DaMuSiCFiEnD
04-13-2011, 10:40 PM
This is my first blog that I have ever posted written up based on an MLG Event.. To begin this blog I would first like to thank the community for being around and keeping me interested with MLG for as long as I have been involved with TLN. I will now begin the blog and I will say it’s quite long with a lot of bad luck on my part lol.
Pre-Dallas
Around a month or so before the MLG Dallas event, my team Defy the Oddz (DtO) decided that we would not be attending Dallas, but just merely going as spectators. The main reason for this was that out of 4 members that went to MLG Dallas 2010: Reach exhibition only 2 actually stated that we would be going, mostly due to cash issues.
So with that being said I decided that I would still be interested in playing with the first event being in Dallas and living literally 15 minutes away from the Convention Center. With that decision being made, I began looking for a team of 3 that needed 1more. My search lasted for about a week with only 1 serious team offering me a spot. I played with them for about a day, and we did quite great for just linking up as a team. As the night continued, I was able to clearly notice that it would not work out. For once my teammates were mostly under the age of 18. They would act very immature towards each other when anything would go wrong. In one particular game of Sanctuary Flag, the game started off by 2 of them betraying each other for the sniper and one being booted. After that one quit out since he saw no chance of winning. While the third member was a great guy, he was lagging terribly throughout the game.
After the chaos of teaming with those guys, it began to hit me that I might not be playing at the event and would just be a spectator. Then my issues were finally resolved when I got a response from someone in the community stating that they needed 1 more for their team after he had bought his team pass. That same day I had the chance to finally play with the guy. We played literally for about 2 hours with just us two playing. He had stated that his teammates would get on later due to a time difference. After it began to be late at night, he told he had just received a message from his teammates that they would no longer wanting to play and wanted to know if I still wanted to team. This was just another blow to my chances and I began to doubt that playing would never happen. I told him to give me a day and I would get back to him.
The next day, I began talking to one of my other teammates stating that I had found another player who wanted to play but we were in need of two more players. He told me that he would join, but that left us with just one more person to find. We contacted one of our teammates that we played with in the 2009 event and he said sure. So with the team all being set we were finally able to play as a team for a couple of days. The first day it took us a while to adjust to our different play styles but eventually worked out all the kinks. Our team shot was nowhere were we need it to be, but it was working online at the moment so we knew we were doing something right. Along with the team shot, our call outs were going into place and each of us knew exactly what we needed to do in each game and knew our position and never argued about power weapons as with my previous team.
After having a successful day of practice, the following day our teammate told me that there was a dilemma that had just occurred. His teammates had decided that they wanted to team back up and wanted to know if I would drop the last two players we acquired for them, I told him that I didn’t feel good about that. For me since I knew those players personally I didn’t want to make any shady decisions without letting them know. So when I finally told him about it later on during the day, he had told that there was good news and bad news. His teammates had again broken up and he decided on not teaming up with them anymore. The problem that arose was that one of his local players wanted to play at Dallas. We decided together as team to give him an incident that since we had already joined as a team that he could go as our coach and he agreed with that decision and no shady decision making happened. With only a few weeks, left before Dallas was around the corner, we were starting to have problems. Our teammate was never on and never notified us exactly what happened to him. So after thinking that we were in the clear, this was again another blow to my chances since he had been the player with the team pass.
With exactly two weeks left before the event, I notified my teammates and asked them if they were still interested in playing and if so I would try to look for a team pass online if it were available. Fortunate for myself I was able to find a pass online and purchased and again a search for fourth happened. While we spent time looking for a fourth we still played as a team of 3 on matchmaking and did quite for ourselves. With less than a week to go before the roster lock, I was fortunate to find our coach from last event to join us and one of our players from last year to be a coach. Right after getting the team situated we finally began to practice as a team online and it was going great so we felt pretty confident about going to the event. The day before the event, instead of getting one last day of practice, only one of my teammates and I were online.
