GSI: An Invitation to War

HonestTea: During Savior vs Mind:
Lecaf coach: "All the Terrans are doing that max rax timing break these days!"
Another coach: "It's Jaedong's fault."

HonestTea: GomTV had set up a very modest stage in the event space at the top floor of an electronics mall. The stage was at front, Korean commentators to stage left, Tasteless' station on the right, and 200 or so chairs for the audience. Tasteless has a two-monitor setup: one shows the broadcast feed complete with subtitles and audience shots, and the other is the straight game feed from the observers.

HoenstTea: After Savior's loss to Flash's SuperVessels, Garimto made a point to walk with Savior as he left the stage. Garimto seemed to be just as puzzled as everyone else. "That was a match you couldn't have lost." In the ensuing conversation, Savior and Garimto talked a lot about Guardians, and about the ideal unit mix of Scourge vs Mutas vs Guardians. It was clear that Garimto and Savior had more than just a passing relationship. In fact, Garimto is much like the Charles Barkley of Kespa: He's a large personality, always chatting with coaches, players, production staff, make-up artists... he seems to know everybody. During one of the commercial breaks, he even addressed the crowd, chatting them up and keeping them occupied until the next match.

HonestTea: Backstage, there was a runner who was responsible for, among other things, making sure the next player's computer was ready and the proper mouse/keyboard drivers were installed. She was also very cute, much cuter than the average backstage runner.

HonestTea: All the players complained about the construction glue that was used to build the player booths. Apparently the fumes were real strong. Savior in particular complained about headaches.

HonestTea: To the right of the stage, behind that giant wall that Tasteless sits in front of, was the GomTV technical crew. There was a bank of 10 or so computers, all devoted to a Gom-specific task. Some were encoding, others were streaming the broadcast, some were checking the stream, some were in contact with technical teams at Gom HQ, and there was also a team that was checking the traffic numbers. One of the computers was devoted to checking the gsi.gomtv.com English forums, constantly monitoring what you all had to say. Any time someone caught a technical problem, the crew would quickly try to flag it down and make the necessary adjustment. Needless to say, it was a very busy and hectic area.

HonestTea: Overall, the GSI had this duct-tape and paper-clip feel, because they were still a much less experienced operation than OGN or MBCgame, which do this every day. There were a lot of wrinkles that need to be addressed for the GSI to step up and be considered a major tournament. A lot of small things that might not be apparent, such as the construction glue fumes in the player's booth, or the horrible stage lighting, were quite off and problematic. There are also issues with the tournament format and map selection that must be re-thought for future tournaments. Also, having the extra issue of foreign broadcasting, something that OGN and MBC don't have to deal with, brought up all sorts of translation issues. Hopefully though GSI is encouraged by the viewership (they seemed to be quite happy with the early numbers) and they can learn from their mistakes for any of their upcoming plans.

Fun random moments:
The sponsor's PR team (LG Electronics, promoting their laptop line) loudly cursed when they saw the screen and found that their logo wasn't as visible as they thought it would be. At the same time, the make up people were bitching that the lighting made the players look bad.

The Gretech CEO was there observing the proceedings. You might know him because he's the guy who always hands out the top prize in the GomTV MSL finals. He knew all his staff and was pretty engaged and hands on about the whole operation. Classy guy.

Things Overheard in the Player's Room, Game Day 1:

One thing about the player's room: everybody knows everybody. The players seem to know each other, but they mostly acted respectfully distant because they were playing each other. On the other hand, all the coaches were talkative and jovial, chatting up other coaches and players alike. There is a clear sense of brotherhood within the e-sports community. For example, when Anytime entered the room, all the coaches congratulated him for Lecaf's Proleague win. Some of them asked him about his strategy during the win over Stork.

Savior was pretty sullen after his loss to Flash. He sat alone in the back of the player's room and the coaches left him alone.

When Anytime lost his first carrier to Flash's goliaths, Lecaf's coach let out a loud groan that filled the whole backstage area.

After his two wins, Flash was in good spirits, although he also complained about the glue smell in the booths.

How many times have fans watched a match and thought, "gee I would love to know why that player used that strategy." Well after Anytime vs Mind, Anytime was talking with some of the coaches.
Anytime: "I was going to go sneaky 3-gate after the gas rush, but the cheese rush came down. I planted a cannon and blocked it but it left me so behind."
Coach: "Mind was going to 1-fact CC, and he only went cheese because of your gas rush."

The most talkative people in the player's room were the coaches, no contest. While the players might feel timid or reluctant to talk too much, the coaches would offer their amusing and often sarcastic commentary through each match. Honestly, at times they sounded similar to the TeamLiquid peanut gallery. Examples from Anytime vs Mind:

When Mind's marines went for the cheese kill, even after seeing Anytime's cannon: "Are you joking?"
When Anytime countered with goons, making it to Mind's base: "He can't stop that." (Mind indeed defends) "Well, that's the bonjwa."
When Mind's SCV's killed Anytime's dragoons in the Terran base: "SCV's are the scariest..."
After all the cheese, the game goes into midgame... Coach 1 says to Coach 2 "maybe he should use your strategy. 2-gate 5-nex"
When Mind scouts that Anytime's natural expansion is still only warping: "He probably felt it. He's thinking, 'Oh? I have the advantage'" This was followed by appreciative murmurs when Mind immediately brought his troops down and sieged the nat.

When Anytime came into the player's room after two straight losses, one of the coaches asked him if he was still feeling the "effects" from celebrating Lecaf's championship. Anytime replied that he didn't drink the night before.

Halfway through the group stage matches, Lee Seung-won (MSL commentator, the one with the glasses and intellectual voice - probably the smartest commentator in the game) came with commentator-in-training Yooi. The first thing they did was congratulate Anytime on the Proleague win.

CJ's coach showed up later. Somebody asked him who would MC his upcoming wedding. The coach said, without missing a beat, "Seung-won." This prompted LSW to adlib his wedding MC routine: "I'll talk about the matchups, and of course the statistics bride and groom. I can talk about their previous records against other opponents and also the map statistics."

Some point during Savior vs Mind, the Lecaf coach came in and teased Anytime pretty bad for his losses.

The best line of the entire night:
The Flash vs Savior game draws to an end. Anytime vs Savior is up next.
Lecaf Coach to Anytime: "Let's go."
Anytime: (deadpan) "but I have to play another game."
Lecaf Coach: "...."

This cracked up the whole room. LSW added, "Wow, look at that teamwork."

As Mind was losing to Flash, LSW was not too excited about it: "That's our current champion (MSL). Yesterday JangBi lost (at the Proleague Grand Finals). JangBi's our semifinalist."

The last thing that anybody wanted, coaches, players, and staff included, was rematches. Of course, that is exactly what they got. The players in particular were not very happy about having to inhale more glue fumes.

As Yooi and LSW were watching Flash vs Mind, they had nothing but good things to say about Flash.
Yooi: "He reminds me of an evolutionary Hwasin."
LSW: "Yeah he's the same type of speedy Terran, always in a hurry."