EPTI went home in a guesthouse that mOOnGLaDe and the VT guys recommended to me in Hongdae, before going to the GOM house. It's a pretty animated area where we would usually go out with Tastosis and the other foreigners who are or have been in Korea, and a decent PC bang was 5min walk away from there.
However it was 30min subway ride away from the GSL studio and the GOM house, which was a bit annoying because starting the next day, the World Championship would kick off.
March 28th : GSL World Championship opening
It has been a few days since the players who qualified for the World Championship arrived in the GOM house. When I first moved in, GOM told me that I would have to leave because of that, so I knew I wouldn't be able to stay too long, which was really sad because now that lot of very good players would be living in the house and all the computers have been delivered, the practice environnement would be so much better.
That day I went to practice in the morning in the closeby PC bang, got lunch, and stopped by the GOM house. Everyone was already gathered for the Korea vs World allstars team match scheduled to be played tonight :
mOOnGLaDe, DIMAGA, 
White-Ra, TT1, Sen, MorroW, 
Jinro and HuK. I said hi to everyone, and it was the first I would meet those who weren't already in Korea before. They were talking about tonight's match when TT1 asked about me in French, which surprised me as I didn’t know he was French speaking Canadian, and didn’t think those guys would know who I was. We talked a bit in French before I got a seat to sit down with everyone and listen to the conversation, which ended up being about the code A qualifiers from yesterday and how bad it has been for foreigners who participated... Not gonna lie, it brought back that really bitter taste my defeat against YuGiOh had, and I was thinking about the games again when HuK said to me :
"Hey you made it the farthest of all foreigners actually, you were the close to qualify".
"Yeah it's true, was close", added Jinro, nodding.
To which I answered, looking down, shaking my head :
"Yeah... but at the end of the day, it just doesn't matter if you don't win it all"
I probably had this look on my face that I often have when I'm both ashamed and mad about something, clenching my teeth, wishing I wouldn't have fucked up the way I did and went all the way through. I remember people telling me I shouldn't feel bad about it since I did well comparatively, but I didn't care at all, the goal was to qualify, nothing else.
I told them briefly about who knocked me out and how, and kept talking for a bit before heading out to the GSL Studio with everyone.
Once at the studio, players got their makeup and hair done before sitting on the bench with Artosis while MorroW was setting up, as he was going first against
anypro.Foreigners vs Korea
I was sitting in the audience with DoA and we would do our own little commentary while watching the games. MorroW lost but then Sen was sent to even out the score, and then wipe the floor with
MarineKing which was a big surprise. If you were to ask Korean Zergs which Terran they would rather not play, it would be MarineKing ; they were scared of him.Sen would eventually lose afterwards against
San's carriers in a very close game on Metalopolis. Since the flames during the event intro didn't quite damage him, it was time for his teammate TT1 to avenge Sen and crush San in a PvP using a build I saw him and White-Ra refine at the GOM house, that Koreans didn't know about. They were calling it anti 4-gate build, most commonly known nowadays as the 3 Stalker rush.
Next, Cella sent out
NaDa on crossfire. When I saw how they both opened I was pretty confident in TT1's chances to win it. I practiced with him a bit couple days before and I tried to mix in cloak banshee builds that NaDa used for that game, and he was always really well prepared for it. As expected, he took out NaDa too which concluded a day when Fnatic players got the job done.
Now my memory is extremely vague about what we did afterwards, but I think HuK and Jinro went back to the oGs house while the rest of us (except Tastosis who went home too) went to get some Korean barbecue for dinner before going back to the GOM house, where Kelly did interviews with the players while I went back to my guesthouse.
Next day I stopped by the GOM house before going to the studio again, and they were talking today's strategy. Their biggest worry was
MC ; he was expected to be sent out next against TT1, and if they could stop him from killing too many they would be in very good spot, if not it would be extremely difficult. Everyone knew what MC was going to do against TT1 and his build was good against it, so he had a good chance .. MC did indeed 4gate and won in the same fashion he was winning almost all his PvPs at the time.. so it was time to use the MC sniper they prepared to limit the damage he would do : White-Ra.
Now it was a very important game ; even though they still had mOOnGLaDe prepared to play MC, they weren't really confident using a zerg against him so White-Ra had to win .. and as you all know, even against the PvP god MC was at the time, he did not disappoint :
+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUb40awTL0k
He got the job done and with style, we had chills watching this at the studio and see White-Ra walk out of the booth giving MC a taste of his own medicine.
