EPTDisclaimer - many walls of text incoming because... well, because. I'm also terrible at wording my thoughts, so please excuse me if this seems like a complete mess to you. also, may be slightly biased as a NaVi/Zenith/mouz fanboy. just slightly.
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So, The International. I have been eagerly awaiting it ever since the dates for it were announced, and with each announcement of this or that team being invited. absolute Legends - awesome, they were playing great when they were invited (I think? Can't remember exactly.) and definitely before. Zenith, I love their play, but I may be slightly biased about them... I wonder why. :p
I was pretty sad when mouz and/or Next.kz weren't part of the 14 invited teams, but I managed to watch some of their games in the qualifiers (mouz vs VP g2. Seriously.) and the better team won, but I cheered up when I heard mouz was going as a backup, as some of them have active Twitters, so pics and such from them!
A few days before the prelims officially kicked off, I was already eagerly
Day 1 of the group stages came and went, and I was left... bemused, when I was so excited at the start, with my mouz, Zenith and NaVi pennants ready. 1-5 Zenith, 2-4 NaVi - what!? I was slightly consoled by the fact that we had a Dendi pudge already on day 1 (poor ixmike), but still, it was a reality check for me. This is LAN, and the Chinese are here to wreck face.
Day 2 and 3 thankfully soothed my inner NaVi and Zenith fanboy. CLG going 0-8 after their day 1's 6-0 was... somewhat amusing. CLG vs Zenith g2 did make me more positive about Zenith's chances of making it to the WB though, definitely worth checking out.
Finally, playoffs. coL vs Zenith g2 and 3 had me laughing at times, and speechless in the other... poor ixmike again, I lost count of the number of times he was sniped by sunstrike pretty quickly. I don't remember much about the (non-grand final) iG vs NaVi except for the THE PLAY and iG being mindfucked over naga in g3's draft, but it was good.
LGD vs Navi after... I was so emotional when LGD gg'd in game 2 and 3. Also, this is the series where I finally took note of Ars-Art's goddamned amazing play. I didn't know much about him before he joined NaVi except that he was ex-VP, but just... wow. If I had a top 3 list of favorite players, I'd say he's #2 or #3.
I felt bad for LGD though.... perfect 16-0 in groups, go 3-0 in playoffs before finally losing to NaVi, then play a very long (or so I infer from the LR thread, wasn't watching) ricing series against iG right after, and eventually lose again.
grand finals made me sad, so no comment
yeah, finally the end of this blog. I don't know why I decided to write this out of the blue, but TI2 overall was just fucking amazing to watch and it felt good to post my ramblings somewhere. Production value was insane, 2GD's hosting was fantastic and statman Bruno is boss, fucking love statman Bruno.
no tl;dr cuz I hate those things, or I could just say GO WATCH TI2 if you haven't already
