March Blog

It's been a while since I've had time to write a blog, so I'm jumping at the chance to capitalise on the 27 minutes I have spare before I need to dash to a meeting! Let's begin with a quick recap of recent events.

BARCRAFT

Rossi headed in to the Sydney Barcraft for the GSL finals between MVP team-mates Genius & DongRaeGu. It was a pretty fun series with some carriers being made along the way! One can't help to wonder how serious these two friends were as they went into this match, with a very high possibility of split winnings either way. Nonetheless, it was a very entertaining series with some fantastic personality emerging from each player. My personal highlight was DRG running into Genius' booth and waving his arms around after crushing him.

As for deth, Pinder & I - we made an appearance at the Melbourne Barcraft - and oh man, what a huge event it was! As the games weren't scheduled to begin until 7:30, we decided we didn't need to arrive until 7:00pm. Boy were we wrong. When we arrived, the entire venue was already packed wall-to-wall, as inFeZa and Mayo defended their prime table position with vigilance. deth & his girlfriend compromised by kneeling on bar stools, whilst Pinder & I stood on a coffee table at the back of the venue to see over the ocean of screaming fans. This was a wild night, and I think everyone involved was blown away by the tremendous attendance. I think we had something like 350 people. Insanity. Unfortunately, we couldn't make a late night of it, as the guys needed to be up bright and early for the IMGUR Team League Qualifier at 5:00AM the next morning.

Myself, deth and Nom picked up some food on our way home, only to discover that Flinders Street Train Station was "locked down" for some reason or another. There were replacement bus services running, I don't really know what the deal was. But we ended up having to walk to a different station and waited 30 minutes for our train to arrive. Finally homeward bound, we ate our dinner on the train (I still can't believe you're allowed to eat on Melbourne trains, but SWEARING is a criminal offense. This town is so backwards) and deth & I watched with amusement as Nom managed to spill a vast majority of her meal all over her lap. I managed to get home at around midnight, whilst the other two had another 40+ minutes until they arrived back home. And special thank you to deth for hooking me up with a PS3 copy of Eternal Sonata, one of the greatest (Co-op!) games ever made. <3

IMGUR TEAM LEAGUE QUALIFIER #1

So, I kept myself entertained by laddering and playing HoN (I'm a dragon) until the check-in opened at 3:30AM. I was naively hoping that everyone got home "early" and managed to get plenty of sleep before I sent the "wake up" text at 4:00AM and started calling phones at 4:30AM. Much to my surprise, almost everyone was already awake. In fact, they were STILL awake. In Rossi's case, he was still drunk from the night before. No-one had slept, everyone was exhausted, this was not gonna be pretty.

Pinder suggested that we send out each of the Terrans first, in this all-kill format, allowing them to draw out the games with turtling and mech styles, allowing the rest of the team to get some sleep. Rossi managed to catch a few extra hours in order to sober up, but ultimately and embarrassingly, our team was all-killed by a Terran player who pretty much opened with Cloak Banshees 4 games in a row. 

I wasn't surprised, given the lack of rest and preparation - it was unfortunate that this event occurred immediately after a Barcraft evening. I re-assured everyone that we would perform better the following week with adequate rest, and stressed how important it is to get to bed early, wake up early, shower, eat, and play some warm up games before participating in an event like this. Waking up 5 minutes before your matches with only 1 hour of sleep and diving right into the game is always a recipe for disaster. deth and YoonYJ were especially hard on themselves, spending the rest of the day practicing furiously on Korea, rather than sleeping. But the ACL Online Round 1 was only 4 hours away...

ACL ONLINE ROUND #1

Group Stages. They were pretty wild. Due to a lot of "un-ranked" GrandMaster players signing up (including ZeNEX.Ryoomak - wielding an Australia/NZ dual-citizenship), some of the groups were extremely lopsided. But hey, that's how just how the numbers work. They'll sort themselves out after a few more events have been played.

So anyway, the team results were fantastic. YoonYJ, deth and Rossi topped their groups, with YoonYJ emerging with a convincing 2-0 victory over mOOnGLaDe. This meant that GLaDe would be the 2nd seed from his group - forcing him to play RyooMak in round 1. This is pretty much the only person in the entire bracket he didn't want to face. Pinder also emerged from his group as 2nd seed, losing only to RyooMak.