It was looking very good for the World Allstars, but July had none of that ; out of nowhere he shows that he too was a big threat by killing 4 players, which left only DIMAGA to bring it back from a score of 4-6 against July, Nestea and MVP ... I don't think many people thought he could pull that off.
But he managed to almost do it by taking it to the very last set after having to regame against MVP because of a connection problem in an epic game. It was a very close game but he was slowly losing it when the disconnect happened, so that worked in their favor.
Unfortunately he got NvZ'd in the last set, Korea won 7-6 in what was a very exciting series.
After the show was over we went back again at the GOM house after getting dinner, where Sen and MorroW helped DIMAGA prepare his Ro16 revenge match against Nestea the next day. MorroW showed him the build he would use on Xel'Naga, which auto-wins against what Nestea was often doing ZvZ, 15hatch. I couldn't stay much longer tho, I had to leave to catch the subway and get back home, so I wasn't aware of the rest of his preparation for that match.
When I met them the next day, we went to get lunch in some pizza place close to the studio with DIMAGA, White-Ra and MorroW. I asked DIMAGA how he was feeling about his upcoming match against Nestea. He seemed pretty confident he was going to beat Nestea, so I was guessing they prepared really well.
We sat down in the audience to watch HuK play his games against MVP where he lost 1-2 before White-Ra and DIMAGA had to start getting ready for theirs, and little did I know that I would witness history in the making that evening.
Now I know some may disagree, but knowing the preparation behind the series and what the plan is exactly, it makes it all the more exciting to watch as you see those plans unfold, as expected or not.
I knew how he was going to play the first set and what would be bad for DIMAGA, so once we saw the signs of Nestea going hatch first we were already fist pumping knowing that it would be a certain win. DIMAGA was up 1-0 without much effort and kept his promise to honor MorroW if he won with a "I love you MorroW" on camera ; however Nestea tied up on Metalopolis in a pretty standard NvZ.
For the last set on Terminus they had prepared a very precise game plan, and while we were watching MorroW would tell me what DIMAGA was going to do, why and how what would happen ingame was very good for DIMAGA. The game played out EXACTLY the way it was planned from start to finish, where DIMAGA would fake agression to force units or cover earlier expands while getting faster upgrades to end the game with a big timing taking advantage of those.
DIMAGA taking his hands off the keyboard the moment his attack was launched to scream and fist pump at the camera made it even more exciting to watch Nestea's ZvZ reign of terror put to an end.
Korean casters and the audience were going crazy when DIMAGA got out of his booth, came to highfive us and the audience with that usual big happy smile on his face.
After getting through a bunch of pictures and autographs for the Korean fans who swarmed him, we waited for him to get done with his winner interview in the press room. When he got out, the StarTale coach approached him to know if he would like to stay a bit more in Korea as he really wanted DIMAGA to join them and was ready to offer a lot for this to happen, but DIMAGA didn't want to stay in Korea at the moment and was satisfied with mTw, so he declined without hesitating a moment.
John was there translating for the coach, so when they were done he told him about how they were getting a lot of messages from Korean, especially females, who became big fans of him and wanted to see more from DIMAGA ; GOM was sad he would not stay after the World Championship.
After he took some more pictures with Korean fans and whatnot, we went back to the GOM house meet the others before getting barbecue to celebrate that amazing win.
The next day, rest of the players had their matches. I don't know how the others prepared, but Sen got lot of practice in with MVP, and he was kicking ass ; he was up against MVP so it was looking pretty good for him.
Unfortunately it didn't go as well vs MKP and he got 2-0'd, which was the story of the day for the other foreigners too. MorroW's games weren't as one sided as they looked tho, outcome was decided on very tiny things every time as he was explaining to us :
+ Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/208112_10150218185751745_512836744_8774669_5549925_n.jpg)
After this day, all foreigner were out except TT1 and DIMAGA who was playing the next day. When we got back from the studio, pretty much everyone helped DIMAGA prepare for his games against san :
+ Show Spoiler +
In particular MorroW showed a really cool all-in against nexus first on Tal'darim where he goes fast lair to get overlord speed and drops and do a huge speedlings drop before protoss can have enough units to defend. Sen improved it by adding in banelings with speed without changing the timing much, so it made much stronger.
In the end DIMAGA couldn't pull it off and only won Tal'darim with that ling/baneling drop.
In the meantime, TT1 was getting ready for his match against MarineKing the next day. He played a lot of practice games with Bomber and was having a pretty good win rate against him so he was confident in his chances to move on to the Ro4.
