EPTRaleigh is over and there's a nice little break between events. It's nice having it spaced out. At this point my practice regiment has declined a bit, due to a few reasons; my internet for one has always been an issue for me as it is both slow and not very reliable. Due to where I live it's the best option available though so have to make do with what I got. Also it's the reason I can't stream >< Other reasons are having to raise/deal with a Great Dane puppy.
It sounds like a silly reason but if you've never seen a Great Dane they are huge dogs, so when they are puppies they grow ridiculously fast and are a pain to deal with when you're trying to focus on grinding out games. Also it fucks with your sleep schedule. It is a large distraction to say the least especially as she got bigger and bigger. Other reasons are personal that I don't particularly want to get into but let's just say that can cause problems with your practice schedule.
So anyway point being is my skill is relatively the same as in Raleigh going into Orlando, a bit better but overall not too much difference. And yes my ZvZ is still my worst match up >< Orlando comes a knocking and off I go again to another State I've never been too, this time Florida! Thankfully no wonky hurricanes or messy delays just a normal flight.
I had fun when I landed though since it was late at night and the hotel was a good 20-25 minutes from the airport and we didn't have a rental van yet I had to find a way to actually get to the hotel. I've never had to deal with finding transportation on my own yet to/from an airport as usually there's someone able to take me so it was a fun experience waiting around for an hour until the shuttle came and hoping I gave them the correct hotel.
Thirty-ish minutes later I got dropped off at the hotel and strolled on up to where our rooms were. This MLG was probably our largest yet even compared to Anaheim where we had a lot of players as this time we had a lot of players and media people. Myself, Agh, theognis and inka were back again but this time we were joined by SaSe and Destiny whom recently joined. Then on top of that we had Ben (manager), Brad (our newest manager), Alex (caster/media) and Briana (media), and this is just for Starcraft 2. There's also other game divisions and media people but I think this was the largest amount of people we've sent for Starcraft.
Anyway when I got to the rooms most of them were there already and met Destiny for the first time (minus Columbus) and he's exactly as he is online. Sase had a room at the hotel next at the Convention Center so I didn't get too meet him yet. He arrived early so that's why his room was at a different hotel. There were no LAN centers this time so we just chilled and went to bed relatively early.
Next day we went out to eat and killed some time before going to the convention center. We only had the van the team rents for transportation this time although the convention center wasn't too far away, few minutes by car and like a 10ish minute walk. We went there in groups so it was myself, Agh and theo that went together with a few of players from one of the CoD teams. The convention center was really nice since I think it was like a resort so it had the venue where MLG was held and this nature walk area and the hotel.
We went and checked in then made our way in to start warming up. I remember the warm-up quite clearly because me and theo played a bunch of games and it was all on Antiga and that sparked a fiery hate in me for that map. Everyone finally arrived after awhile and the opening ceremony kicked off. A quick note about the venue itself; it was larger than Raleigh but didn't feel as big as Columbus or Anaheim, but there was more people than at Raleigh so that was good. I met Sase sometime at that point and he's a super quiet guy who wears baller hats. The brackets were finally posted and I got a bye first round as did inka, theo, agh and sase. The only player who had to play first round was Destiny against someone I don't remember.
As I've mentioned before the first round takes a long time so we didn't play round 2 until I think 8 or 9pm. My opponent for round 2 was iSTime the protoss player. I wasn't worried but I knew he's a bit of a cheesy protoss who doesn't play very standard. That ended up not mattering when we played as I won fairly easily 2-0. Everyone else won except Destiny who got cheesed out by Artist 0-2.
Round 3 was a ZvZ against a zerg who streams a bunch on teamliquid, Rekatan. I wasn't worried but it is ZvZ and I hoped it avoid it but luckily I won easily again. This time everyone won except Agh who lost against goswser (the guy who beat Polt). Last round of the night I had a ZvT that I won quickly making this my easiest first day ever. Inka and theo both lost. Inka losing to Jinro and theo losing vs Hwangsin. Sase won vs Painuser which is expected because he's super fucking good. Oh and if you've never watched him play it's crazy because he has really low sensitivity and moves his whole arm/body with his mouse, it's kinda funny to watch especially since the tables shake when he's playing.
Everyone was tired so we went back to the hotel and basically went to bed since it was around 3am by that time. As always the scheduling for MLG is whacky. As I didn't lose I had to be there by 10 or 11am on Saturday with warmup starting at 8am. No one else had to be there that early except Sase but he was in the hotel next to the convention center. I decided to just call a taxi and go by myself instead of bothering the van driver. I got there around 9am and warmed-up until 11am which turned out to be when my match was.
I was against GoSuVibe the zerg player and we were on the featured station which is the first time I've been on it. When I sat down and got ready I was again surprised that I wasn't nervous. The games were casted by one of the community casters and off we went into a FUN ZvZ. And by fun I mean not fun. The games actually went really well for me... sorta. I was playing muta style while Vibe went Roach/hydra/infestor. I kept denying his third but like a tard I got too scared of fungals and thought going straight to ultra was a good move which of course wasn't. Had I kept on muta/ling/bane I would've won (maybe, it IS zvz).
Game 2 on shakuras was almost the same except a heart breaking moment where I'm killing his third with my mutas and somehow, someway, were in range of his cliff where a couple infestors were... I didn't have my mutas spread because I had pushed him back to his natural but didn't even think about the cliff so I lost my mutas but sniped the third anyway with lings. After that it was kinda even except I did the same thing and went for ultras and inevitably lost. Not helpful then but now I know what NOT to do when you've gone muta and have a lead -__-;;;
I was bummed by those games since I felt like until the idea of ultras crept into my head I had a really good chance of winning the series despite the fact it was ZvZ. I went and watched Sase play vs hasuobs in a very interesting PvP that Sase ended up winning 2-1. Like an idiot I stayed there the rest of the day at the venue even though I didn't have to play until like 9pm.
