EPTThis blog will recap my experiences and adventures casting Starcraft II around the globe. We'll begin our journey from the comfort of my own home and see where the wind takes us from there -- from novice to pro, I will recap my feelings and reflections on everything.
The mission and goal: have fun, do our best, and figure out the riddle that is Starcraft II.
FULL VOD: http://www.twitch.tv/sc2links/b/323219974
INDIVIDUAL VODS: http://www.youtube.com/user/sc2Links/videos
The SC2LINKs.com OPEN #3 was my first venture into solo casting -- I'll admit, I always get some butterflies right before a cast goes live, but this time they were hitting me around 11am, one hour before the start of the tourney.
Deep breathes and normal relaxation techniques usually do the trick for me -- close your eyes, take the deepest inward breath you can, exhale fully until you can exhale anymore -- well, this time when I opened my eyes there were still only 4 players confirmed for this 64 player tournament.
Close your eyes, deep breath, exhale...
Open your eyes, 11:30am -- 7 players confirmed.
**PANIC**
Why would 44 people sign up for this thing and only 7 be confirmed 30 minutes before the tournament was about to start?
Was I over-thinking it? Was there a problem with the site? Were people unaware they had to confirm?
I rushed and added text to the top of the info page on BinaryBeast: **PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO CONFIRM**
Close your eyes, deep breath, exhale...
11:50am -- 10 players confirmed.
What the hell was going on?
This was a free-roll tourney, $100 first place prize, $25 second place prize, only 10 people had confirmed and there was only 20 minutes left to qualify. There were only 6 koreans confirmed...
Wait... were people scared of the Koreans??
This thought would have never crossed my mind, but considering more than half of the opposition was Korean up to this point, I decided to look at the unconfirmed players -- all USA masters/GMs.
Why was this happening? This tournament was supposed to feature the NA masters/GMs -- it was for them, the perfect time at noon on Saturday -- I mean, could the time had been too early for these nerds? Why else would so many people bail?
Close your eyes deep breath, exhale...
"Some questions just cannot be answered."
Close your eyes deep breath, exhale...
12:20pm -- 16 players confirmed, 16 player bracket generated: stream goes live!!
Despite the issues, I had calmed myself down and was pretty excited going into the games -- admining the entire tournament alone at that point though, with the camera beating down on my face, in front of a live audience = STRESS. We definitely need to work out the admin side of things before the next OPEN, but luckily, my friend Deadlift stepped in and started helping out answering questions and assisting players, which left me to cast the first game!
RO16 EmpireVINES vs. ESCGoody:
Seeing these two matched up in the RO16 had me licking my chops for GGs -- despite the lack of numbers, we had some quality players signed up, and this meant I was really going to get some good experience in with the casts.
VINES recently made a Code A appearance in the GSL, and Goody is known by everyone as the Mech King of the world -- I feel like I made some great play-by-play in these games and some good calls as well. Since I'm a terran player, it felt good to start the day off with some Terran action -- I hit my stride by the end of the series and was prepared for everything else from there. I really enjoyed the series, because I was shocked by the ending -- don't move on if you don't want to be spoiled (this goes for the rest of the post as well)!!
RO8 + Show Spoiler +
SlayerSArthur v ESCGoody:
Moving into the second series I was feeling confident and I felt like my observing and commentary were spot on, considering we saw the same builds out of Goody again, but with the adjustments by Arthur we saw a new perspective on the games and a new realization for what protoss can do to respond in the matchup. Someone mentioned I was overly critical of Goody, but I had the intention to highlight the issues with the situations occurring on the map more-so than critique Goody's play -- sorry if this came off as negative, but I feel for Goody in that situation, as I have experienced it myself many times.
RO8 + Show Spoiler +
FXOCrane v MyiFiery:
This was my first PvP of the day and I thought it went pretty well! I called the phoenix build and followed the action as best I could -- sad I didn't get the final game in the series but I may cast from the replay and upload it later to show everyone how this ended!
RO4 + Show Spoiler +
FXOCrane v SlayerSArthur
Getting the first PvP out of the way was good, but this match-up I had no idea what was going to occur (and you will see evidence of that many times) -- both of these guys were really good and I feel like the third game was my best game (you'll see why :D). Would love to hear feedback on this one. Also, looks like I had an attack of the "ums" right before this game went live -- there was about 20 minutes of downtime and I just go-to the "um" card wayyyy too much -- cringe-worthy IMO and I will try to fix for next time :[...
FINALS + Show Spoiler +
MillTarson v SlayerSArthur:
The FINALS!! I was rockin going into this, we were only 3hrs in and I was still feeling energetic at the start. I hadn't seen Tarson play up to this point, but he did basically the same build as Goody, so this analysis was a good continuation on the discussion I had previously developed with the audience on the TvP matchup, specifically with the builds we were seeing. At times I may have referenced matches in the past a bit too much, and I'll try to figure out how to keep my mind focused on the present as much as possible. Again, the "ums" are killing my soul, but this is a simple problem to fix. These were really exciting games, with "Game 3" being my favorite of the bunch (both from a game perspective and a personal expectations of my casting perspective) -- I would love to hear what you all think was the best game from both casting and playstyle perspectives too!!
Conclusion:
With a lack of 3+ base macro games I didn't really get to showcase my understanding of the late game and highlight my ability to keep up with simultaneous action through observing. Despite that, I felt like my observing was on point, the casting was good (not great), and the down-time needs improvement. I feel like testing out a showmatch or showmatch series (create some drama!!) for the next cast is the way to go -- this would remove the admin portion (which me caused stress and problems) and will focus the cast on one or two (or three!) matchups with a more targeted focus for the audience as well (they'll know what they're getting before they tune in).
Let me know what you think of the games, the blog, and anything you want! Hope you enjoyed the games, and I'll see you again at the next GG.
DOOM
