EPTWhat I Expected From MLG and Leading Up to Winner's Round 2
Going into MLG, I had no clue what to expect. From the moment I walked into the Dallas Convention Center, I was kind of starstruck. Seeing only people that you usually see on stream in person gave off a certain type of mystique. I gave my girlfriend a kiss and proceeded to play some warm up games. So I went on with my warm ups. I played incredibly well during my warm up games (playing 5 ladder games and 3 custom games with a few friends of mine to get ready for the challenges ahead.) My goal going into MLG was to not go 0-2 in series and get eliminated with the first wave of players. The first player that I ran into who actually talked to me was Maximus Black from Quantic. I must say, he was a very friendly individual and had some good insight as to how MLG was ran.
Winner's Round 2
So I somehow got a bye into Winner's Round 2. Yeah I know, it was a shock for me too. However, I played my first round against a Terran player by the name of vistal.
Game 1, Antiga Shipyard:
The first game was a very good macro game that lasted about 20 minutes which ended with me killing off his fourth and all of his SCV's in his main and natural with ling run bys. This forced the GG after he tried to all in me after his economy had been crippled.
Game 2, Ohana:
Game two was quite the different story. He hit me with a combat shield timing that killed off my third base and forced me to try to make something happen if I wanted any shot at winning the game. I felt like I was too far behind to play a macro-orientated game so I went all in with a ling/baneling attack which failed and I was forced to GG.
Game 3, Cloud Kingdom:
Game three was another incredible game. Vistal tried the combat shield timing again and this time I was ready for it with an earlier baneling nest, this put me way ahead. I eventually amassed an army of broodlord, infestor and lings and every time he pushed out, more lings would run into his third and natural which would force him to make a decision: Let his economy get crippled, or fall back with his push. I eventually killed off a lot of SCV's while he was caught out on the map with his army. He then proceeded to kill off my fourth, and my third base, however I killed off his army at my natural and forced a GG out of him.
After Game 3, I was so overcome with joy that I could not help but have a stupid smile on my face as I turned around to look out to see the people who were watching me play. I clapped my hands a few times and then shook my opponent's hand for a very good series.
Between Winner's Round 2 and 3
So between WR2 and WR3, my girlfriend entered a contest for Full Sail University at MLG, and she a backstage tour of the MLG production set!!!! We got to go behind the scenes and see how MLG is actually ran, this was a blast! After the tour, I hung out in the "players pit" with all of the computers and watched some of the group play, along with some of my favorite players playing in the Open Bracket.
Winner's Round 3
Winner's Round 3 was a very good series as well. I wound up playing a player I had never heard of, his ID was Drakke and apparently he has been training in Korea for the last six months. Needless to say, whenever he told me this, I was a little baffled and kind of intimidated, nonetheless, I still wanted to win.
Game 1, Cloud Kingdom:
I did a ling, baneling drop on his base and killed off about 3/4ths of his probes, however I forgot to throw down spines in my natural and he Immortal/sentry all ined me which killed my natural and my third base. It also made it nearly impossible for me to come back and I was forced to GG out.
Game 2, Ohana:
This was the game that I felt like I had the worst odds of winning in a macro game so I decided pre-game to all in. I did a 10 roach rush, hatch cancel build, Leenock style for those of you who remember it. It went unscouted and I was able to take an easy win in game two.
Game 3, Daybreak:
The series concluded on Daybreak, a map that I am very comfortable with. I felt very good going into game 3 coming off of a win, so I decided to go for a quick three base build. After sacrificing my overlord to scout his main, I saw that he had 7 gates down and a twilight council researching. I already knew what was coming: an incredibly strong +2 blink stalker all in. The fighting ensued quickly as he planted a proxy pylon down outside of my 3rd base. I had roaches, roach speed and also had lings in a flank position. I felt like I was in a very good position to hold the all in. The fighting went on for a good 4-5 minutes real time. It was an amazing back and forth battle in which he finally broke me with amazing blink micro and eventually overran my natural, forcing me to GG.
I felt like I could have won both game 1 and game 3, however I just did not take the means necessary to come out on top.
The Rest of Day 1
As day 1 went on, the matches got better and better. I also got to meet some of my favorite pros and got their opinions on how to hold of certain attacks. Among the people I talked to were: Sheth, Machine, Moonglade Violet and Revival. Watching Revival defeat Soulkey in the last match of the day concluded day 1 for me.
Day 2 and Loser's Bracket Round 3
Day 2 started with a bang, I played at noon so I did not feel the need to wake up early to get to the DCC. However, I did get to the venue around 11 because I wanted to watch the game between my potential opponents in LR2. I watched a quick two game series between my eventual opponent, MnMDayal against JoshFreeman in which Dayal won 2-0. Going into the series, I was feeling very good about the match up being ZvZ which is my strongest match up at the moment.
