EPTWe landed five hours later, which was two days before the tournament since I was planning on partying with some of b.net’s “most hated” who I have come to call friends over the year. Besides my noob friend coming, I was going to meet up with NaW-Inka, sMi.Jask, and the infamous KingDino. Now I know some of these people have a bad reputation but when I talked to them online I had a pretty good rapport with them and could tell they are some normal dudes. So as I get off the plane and get my rent a car, I give them a call and this plan that has been in the making for a couple months is finally coming into fruition. I checked into my hotel in LA and then drove down to meet these people I have played SC with for years.
As I was on my way I was hearing stories of the night before. The stories made me realize, these guys aren’t just good at starcraft, they know how to party. I heard about Inka beerbonging three shots of gin, Inka spitting all over Dino’s wall, and Inka drooling all over himself. Basically Inka getting fucked up and fucking up, but everyone gets too drunk sometimes so I could tell that these guys like to have a good time. When I get there they are all asleep and I called Inka and he let me and my friend into Dino’s apartment. I was a little nervous cause I have never met these guys before and since everyone was asleep so as soon as I got there I tried to wake everyone up, not having high hopes for this night. To my surprise though, they all woke up and within five minutes we started playing beer pong. We drank for about the next five hours until about six am and it was a great night when I thought it was going to be a total bust.
When I woke up the next morning in my hotel I was pretty happy with the way the first night turned out and I was looking forward to the rest of my trip. The combo of drinking and starcraft is pretty hard to beat. The next day was spent hanging out, catching up on my sleep, and then prepping for the night where I’d meet some more people who play starcraft. As the night approached I went up to Dino’s room and we setup a mach beer pong table that actually worked out pretty well. The first person I met outside of my friends I met the night before was a person who I only knew a little and to be honest, didn’t have the most love for him after he knocked me out of WCG qualifiers about four times. His name was Louder[Light]. I shook his hand and he seemed like a pretty good guy from the start and I would soon see he was one of the coolest guys at WCG. He actually saved me 80 dollars to pay to see WCG as well. I sent pms to nony, inc, artosis, idra, and a few others about maybe giving their two friends tickets away, and louder was the only one who was cool enough to give them away for free, everyone else wanted a profit. But back to the party, it was pretty good but I had to leave about 10 minutes into it to go pick up this girl with Inka. I will leave out this THREE HOUR ESCURSION for only about a 20 mile round trip cause it was easily the worst time of my trip and I want to keep this positive.
As I got back with this girl, to my dismay, the whole party has basically died down and it was down to the people I met last night, my friend, and two girls. We drank a lot again which surprised me a little because Dino had to play the next day but I would soon come to notice he doesn’t care about his performance that much, he would rather have a great time. So as the night died down I was getting excited to see the actual WCG and as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I felt like a little geek dreaming about gosu games from the nation’s best.
The next morning I woke up early for no reason, I guess cause the excitement, but I was all ready to go and headed down to the convention center. At first I was a little weirded out because it didn’t have many wcg signs but it said E for all expo. So I guess WCG must be losing sponsorship if they cant even have their own event now. But as I walked in I was surprised at the vastness of the event, there were so many games and so many booths giving out free things it just was totally new to me. What really surprised me from the day I got there till the day I left was how many hot girls there were. Not only just the ones giving out things but girls who actually came to watch the event and/or play in it. After the initial excitement died down I wandered over to the starcraft area and actually got to see some of the best players in my nation face to face. I am not really obsessive with starcraft by any means, I mean I love the game but it doesn’t run my life. When I saw all of these great players that I have played before and some who I have only seen reps of, it made me a little nervous for some weird reason.
I saw all of them playing warm-up games against computers which was kind of weird to me and then I saw my first match, g5 vs Nony which was weren’t that close of games but to see 300 apm in action was very impressive. I was blown away at how good Nony’s mechanics were and what really just shocked me were his eyes. His eyes move so fast and never focus anywhere for more than about two seconds. He goes from main screen, to minerals and psi, to minimap over and over and over and I was really impressed to see how his eyes worked. The a lot of the other games blended in together after that however once Idra was setup to play Nony, the screens once again had my full attention. Game one surprised me when I saw Idra do an all in build vs Nony on troy and failed miserably. I was shocked at first that Idra did that weird build and also shocked that Idra even dropped a game to nony. Idra was tapping his leg really really fast, was just sitting staring blankly, and visually looked shocked and extremely disappointed like he was in alot of trouble. I saw his face the second game and I knew he was not feeling confident at all despite choosing Othello as the map choice.
On Othello he was able to camp a little as he wanted and wait for his upgrades however nonys shuttle harass and macro was just way to much for Idra. It wasn’t that close of a game and nony was just impressive as hell the whole entire match and I think Idra also psyched himself out after the first loss, he was looking pretty upset about it and seemed to be a very emotional playerHe sat staring at his screen and off into space, did not talk to anyone, and was just there beating himself up in his own mind it looked. At first after the losses I thought Idra was just saving some of his better builds after group stage but I he just got outplayed game 2 on othello. Not a knock on Idra at all but Nony was playing amazing...... Nony was playing with 100% confidence while Idra was obviously shaken. He was sitting alone and not really talking with many people so I don't know if he was just trying to concentrate and get in the zone or if the pressure was already getting to him.
Him vs g5 I missed the first game but I heard the dt drop just got him off guard and then I ran back to watch the last game and honestly, by the look on Idras face, it looked like he lost already. It was a pretty standard game and g5 opened up with his goon with shuttle break and I don't think Idra sees alot of that in Korea so he was caught offgaurd and was behind from the start. I think as soon as he was behind like that, Idra lost it mentally. I just felt so bad for this guy who deserved to advance from his group but g5 played pretty nicely wining a tight game 3 vs inc and a very good game vs Idra on othello. I won't question Idra's skill but I will say that he needs to toughen up mentally. That night we drank a bit back in Dino’s apartment again and then just called it a somewhat early night after dino’s win vs machine. Oh this was the night rich aka future[light] was drunk as fuck. Lol he is a really cool guy and I didn’t know him at all before this but I plan on talking to him in the future cause he was just such a cool dude and had some pretty impressive karate kicks hahahahaha.
The next day there was a lot of great games and louder really showed that he wasn’t just a fluke. He was playing really good and I saw some pretty g’s, a lot of pvp so they all blend together but I was really impressed with his improvement and knowledge of the matchup. That night it was down to the final three; g5, louder, and nony. Not too shabby of a top 3 if I do say so myself. I was happy to see all of USA A at Dino’s apartment this time. I never felt like they were being mean to me or purposely shunning me but they seemed a little hard to warm up to. I made sure I introduced myself to everyone and people just came from the player’s party so a lot of them were already hammered. Artosis could barely stand and was just making me laugh hysterically and it was basically everyone at WCG was in dino’s room tonight. I met G5, Idra, Artosis, Inc, and a bunch of others who finally warmed up to me. It was great to see some of the nation’s best play but it was even cooler to get to know them a little and drink. Me and Inc had some pretty epic beer pong games and ended up going 1-1 after some seriously long games. Everyone there was cool and I was really glad I got to drink with them all.
The next day was the final sets of games and to no one’s surprise, Nony took the sets fairly easy. He deserves to be representing USA because of his mechanics and mental toughness. I was happy to have such a good time and look forward to seeing some of these guys in the future. Louder and Artosis are probally the coolest guys there just because of them going out of their way to be nice, but everyone there was good people. I am happy to of met you all and saw some great games and hope to have another lan like this in the future. Good luck to Nony in the finals and sorry the second half of the writeup is rushed, I wanted to post it while USA WCG was still relavent.