Dallas - Friday
The time of the event had finally arrived and I was more than excited about playing. We had decided to all meet up at around 2 so that we could get some decent practice. While it seemed as a great plan at first, it did not go as followed. With traffic and other incidents that occurred we all made it about half an hour before the event started. When all 5 of us had finally signed and checked our time that we were going to play another problem occurred. Our coach and one of our players had car pooled together and were kind of on a schedule, our coach was having his birthday party that day and our coach had to go back to work at around 7. We didn’t think that this would be a problem since they had stated that we would be playing at exactly 5:30. But after that they kept prolonging the time from 5:30 until 6:45 and they felt bad but had to leave to take care of some of their prior engagements.
So basically with under an hour before we would play or forfeit, I began calling locals that lived in Dallas and asked if they were willing to sub in for our 4th until Saturday. With no luck we began to give up and were headed out the door when luck was on our side, I was able to find a local from my school to sub in and we were ready to go. He was more than happy to help us and decided to test our luck to see how many games we could be able to win. Time had finally come and they called us to our station, while waiting for our team to arrive at our station and I look around and see that to the station next to us is team “Watch N Learn”. I found a couple of seconds and introduced myself to Taco & Shelly and wished them luck in their series.
To describe how our series went in one word would have to be confusing. We were easily defeated 2-0, which came to no surprise. What didn’t help our cause in the series was most notably that we had never played together and never practice once during the warm up times. After the series we accepted the loss and went to go and watch Taco’s team play as their series was no over. While watching I had the opportunity to meet Forefront and was very impressed as to how nice he was. After seeing one game we decided to call it a night and head home. But to add more bad luck to the night, our random 4th had informed us that he would be heading out of town the next day and could not play with us and felt bad. With time being short, we contacted another local at around 12 in the morning and he accepted the spot and would meet us the next day to play.
Dallas - Saturday
With another day for the event, we were again ready to just play to see exactly how the event would turn out. Again once we showed up late due to oversleeping and had only a short time spot to try and find some practice games. We began walking around the warm up station looking for an open spot with a team that would want to scrim shortly before the losers round 1 began. After a while it was certain that we would not find a station due to each one being full. My luck turned when I saw a ref that looked huge and seemed to be familiar. It was the one and only KRILLIN. I talked to him for quite a while and then he was able to clear a station to help us warm up. The warm up went pretty good considering we got another 4th for the day.
When it was time for us to finally play, we were once again fortunate to be playing to side of Watch N Learn. During our 1st game the scored was pretty close and we felt pretty good and what can I say got too cocky and let a couple of deaths on us pile up and soon the lead we had disappeared and we ended up losing the game. Next was our CTF game and riding the disappointment of losing the lead we let it get to our head, and lost the series before it was over. All I remember was getting 5-0’d in probably 5 minutes. After this we accepted the loss and felt pretty good for getting closer than the day before with no set ups or coach.
Following our defeat was exactly when the real fun actually happened. We begin to walk around the venue to see the multiple sponsors and booths that were there. While at the Dr. Pepper stating watching our teammates play Halo 3, I had a pretty interesting conversation with Rob from Dr. Pepper & Shibby. What can I say those were some of the funniest guys and their stories had me cracking up. After chatting it up we went over to the Station D-Maq was at watched some players play FFA along with Amish and Adrenaline. Eventually it was time for the Instinct vs. Cloud 10 series to begin with my teammates doing the FFA I decided to watch the series. It was a great series and seeing Instinct play was a great time. While watching the series I was able to chat it up with Pistola and Mrs. P, whom I had quite a long conversation about what exactly happens and in Texas and the hard work that goes into TLN.
After being at the event for practically the whole day, we decided to head outside and wait a couple of hours since we planned on meeting some of our teammates to go watch a movie. While we were waiting we began talking to some Starcraft players and they taught us some of the basics about how the event goes for them. When they left one of them stayed behind and had this card game called Dominion that looked pretty interesting. He began to explain to us how it exactly worked and we played for about an hour and I can say that was a very fun game to play if you have around 4 people all together. Soon we left the Convention Center and relaxed for time being.
Dallas - Sunday and After
Fortunately for Sunday I was not able to make the event due to having a bunch of homework and had no time to make the event. I was able to watch the event online and it was a great event in my opinion. Seeing Status Quo keep the same roster and still win the first event was great. Following Dallas my team decided to take a break and have played casually and are still looking for a permanent fourth to make it to more than one event with a full roster. All in all Dallas was a great event and it was exciting to see how great and big the events have gotten.
