EPT
All possible misreadings are due to my rushed and bad translation.
The captain of PGR btw is Hangzri, a well established member of the Korean sc community and a good guy all around.
----
It would not be far from the truth to say I am writing this diary because of Midian.
Thx, Midian
1. Beginning
At first I didn't even know what this tourney was...
I learned little by little by talking with Brett Dixon via MSN. Although I agreed to participate... I was at a loss so I began to watch replays of foreign players (there has been many changes).
I heard that FF and YG would participate, and I wanted to contact them. Pocari, the FF captain, was not easy to reach... but the captain of YG, kkong[yg], searched me out instead. Our meeting was not for underhanded reasons... but to analyze players together and prepare for the draft.
We discussed having to select Korean players... who is under and overrated... who is what kind of play style... the maps are all zerg maps... and through such honest (?) discussion we began to feel increasing interest in this tournament.
2. Draft
The day of the draft.
Because I had been away from the scene for a long time, I received alot of help from kkong. Because the tourney as a whole progressed so suddenly, I opened up Excel during the draft, hurriedly writing things down and struggling to keep up with understanding the English.
8 teams, PGR is the 5th seed, YG is the 7th seed, 8th is FF.
We were completely screwed... the plans to pick the best players with YGClan was ruined, and players we had targetted (Kosiro, Tempest being key cases... but Kosiro...) were taken ahead of us.
However!!
I never imagined that Nal_keke, who I was planning on taking even if I had the first pick, would still be on the board!!
I quickly picked keke, then Polaris... then siz)o.ov... and later our favorite mascot (?) Midian.
Afterwards there weren't many players I was familiar with so with the advice of others I barely finished the draft. Of course I had heard of Kaaz before but did not know him very well.
I felt very gratified looking at our team's lineup, especially upon hearing that many foreign communities believed that we had drafted the best. ^^
kkong and I analyzed the teams, and judged that FF was the weakest team among the korean sites, having picked tosses despite zerg maps (at least in the progaming world)... as well as the female gamer Active. (I felt bad, but eventually I told Pocari as well, haha) We also judged that TL and Reps were our toughest competition.
And... most importantly, we hoped that YG and PGR would end up in separate divisons.
3. Meet the Players
While Blizzard provided email and msn information, etc., because of the WCG season, and because of time differences, it was immensely difficult to meet our players.
The first player I met was the aforementioned Midian. Afterwards I met Kaaz, Fayth, and Idra, and I barely contacted Polaris and keke two days before the first match. Siz)o.ov I finally contacted the day of the match.
What to do after meeting players? Obviously to judge their skill level. I'm not sure what other communities did, but YG and PGR really put great attention to our players. We squeezed time together to bring players online, get the best practice partners (again I received kkong's endless help in this. I promised to buy a meal. Haha) to give them the best possible practice.
When I drafted, I thought that in general foreign users would not be a match for Korean users, but when I saw Midian's play, I was in for a shock. In other words...
It was a "conceptual flipping"
This is not a term to be applied lightly, but... despite a low APM, and sometimes sloppy micro, this player has drone production like Oversky, has the ability to manage a long-term game, and has a knack for unit placement, timing, tech, and upgrades.
In truth, YG also wanted Midian, but they went with another player and gave us Midian, and now they are very envious (of course YG is still a very strong team).
Midian's opponent Fayth also showed a good game by patiently dealing with a bad early disadvantage, and I was also very satisfied watching Kaaz's high level of play.
But I was most satisfied by... their attitude.
I chatted regularly in 2001, 2002, and 2003 with foreign gamers, and was often turned off by their "I'm the best" attitude. (of course Korean gamers are the same way... if there's a difference at all Korean gamers still have an idea of their place) So I was afraid that I would have a hard time getting an idea of their skill level if their attitude was "I'm the best" without knowing their limitations. Furthermore, there were various rumours that players think team captains are idiots, so I was quite worried.
However, Midian answered whatever question I had, chatting in Korean at times, and even agreed to an interview. He helped me to meet other gamers, and became a good friend who would contact me by MSN whenever new developments occurred.
In addition, he as well as Kaaz and Idra helped in analyzing other foreign gamers, helping with setting lineups and other strategic decisions.
Furthermore, he was always positive about practicing, and everytime a game was finished he was always modest about his skills, accepting criticism of what he had done in the game. (Modesty... this is a rare commodity among foreign gosus)
Of course, this was all because of the players' characters and not my own ;; I was simply thankful.
In this way, I hoped to increase their confidence and prepared for week one.
)
I'm so glad to be in such an event like this although i was busy with new semester. 