Now before we go on, I need to provide a little insight. YoonYJ had just received a knee operation the day before. He was in so much pain the night before that he couldn't even sleep. And he was hopped up on so much morphine that he wasn't really making much sense. After crushing through all of his opponents, he kept talking about how disappointed he was in himself, and how he should probably forfeit 'cos he's playing like crap! Unfortunately, he proceeded to take out Pinder (2-1) in the first round of the Double Elimination bracket on Sunday. To make matters worse, his next opponent was Rossi. At this stage, the pain had become too much for Yoon, and he asked me if he was allowed to forfeit. 

Rossi advanced to face tgun, where he was knocked to the lower bracket. Unfortunately deth was eliminated in two straight sets by SQL's yang and Xeria's Mafia. He finally threw in the towel and decided to sleep - I don't think he emerged from his coma until the next afternoon. Pinder managed to eliminate Dippa and Kez before dropping to Mafia in a very close series. 

Rossi managed to avenge his fallen Protoss teammate by eliminating Mafia 2-0 - only to be knocked out by mOOnGLaDe in the lower bracket semi-finals, scoring himself 4th place overall.

Despite dropping his first series 0-2 to ZeNEX.RyooMak, mOOnGLaDe battled his way through the lower bracket, ultimately getting payback on his newly appointed Terran nemesis, where GoSu's tgun awaited him in the Grand Final. Tgun had two lives in this Grand Final, as a reward for being the champion of the Upper Bracket, which meant he only needed to win a single Best of Three in order to take the event. GLaDe needed to win two Best-of-Three's, and managed to do exactly that - taking first place with an impressive 4-0 victory.

But we still hadn't announced our 5th player at this stage...

INVIDIA REVEALS 5TH PLAYER:

Andrew 'mOOnGLaDe' Pender

To some, this came as a huge surprise. As one of the most sought after players in the western eSports scene, various comments were made with regards to his decision to join such a "small" and "unknown" team. I guess this decision speaks for itself, and demonstrates exactly how high our ambitions and goals stand.

CSN RUNDOWN #14: Ft. ROSSI

Rossi was waving the Invidia flag last Thursday as he went up against KiF1Re in the first round, dominating him in convincing fashion. In the second round, he had to face the undefeated Korean from xSix Gaming - Sleep. Rossi shattered him in game 1. But unfortunately, some impregnable defenses and critical mistakes combined to see Rossi eliminated 1-2 in the semi finals. 

IMGUR TEAM LEAGUE QUALIFIER #2

Fortunately (some of) the guys were better rested this time around. But unfortunately it's a very difficult routine to adjust to. So whilst some of the guys were a little tired, we managed to use portions of our roster whilst others would sleep in shifts. Without going into too much detail, the guys hammered through their first two rounds in some back and forth series. My personal highlight was watching Pinder almost all-kill an entire team, with some amazing Warp Prism + Psi Storm drops on Shakuras.

 Whilst I chose to stay awake all night again to check the team in at 3:00AM and ensure that everyone was awake on time, I overestimated my own fortitude. By the time we reached 8:00AM, I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. I felt terrible. I had to abandon the team and retire for the night, as they battled on without me. Unfortunately they were eliminated in the 3rd round, but the overall experience and attitude was positive. We learned a lot about Team League dynamics, and managing fatigue that day. Especially me. As for the team, they were all very supportive of eachother, and the CSN commentators (Gwin & ButteryGreg) were very generous in their praise, following our team as the Australian underdogs throughout their run.

So unfortunately, Invidia didn't make it to the IMGUR Team League Finals, but the overall experience was good. And Eddie's Masters Cup was only hours away!

MASTER'S CUP #14

Everyone made the mistake of staying awake and practicing all day for this. By the time the event began, everyone had decided to pull out and go to bed - except mOOnGLaDe. Complaining about how sore his eyes and muscles were, he dragged the Invidia banner all the way across the finish line, scoring himself $100 after defeating SQL's Ninja - who deserves a very special mention for showing exactly what he's capable of throughout the event.

SPONSORS

Unfortunately I can't reveal too much at the moment, but some very exciting sponsorship opportunities have been under discussion over the last few weeks, and they're coming to a conclusion soon! We're really looking forward to announcing these details very soon.

TEAM APPAREL

Unfortunately due to these sponsorship opportunities, our team apparel has been delayed! We're hoping to have them ready before ACL Sydney, but at this stage it's very difficult to say!

ACL ONLINE ROUND #2

This weekend the team will be competing in the 2nd ACL Online Qualifier. