EPTThis blog is about the mid west Canadian SC2 scene and a lan that happened on Saturday, July 21 2012. Enjoy!
The venue lights were dimmed low. My two buddies, xSixMkengyn and NrGDime sat side by side - three computers apart - in the isle in front of me. They were playing in the finals of the DYESL July tournament and I was playing my 30th (or maybe 40th) ladder game of the day. Just then, Dime stood up and started pack up his gear.
"Yo, are you guys done!?"
"...yeah"
"Who won?"
"Brian did..."
* Rewind 5ish months *
There hand't been a legit tourney in Calgary for months, so me and two of my buddies - Dapyro and iSNoctis - decided to drive down to Etown (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) to play in a tourney there.
The DYESL tourneys are put on by a sick promoter who goes by the tag DYEAlabaster. Him and his team rent out a kick-ass venue in the North West side of Edmonton and invite anyone from the prairies to come test their metal at their lans. I'd like to think that our Calgary scene is pretty good but, lets face it, the Edmonton scene is leaps and bounds ahead of ours. The community is sick, the promotion is sick, the venue is sick. It's just all great.
Noctis and Dapyro and I showed up with one goal in mind - show these Etown nerds who's boss and take the tourney.
To make a long story short, Noctis finished 1st, I finished top 10 and Dapyro tried his best but finished lower than expected.
* Fast forward to last Saturday *
Mk, Dime and myself drove back down to Etown to see if we could take the gold for Calgary one more time.
Hands down, Mk is probably the best player in Alberta - and maybe central Canada. You can usually find him in the top 25 GM on NA ladder at any given time and you can always find him in the top 3 (usually 1st) of any local lan. Dime has also placed well in local lans. I've personally been beaten out of tourneys by him and he almost always lands top 3. Just recently, both Mk and Dime flew out to Toronto to compete at the WCS Canada Championships that were being hosted at the NASL 3 finals.
It was 7:30 as I drove up to Dime's house to pick him up for the road trip, 8:00 when we got to Mk's place and then 11:20 when we showed up at Overlocked Gaming in Edmonton.
We came, we played, we conquered.
The tourney was set up like an MLG. Pool's were created and everyone played to see how they would be seeded into the bracket.
Me, Mk and Dime finished top of our pools with Dime and myself only losing 1 game and Mk having a flawless run. The top four players - three being us kids from Calgary - were then seeded into the winners bracket of the pool, with everyone else who qualified from the pools seeded into the losers bracket.
It's always a nerve wrecking experience playing a good buddy who you know is hands down better than you are... I seeded playing against Dime and he completely rolled me.
"If we end up playing each other today, just go DT cause you know I love to play Pheonix in PvP" I had said earlier that day.
"I usually like to go Blink Stalker rush instead of DT" Dime cheekily wrote in chat after our game. We both laughed.
Dime faced Mk in the winners finals where Mk won 2-1.
The remainder of the players played through the bracket and now only one thing stood in my way to face Dime again - NKC - the June DYESL champion and the player who beat me out of the last DYESL I went to with Noctis and Dapyro a few months earlier. He took the match with a strong macro Terran style. His drops and multi pronged attacks were too much for me to handle.
Dime faced NKC and won the match 2-1 and went on to face Mk one more time in the grand final.
Dime tried his best, but Mk still came out on top.
Noctis had texted me earlier that day - unable to make the tourney - cracking a joke about how us three guys would finish top 4, and we did.
It's hard to say what city has better players overall as both Calgary and Edmonton have amazing SC2 players. Despite tough competition, we came down to take the tourney and we did it in a convincing manner.
Huge shout outs to DYESL - DYEAlabaster and his crew - and all of the Etown kids. They always treat us outsiders with respect and love. I suppose there is a sort of rivalry between the two cities which makes for sick lans, but even still the Etown peeps are such great sports and we always have a blast going down. Thanks for a great tourney guys.
-CBK