On said day, TorcH had to get to the venue in the morning so he wanted to bring TT1 with him, but he wanted to get some sleep as he was still sick. I was thinking about whether I was going or not so it made my decision easier, I was gonna bring TT1 with me later so he could get enough sleep.
Around noon, we were heading to Lotte World.
Starcraft II matches.. in an amusement park ? In Korea maybe
Yes, Lotte World is a Korean indoor amusement park, and that was where the 2 next series of the Ro8 were being played :
![[image loading]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X_e2uwT6wPw/Tkj_7UVTw6I/AAAAAAAAAGs/e_hICAdYPYI/s1600/lotte_world_from_high_up.jpg)
A scene with booths were set up in the center with seats for the crowd, as well as a bunch of computers with 3D screens (LG cinema 3D was sponsoring the WC) where people could play against Korean pros, and other stands to check out the 3D screens.
When we got there we went to take our badges so we could get in and out of the area freely, then went to get lunch in a closeby japanese place once we made sure TT1 had time. We ran into Jaeho Lee and Lee Hyun Joo (female Korean caster) who were looking for TT1 to get his makeup done and have him setup in his booth to make sure everything is ok, so we left him there and went to get our 3D glasses check what was going on with the LG screens and why other teams were here too.
A few Korean teams were here, namely fOu and oGs (Jinro was here too), to play with people coming over and try the 3D screens. We tried the screens ourselves, and well, it looked cool (especially reapers jumping up and down cliffs), but personnally I can't wear glasses and it hurt my eyes a bit to watch for an extended period of time .. so I could only imagine how hard it would be to play like this.
We ran into Artosis and Tasteless before sitting in the audience to watch TT1 play after the opening ceremony where they promote stuff was done. He was still looking quite sick and ended up losing the series but not without taking a map off MKP.
Obviously he was really bummed but as he was telling us after coming back to watch MC vs San with us, it was really unconfortable to play ; he was still sick and apparently the booth was shaking a bit because the speakers were too close, on top of the desk/chair height problem I was talking about in the previous GSL qualifiers.
After MC rolled over San, we talked some time with Artosis and Tasteless before going back to the GOM house with TT1 ; TorcH had stuff to do so he didn't come with us.
The GOM house during the World Championships
All foreigners were out now, so for the rest of their stay in Korea they would practice and make as much out of their trip to Korea.
For the first part of those 2-3 weeks I was mostly playing close to my guesthouse, but as time passes I would spend more and more time at the GOM house practising and sometimes staying over.
I remember when Sen lost to MarineKing's mech on Crevasse, MorroW was saying getting roaches was a mistake and getting only muta/ling and expanding a ton with spines was the way to go, and I strongly disagreed because you could just get only Thors and have no chance at losing. He thought magic boxing would be enough even against mass Thors... so we decided to settle this in a Bo3.
After I win the first map very easily on Xel'naga he asked to play another one as Xel'naga was too hard, if not impossible ZvT with this style, so we played Metalopolis for the rest of the series.
First time was close air and I didn't have my Thors in position when mutas were out, so I lost too many SCVs and tried to all-in shortly after because I felt too far behind and it didn't work.
Second time on Metal was cross position but I had Thors in position, took little damage and the game went as expected even without the big economic damage I did on game 1, moved out with 2/2 upgrades, at which point he engaged me and gg'd after laughing pretty hard at how ridiculously fast his army died.
There was nothing to be proud of to win goin Thor/hellion against mutas, but at least I made my point !
I must say the GOM house was much more fun and productive during those days, even if I was the only Terran in there .. at least MorroW was half Terran. I could watch them play against Terrans and talk about the game with them ; some would come watch me play and point some things here and there.
Lot of funny stuff happened too (Sen was always part of it, go figure) like when DIMAGA played a split map PvZ on Metalopolis and had no idea how to win, then Sen just goes "you chobo, I show you", takes DIMAGA's spot and wins the game in the next 3 minutes :D
There was also that time when everyone awake was taking turns on stealing HuK's ladder points. First White-Ra plays him, laughing about having LiquidHuK vs LiquidHuK (he was using his other account) and wins.
Then TT1 hits him right after White-Ra is done with him, and wins also pretty fast (it was the 4gate vs 4gate era).
And to finish off, as soon as HuK loses against TT1 he hits Sen too who was offracing protoss.. and again HuK loses. We were sitting there watching Sen win laughing our asses off, with Sen going "you see ?? you see ?? Protoss easy !!" while playing.
We were getting those a LOT in the house, White-Ra and Sen kept going "You see you see ?? zerg/mutas/protoss/sentries imba" at each other everytime they win offracing or lose a game and calling the other a chobo, which means noob in Korean for those who don't know.