Game 1, Daybreak:
Game 1 went very well for me..... Until the mutas came. I scouted all of Dayal's base and saw that he had a spire coming down, so I threw down a couple spore crawlers down in each of my bases, and powered out my infestor tech. However Dayal only made about 4 or 5 mutas and just harassed with them, which is what I expected. But after the initial mutas came, so did an influx of +1 attack roaches before he took a third. This timing was very powerful and wiped out my third base because all I had out was about 8 or 9 roaches along with 5 or 6 infestors. Eventually, he overpowered me on 3 bases to my 2 and forced me to GG out.
Game 2, Cloud Kingdom:
Cloud Kingdom is such a strange map for me, so I decided to open with a 10 pool. With my opening, I denied his 15 hatch, and also managed to kill off about 5 drones so I was very ahead. However, I was not satisfied with just being slightly ahead in the game, so I decided to do a speedling all in. I hit with about 20-25 speedlings when he had only 2 banelings and 2 queens out to defend. This attack, along with minimal losses to the banelings was too powerful for him and wound up forcing him to GG out. Thus, the series was tied at 1-1.
Game 3, Ohana:
This game was honestly the worst game that I have played in weeks. It started out with a 14 pool, 15 hatch, 16 gas opening from both my Dayal and I. However moments after my first queen finished, my blunders began. I checked both my natural and main hatcheries and lo and behold, I had not built a second queen. I was very shocked and was in the state of mind to where I was thinking, "Well I am very behind so I need to play very defensively." I then threw down three spine crawlers in my natural, but before they could finish, he hit with about 6 banelings and 20+ lings. I saw it coming, but could only do very little to avoid massive losses. After losing about 10 drones to his initial attack I felt that the only way for me to come back would be to go mutas and hope for the best. However, he hit muta tech before my spire finished and had about 10 mutas in my natural killing off my drones before I could get my tech up, this foced a GG out of me and thus, I was out of the tournament.
After losing in LR3, I was really upset with myself because I knew that I could have won the first and the third games but just didn't react in time to win, thus my opponent deserved the wins. I later came to find out that Dayal is a roommate of current EG player, Suppy, so I did not feel so bad about losing to him.
The Rest of Day 2 and Day 3
Day 2 went on after I got eliminated. I wound up taking my Team Liquid shirt around and getting it signed by every big name at MLG from Flash to Scarlett. It was really cool to be in the "player's pit" so that I did not have to worry about waiting for players to get out of there to ask for autographs. Day 2 had some amazing games throughout the day. Among these matches were Moonglade taking out MC 2-1 in an incredible series, Scarlett beating HerO 2-1, and, of course, the epicness that was Naniwa vs Flash.
Day 3, Championship Sunday, was another amazing day. Admittedly, two of my favorite players to watch were eliminated early in the day, Naniwa and Violet, but there were still two of my other favorites in the tournament: Life and Leenock. The environment was incredible throughout the whole day. After Life went down 2-0 to Flash, I watched as he came out of the booth after the series, all he did was one thing: Laugh. Life then went on to beat up on poor unsuspecting coLHeart in one of the quickest 2-0 series I saw in all of MLG. Anyway, fast forward ahead to the finals: Leenock vs Life, 7 amazing games, need I say more? Even though most people don't really care for mirror match ups, I absolutely loved the finals in Dallas, seeing Life come back and take the series, and the MLG against Leenock was just incredible.
The Best Games That Weren't Streamed
Throughout the course of this MLG, there were a lot of amazing games that were not streamed, and I am just going to highlight my top 5 games that I witnessed that I do not believe were streamed; please correct me if I am wrong. These are games that, if MLG releases a replay pack, everyone should check out:
5) Bomber vs Thorzain game 1, Entombed Valley
Description: TvT, I know it may not seem exciting, but it was a very good game. Both players went mech and it was an epic 40 minute game.
4) Idra vs Grubby game 1, (Map forgotten :-()
Description: A very well played ZvP from both players and the mystique of Idra vs Grubby is enough to just watch the game, but I feel that whenever a game gets over the 30 minute mark, there is a very good chance it will come down to vortex vs fungal.
3) LZGamer vs JookTo game 1, Entombed Valley
Description: LZGamer played an amazing ZvZ in this game, and it brought him one win away from getting to group play. LZ did an incredible attack with roach, queen and nydus worms which countered the early infestor build by JookTo and eventually forced him to GG.
2) Moonglade vs MC No specific game, just the whole series.
Description: A very well played ZvP series by these two, just watch and enjoy all three games.
1) Scarlett vs HerO game 3, Tal'Darim Altar
Description: OH MY GOD, hands down the best game of the tournament that I got to watch first hand. It was a crazy 52 minute game on TDA which ended with HerO having a few Assimilators down and Scarlett having three uprooted spine crawlers traveling with her army. HerO had a mothership and about 9 blink stalkers left while Scarlett had a broodlord, corruptor and infestor army. HerO lands an amazing double vortex on all of Scarlett's army near the end of the game, however he does not target down all of Scarlett's 3 spine crawlers and takes significant damage from Scarlett's army after the vortexes ended. HerO did manage to get one spine before the vortexes were done, but it was not enough and Scarlett eventually was able to kill of HerO's final Assimilators and force the GG from the Korean Protoss player.
