, you are really right next to these guys as they are playing. For the best players, the spectators line up 10 deep and it's hard to see. MLG would do well to bring in a few rows of bleachers around the feature stations and on the sides of the player area. I spent way more time back there than at the main stage because there were so many good games.
In this pic,
DRG was playing DeMusliM in a very tight and intense match. What struck me was that on the inside of the player pit, DeMusliM was surrounded by EG people, Stephano, BlinG and a big chunk of the foreigner scene. DRG was on the other side alone (I shot it to cut out the hundred or so people watching from behind because most of them were rooting for Ben). DRG seems like kind of a loner anyway, but I was wondering where the Complexity guys were to sit around DRG and provide support.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kxtMl.jpg?1)
DeMusliM lost a heartbreaker and there was a great shot of Abbe consoling him on reddit (by Eduro, great pic: http://i.imgur.com/9gakj.jpg).MLG is surprisingly tiring, so we had to rest somewhat early to be ready to play again on Saturday. Getting there early for Losers Bracket Round 2, you might find yourself setting up next to
BlinG.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2KBxL.jpg?1)
with
NonY looking on![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HofHk.jpg?1)
and
ThorZaIN for luck![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xGbaD.jpg)
Twitchy won the match fairly easily (not sure the opp was Masters) and found himself matched up with
Sleep in the next round. While that didn't seem totally fair (Sleep lost early to Symbol, which probably didn't seem fair to him either), part of the point was to get to play somebody reasonably famous, even though it probably meant a loss.Not the best picture of
Sleep but it turns out that Korean pro gamers are pretty good at SC2 (yeah, go figure):![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wGIce.jpg)
I could swear Twitchy was actually ahead briefly in the early ling/baneling micro battle in game 1, but it didn't hold up. Game 2 was short. That took him out of the tournament at 2-2, a respectable result --- all ZvZ, fwiw.
Spectating afterwards, I got to chat with
Flo a little bit as well. I told her the story of my 18yo daughter who is a bit embarrassed to have it known that she is a gamer. That upset Flo and her friends and they told me I should tell her to cut it out and just be open about gaming. But I had to point out that as the father of an 18yo young woman, my opinion is not exactly going to change anything. I did wish Flo luck on her upcoming trip to Taiwan to play again in the next Zowie Divinia tournament.I also got a chance to shake the hand of the man himself, Sundance. I thanked him for responding to my reddit post and also encouraged him to keep pushing to grow the esports scene. And I asked him for more seating around the feature stations and player area where there are just so many good games going on all the time. He was very gracious and supportive.
An opportunity presented itself to go full-on fanboy when I spotted
MKP and MC signing, so I added them to the mouse mat. I also got Grubby and wished him good luck as well, although the tournament didn't go that well for him. Twitchy got a terrible picture of me after I got MKP to sign (that's PartinG there, too)![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NGNRG.jpg?1)
We didn't get any caster autographs, although I did catch this picture of Artosis and Tasteless trying to get out of the convention center. They were stopped by a gang of semi-inebriated nerds and agreed to a quick photo before they ran:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zLaEb.jpg?1)
On Sunday, the games just kept getting better. On the featured stations we ended up with PvP nirvana.
HuK vs. Socke (destroyer of brackets on a great run) right next to NaNiwa versus MC. Amazing.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pbm3G.jpg?1)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KYcWJ.jpg?1)
I couldn't help but notice the three attractive ladies on the stage right behind
HuK:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fbuLG.jpg?1)
As
iNcontroL walked up to take up a bodyguard-like position next to Huk (there was quite a crowd), I asked him, "does Huk play better with a lot of pretty ladies on the stage next to him?" To which he answered, "we all do, man," with a smile.HuK was up 2-0 in an extended series with Socke and beat him 2-1 in a match that featured 2 completely insane and nerve-wracking total base trades. After the match, iNcontrol walked off with Huk to pep talk him and get ready for the next match. This isn't a great pic, but for context, the two of them walked away from an area with several hundred fans -- and nobody chased them down for signing or anything. SC2 has very mannered fans. I also really liked seeing iNcontrol taking care of his guy before the next big match -- probably what he said wasn't important, but he was there for Huk as support.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AyN30.jpg?1)
Next Huk beat Naniwa 2-0 with the second game another totally incredible total base trade with zealot/probe chasing a stalker for many long, tense minutes. Then he was off to the main stage where he beat
PartinG, who is playing awfully well lately. As somebody who had been watching Huk play hard (and cough frequently), I was sad but not surprised when he ran out of gas and ended up eventually losing again to Heart, who was playing like a boss.Huk could have beaten Heart in the group stage or brackets, those games were very tight. But how smart does Complexity look for the performance of their relatively lesser known pickup (after
NaDa and Killer)? Well played all around, imo.Final picture of the signing mat
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BhHFN.jpg?1)
I'm kind of afraid to use it to actually play on for fear of wearing out the signatures, lol.
And the wristbands before I cut them off my wrist when I got home:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AlpSM.jpg?1)
I'm not sure when the next opportunity will present itself for another MLG, but I'm glad we found our way to this one. Definitely worth the drive, time and cost to see it all happening up close and personal like that.
EDIT: As soon as I went to bed, I realized I had forgotten a few minor mentions. I had meant to give a shout out to
Wannabecool (GosuWbc) who I got to chat with again just before he lost to KawaiiRice. I also had nice conversations with the managers of vile gaming and CheckSix about their players and teams while watching people play.And /wave at John from alt.starcraft, who I sat down next to at the main stage Friday because he was there with his little girl on his lap -- gamers fathers, unite
. Also /wave at the young man from U. Wisconsin who I chatted with a couple of times and had lunch with on Sunday. Hope your drive back was good and school finishes up well.