As you would expect, TT1 was always there to QQ about mutas, and obviously for Sen it's just because he was bad that he was getting smashed by mutas all the time, so a bet came up.. Sen was calling him GG1 because whenever he saw mutas he would just GG, so they would play a bo3 or bo5, and if TT1 lost he would have to rename to GG1. We all know the result, TT1 lost and from this time on, even though he never really renamed, for everyone he was now GG1.
That was pretty much how days looked like at the GOM house at this time, lot of Starcraft, lot of joking around, and lots of random "FA MAN" from Sen when he was losing to forcefields.
Oh yeah, we also got to "meet" White-Ra's wife via skype call, can't remember when was it exactly tho. And yeah, she's as pretty as White-Ra is awesome.
World Allstars vs Incredible Miracle
Few days before the WC finals, CSN decided to organize a Bo15 showmatch between the World Allstars and Team IM. It took a bit of time for IM to be ready in time so they did some interviews with the players as well as me. TT1 was trolling as usual and doing stupid stuff behind my back while they interview me, so when it was his turn I went to get my revenge playing with his hair and whatnot while he was getting interviewed.
DoA and Kelly were casting it and we were obsing the games making our own commentary and cheering for the player who was sent out to play in another room so he couldn't hear us or the casters, as well as decide what to do next and in the series overall. Every time someone won a game we would cheer and clap, especially after MorroW 3-kills, who made up for his not so good performance by killing
YoDa, dreamertt and Seed. He finally got stopped by YoungHwa, who went on a 3-kill spree. Now not everyone was in the house, as HuK and Jinro were at the oGs house, so they were thinking about sending me since they couldn't get Jinro earlier, but they eventually found him and he was sent out to stop Younghwa in an epic 50min game involving PFs, BCs, nukes, Mothership, mass recalls, and most importantly showed that Younghwa, no matter what, always sticks to his PvT style : never attack.
To be honest this game gave us some good laughs, it kept going from Jinro is gonna win now, to Jinro is gonna lose now, to nobody is gonna win, just because they seemed to have some secret agreement on never killing each other.
But Jinro was not done, after this he went on to play another crazy game against
Junwi, also known as IMJunwiPirme (no it's not a typo... at least not mine), on Scrap Station that went all over the place for 35min.He brought the score to 7-6 in favor of Allstars, but IM sent out
Happy who stopped Jinro and finished the job against DIMAGA.That same day, TorcH tells everyone their presence is going to be required at the Finals.
World Championship Finals
The finals were going to be held at Seoul Children's Park ; yes another park, but outdoor.
Now John wanted everyone to come rather early, and on that day lot of people slept really late and couldn't or had lot of trouble waking up ; I remember DIMAGA going to sleep in early morning that day, and we were supposed to be at the park by 2 or 3 pm. Again White-Ra, as usual, doesn't take orders from anyone and was like "no I don't want to go, I want sleep more. I can come later it's no problem" while TorcH kept insisting on the fact they HAD to be there. If you ask him, White-Ra was a pain to deal with because you could never have him both where you wanted him to be and at the right time. White-Ra just doesn't give a shit, he's just enjoying himself and that's what makes him awesome.
I took them on a subway ride to that park ; I never went to this place before but Seoul's subway works exactly the same as in Paris and I had been there for a while anyway, so there was no risk. However I still managed to take the wrong direction when we had to change line... And the worst part was that we had to check-out of the subway to change direction in this station (yes, retarded). So well, I decided we would do exactly what we're allowed to as foreigners in here : whatever we want.
They have those little emergency doors at the ticket gates that you sometimes can just open and get in or out. Obviously it's there for say, people in wheelchairs and whatnot, but as we already got our tickets and couldn't be arsed check-out and get new ones (which wouldn't be fair anyway), we got out thanks to this and got in at the other side. It was pretty funny that the guys at the counter were looking at us but didn't give a shit.
When we arrived there we were already bit late, but as usual you can't control the Ra. He was looking around checking out the small shops on the way and getting some snacks and drinks.
We had to walk a bit to get to the open amphitheatre where the show was held, when a group of Korean girls walked by, waving at us and shouting "Hi !! Handsome !!" with the usual giggles that follow up.