Pre-Dallas
Around a month or so before the MLG Dallas event, my team Defy the Oddz (DtO) decided that we would not be attending Dallas, but just merely going as spectators. The main reason for this was that out of 4 members that went to MLG Dallas 2010: Reach exhibition only 2 actually stated that we would be going, mostly due to cash issues.
So with that being said I decided that I would still be interested in playing with the first event being in Dallas and living literally 15 minutes away from the Convention Center. With that decision being made, I began looking for a team of 3 that needed 1more. My search lasted for about a week with only 1 serious team offering me a spot. I played with them for about a day, and we did quite great for just linking up as a team. As the night continued, I was able to clearly notice that it would not work out. For once my teammates were mostly under the age of 18. They would act very immature towards each other when anything would go wrong. In one particular game of Sanctuary Flag, the game started off by 2 of them betraying each other for the sniper and one being booted. After that one quit out since he saw no chance of winning. While the third member was a great guy, he was lagging terribly throughout the game.
After the chaos of teaming with those guys, it began to hit me that I might not be playing at the event and would just be a spectator. Then my issues were finally resolved when I got a response from someone in the community stating that they needed 1 more for their team after he had bought his team pass. That same day I had the chance to finally play with the guy. We played literally for about 2 hours with just us two playing. He had stated that his teammates would get on later due to a time difference. After it began to be late at night, he told he had just received a message from his teammates that they would no longer wanting to play and wanted to know if I still wanted to team. This was just another blow to my chances and I began to doubt that playing would never happen. I told him to give me a day and I would get back to him.
The next day, I began talking to one of my other teammates stating that I had found another player who wanted to play but we were in need of two more players. He told me that he would join, but that left us with just one more person to find. We contacted one of our teammates that we played with in the 2009 event and he said sure. So with the team all being set we were finally able to play as a team for a couple of days. The first day it took us a while to adjust to our different play styles but eventually worked out all the kinks. Our team shot was nowhere were we need it to be, but it was working online at the moment so we knew we were doing something right. Along with the team shot, our call outs were going into place and each of us knew exactly what we needed to do in each game and knew our position and never argued about power weapons as with my previous team.
After having a successful day of practice, the following day our teammate told me that there was a dilemma that had just occurred. His teammates had decided that they wanted to team back up and wanted to know if I would drop the last two players we acquired for them, I told him that I didn’t feel good about that. For me since I knew those players personally I didn’t want to make any shady decisions without letting them know. So when I finally told him about it later on during the day, he had told that there was good news and bad news. His teammates had again broken up and he decided on not teaming up with them anymore. The problem that arose was that one of his local players wanted to play at Dallas. We decided together as team to give him an incident that since we had already joined as a team that he could go as our coach and he agreed with that decision and no shady decision making happened. With only a few weeks, left before Dallas was around the corner, we were starting to have problems. Our teammate was never on and never notified us exactly what happened to him. So after thinking that we were in the clear, this was again another blow to my chances since he had been the player with the team pass.
With exactly two weeks left before the event, I notified my teammates and asked them if they were still interested in playing and if so I would try to look for a team pass online if it were available. Fortunate for myself I was able to find a pass online and purchased and again a search for fourth happened. While we spent time looking for a fourth we still played as a team of 3 on matchmaking and did quite for ourselves. With less than a week to go before the roster lock, I was fortunate to find our coach from last event to join us and one of our players from last year to be a coach. Right after getting the team situated we finally began to practice as a team online and it was going great so we felt pretty confident about going to the event. The day before the event, instead of getting one last day of practice, only one of my teammates and I were online.
Dallas - Friday
The time of the event had finally arrived and I was more than excited about playing. We had decided to all meet up at around 2 so that we could get some decent practice. While it seemed as a great plan at first, it did not go as followed. With traffic and other incidents that occurred we all made it about half an hour before the event started. When all 5 of us had finally signed and checked our time that we were going to play another problem occurred. Our coach and one of our players had car pooled together and were kind of on a schedule, our coach was having his birthday party that day and our coach had to go back to work at around 7. We didn’t think that this would be a problem since they had stated that we would be playing at exactly 5:30. But after that they kept prolonging the time from 5:30 until 6:45 and they felt bad but had to leave to take care of some of their prior engagements.
So basically with under an hour before we would play or forfeit, I began calling locals that lived in Dallas and asked if they were willing to sub in for our 4th until Saturday. With no luck we began to give up and were headed out the door when luck was on our side, I was able to find a local from my school to sub in and we were ready to go. He was more than happy to help us and decided to test our luck to see how many games we could be able to win. Time had finally come and they called us to our station, while waiting for our team to arrive at our station and I look around and see that to the station next to us is team “Watch N Learn”. I found a couple of seconds and introduced myself to Taco & Shelly and wished them luck in their series.
To describe how our series went in one word would have to be confusing. We were easily defeated 2-0, which came to no surprise. What didn’t help our cause in the series was most notably that we had never played together and never practice once during the warm up times. After the series we accepted the loss and went to go and watch Taco’s team play as their series was no over. While watching I had the opportunity to meet Forefront and was very impressed as to how nice he was. After seeing one game we decided to call it a night and head home. But to add more bad luck to the night, our random 4th had informed us that he would be heading out of town the next day and could not play with us and felt bad. With time being short, we contacted another local at around 12 in the morning and he accepted the spot and would meet us the next day to play.
Dallas - Saturday
With another day for the event, we were again ready to just play to see exactly how the event would turn out. Again once we showed up late due to oversleeping and had only a short time spot to try and find some practice games. We began walking around the warm up station looking for an open spot with a team that would want to scrim shortly before the losers round 1 began. After a while it was certain that we would not find a station due to each one being full. My luck turned when I saw a ref that looked huge and seemed to be familiar. It was the one and only KRILLIN. I talked to him for quite a while and then he was able to clear a station to help us warm up. The warm up went pretty good considering we got another 4th for the day.
When it was time for us to finally play, we were once again fortunate to be playing to side of Watch N Learn. During our 1st game the scored was pretty close and we felt pretty good and what can I say got too cocky and let a couple of deaths on us pile up and soon the lead we had disappeared and we ended up losing the game. Next was our CTF game and riding the disappointment of losing the lead we let it get to our head, and lost the series before it was over. All I remember was getting 5-0’d in probably 5 minutes. After this we accepted the loss and felt pretty good for getting closer than the day before with no set ups or coach.
Following our defeat was exactly when the real fun actually happened. We begin to walk around the venue to see the multiple sponsors and booths that were there. While at the Dr. Pepper stating watching our teammates play Halo 3, I had a pretty interesting conversation with Rob from Dr. Pepper & Shibby. What can I say those were some of the funniest guys and their stories had me cracking up. After chatting it up we went over to the Station D-Maq was at watched some players play FFA along with Amish and Adrenaline. Eventually it was time for the Instinct vs. Cloud 10 series to begin with my teammates doing the FFA I decided to watch the series. It was a great series and seeing Instinct play was a great time. While watching the series I was able to chat it up with Pistola and Mrs. P, whom I had quite a long conversation about what exactly happens and in Texas and the hard work that goes into TLN.
After being at the event for practically the whole day, we decided to head outside and wait a couple of hours since we planned on meeting some of our teammates to go watch a movie. While we were waiting we began talking to some Starcraft players and they taught us some of the basics about how the event goes for them. When they left one of them stayed behind and had this card game called Dominion that looked pretty interesting. He began to explain to us how it exactly worked and we played for about an hour and I can say that was a very fun game to play if you have around 4 people all together. Soon we left the Convention Center and relaxed for time being.
Dallas - Sunday and After
Fortunately for Sunday I was not able to make the event due to having a bunch of homework and had no time to make the event. I was able to watch the event online and it was a great event in my opinion. Seeing Status Quo keep the same roster and still win the first event was great. Following Dallas my team decided to take a break and have played casually and are still looking for a permanent fourth to make it to more than one event with a full roster. All in all Dallas was a great event and it was exciting to see how great and big the events have gotten.