Everyone else showed up eventually, Destiny the earliest since he had to play losers round 2. He went through til losers 5 where he lost a ZvZ against Titan. Agh played next since he lost in round 3 of winners and made a good run through until losers 6 where he lost 1-2 vs KawaiiRice. Theognis had some sexy games where he 2-0'd Hawk whom he was worried about then took out Caliber (from kiwiclones) before running into Alive and losing 0-2 in losers round 8.
Not much of a story but Destiny is a god damn ninja, he'd show up and say something and then disappear for a long time. The funny bit is that Alex was like attached to him the entire time despite having a camera and being a media guy for the team, all his videos ended up being about Destiny which was... cute and creepyish. Videos of Destiny getting food, playing the piano and the ultimate random weird video; Destiny doing laundry! Not much of a story but it was funny, especially after the event when all the videos got put up (there's so many of them!).
I saved inka for last because my luck meant we were going to play in my first match since losing to Vibe. It was like 9 pm now and losers round 8. Inka took out trimaster before playing me which I was actually hoping trimaster would win so I didn't have to play inka ><
We had a close series where it came down to the last game and I made the idiotic decision of forgoing my normal muta style because I psyched myself into thinking he'd counter it. It seems I have a weakness of overthinking things against teammates in tounraments and assume they will counter my normal style blindly so I end up playing different or assuming they won't do x or x. Anyway my decision to play a style I wasn't comfortable with ended with a mothership fucking my shit up and me losing 1-2. Same as in Anaheim where I was really sad that I lost but happy it was against a teammate who then moves on. A side note is Ben told me Stephano had been watching me play during the series so that was.. cool-ish, I still assume it was because he played the winner and was waiting
After that inka ended up losing to Stephano. Had he won he would've been in the champ bracket >< Sase on the other hand was beasting it up this tournament, taking out people left and right. His group play went awesomely, going 4-1 in the hardest group and even beating Bomber. Unfortunately due to the way the groups work he got 3rd seed even though he was tied 4-1 with Bomber and Puma. We went back to the hotel but before we did there was some liquor shopping.
Ben bought something I've never heard of before which was whipped cream vodka. We got back to the hotel and he made a drink with it entitled creamsicles. Basically it tasted like those creamsicle icecream things. Ben, Brad and theo drank a fair amount of it, I had some too though it didn't do anything too me but the three of them were buzzinginging or tipsy, not sure which.
Silly story time. During the consumption of this creamsicle drink we had made our way from the hotel and searching about for some food. We eventually found ourselves at Denny's where we decided was a perfect spot for ourselves to nomnom foods. Our waitress seemed quite aware that we had been drinking. Anyway, nachos were brought out and shenanigans followed. Lets just say Ben did naughty things to the nachos and the sour cream that made Brad and theo gag while laughing. The waitress (and other people eating) probably thought we were all on crack. From that point on whenever we went to Denny's the infamous nacho story is always brought up. Hell even when we don't go to Denny's, anywhere with nachos.
So we left ole Denny's after a bit and made our way back to the hotel where there was some crazy shenanigans going on in inka/brad/bri's room. Painuser was there, Ranged, Response, Chance and a few other people and they had all been drinkin' so it was a fun 30minutes of being in that room. After that somehow me and theo went back to our room where Agh had been chilling since he was jetlagged to death from his trip to korea the week before.
Next day was spectator day! Yay! Basically it was just myself and theognis who were there watching. Mostly just a few matches on the main stage and then Sase's match against Boxer. Sase ended up losing which was a pity but Boxer played well which is really awesome to watch. After that we watched Boxer vs Idra on the mainstage while keeping an eye on Puma vs MC at the featured station.
The crowd went nutty every game of Boxer vs Idra and Boxer was soooo close to winning the series but Idra won in the end (queue USA chants). MC and Puma had weird games where Puma could have won but played oddly and ended up losing. At that point we had been waiting for the van driver to take us back to the hotel.
This was the first finals I didn't watch in person (except Dallas) but I didn't mind too much since when you can't find seats it's really just annoying to stand and watch games. Also it was a PvP so wasn't all that interested in it. Agh watched it on his laptop back at the hotel. I didn't watch just listened to the commentary. So now MLG is over! But not the weekend!
The owner, Mark, asked all the Starcraft peeps to meet up back at the convention center in the hotel where Sase and Destiny were staying. There we had like a 20minute talk then did an AMA with Alex. When that was done everyone migrated to the JustinTV (i think) party going on at the barthing near the hotel. It was fun but not much happened and unfortunately I had to leave really early because my flight was at 6am and the shuttle was coming at 3am. It's lamez having to leave early on Sundays when all the partying is going on but oh well.
All in all it was a good event and as I said our largest showing to date of Starcraft peeps. Meeting Destiny and Sase was nice since they were new to the team and Brad is an awesome guy to hang out with. Bri is also fun to be around, though they never used the interviews she and Ben did with us ;_;
For myself, performance wise, I was happy that I did well but sad that I yet again didn't make it to championship bracket. I feel like I'm definitely good enough to do it but there's a lot of luck involved in the MLG open bracket and between that and some poor decisions you can end up not doing well. But that's just how Starcraft is. As a team we did well, three of us a couple rounds shy of Champ bracket and Sase of course beasting it up and getting I think 14th. And so Orlando came to an end and off I went on my early as hell flight back to ole California.
Sigh, it seems Orlando and Providence are far too large of events too contain in one post. I could add Providence too this but it would be way too long for people to bother reading, so part 4 is DEFINITELY the last part. Anyway any questions feel free to ask and I shall answer.