Tons of people were in the park, I believe it was a weekend so it was not a complete surprise when we saw this many people here for the finals :
+ Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](http://img.gomtv.net/imgdata/27591.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.gomtv.net/imgdata/27599.jpg)
We were talking with IM guys when the GOMtv staff came to show us our seats ; they were in the front next to IM and Prime. We still didn't get lunch so they also brought us some ricerolls to survive until the end of the show which actually saved our lives along with White-Ra's snacks.
They were often getting shots of us in the audience, and some Korean fans came to ask for autographs in between games. I'm not gonna lie, I was caught offguard when they also came to ask for mine, but I think they did because I was with everyone. As I was signing they went "wooo !" in a very typically korean fashion because of the way I did it, and they seemed happy about it ; it was my first time signing an autograph as a Starcraft player.
Once
MVP was done with his usual MarineKing molesting, GOMtv took some pictures of the World Allstars team before we leave to finally get some barbecue with Jaeho Lee, snowbird, zatic and some other people. Not everyone came tho, as DIMAGA for example was very tired and wanted to go home.
TorcH really wanted to go watch the BW proleague finals that night, if I recall correctly SKT was playing KT, so while we were waiting for our meat, we asked them to put OGN on TV so we can start watching from there. Having barbecue and soju while watching proleague finals : Korea in a nutshell.
After we were done TorcH still wanted to go watch the end of the finals live, but most of us were too tired for this, so he just went with MorroW while most of us went back to the GOM house to get some sleep.
World Allstars last day in Korea
It was the last couple days in Korea for the World Allstars, so for the next night Tasteless wanted to come over to get barbecue and hang out a bit before everyone leaves.
We went to some awesome barbecue place close to the GOM house and stayed for a while. Nick was catching up with everyone and called Hwanni to tell him to come too, but he couldn't make it as he lives pretty far from where we were and it was late, so he just passed the phone to White-Ra so they could talk for a bit.
Funny thing about Seoul is that almost every night you have drunk people wandering around everywhere in the streets - but also barbecues. Some very drunk Korean guy in his mid 30s or maybe early 40s came at our table because well, he was completely drunk and felt like being friendly with that bunch of foreigners, asking what we were doing here and whatnot. At least that's what I initially thought, but in fact he knew about Starcraft (no surprise here), but more importantly he knew about Tasteless and was a fan. He was pretty nice guy and stayed to chat with us for a while before deciding it was time to go home.
Now, trying to stay sober when going out with Nick is hard enough, but when you add in White-Ra shit just gets out of control and there is no way out. We went back to the GOM house after this and White-Ra thought it was appropriate time now after the dozens bottles of soju consumed at the barbecue to drink his 1 or 2 special vodka he brought with him from Ukraine, which he even brought caviar to eat with. Problem is that I usually don't drink because when you compete, every little bit counts, and not drinking is one of those bits, but when it's White-Ra bringing vodka from his country with caviar and insists on you drinking, you just can't say no, especially on such an occasion.
We stayed up in the GOM house chatting and teasing, Tasteless looking back at all those memories from broodwar, from how he could never win against Sen and how awesome White-Ra's win against BoxeR was, so forth and so on. They seemed really happy to catch up with each other.
That lasted until early morning, when Tasteless decided it was time to go home now that subway was running again, but not before his usual goodbye hugs.
Everyone went to sleep for the last time in the GOM house.
Later that day, they all had to catch their flights at approximately the same time. MorroW was still sleeping when the others were getting ready to go a bit earlier ; before finishing packing we took a last picture with everyone except MorroW, still sleeping :
![[image loading]](http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/215912_217194498296413_100000175942043_1057668_2861169_n.jpg)
Later on, MorroW finally woke up, got ready to go and we exchanged contacts before TorcH took them to the airport
To be honest I was feeling a bit bummed after everyone left, the atmosphere and the efficiency of the GOM house was nothing comparable with what it was before, it was so much more fun and it felt like it was a team working together to become better players, which is exactly what you need.
When you experience something like this you realize how ridiculous the Korean team's advantage is when it comes to practice and improvement. But it only had to do with the fact they had that kind of environnement, and if foreigners want to keep up with how fast Koreans can improve, things like what was the GOM house during the World Championship have to happen more in the foreign scene. It is just way too big of a difference in terms of practice efficiency.
The World Championships were over, but they were awesome, I met awesome people, learnt some more about the game and had a ton of fun, probably one of the highlights of my time in Korea... which was far from being over.
John came to talk to me a couple days earlier ; GOM have been impressed by my performance at the last qualifiers and thought I had a pretty good chance at qualifying for code A.
This is why later on after everyone left, I went to my guesthouse in Hongdae to bring my stuff back at the GOM house and get ready to win the next qualifier.
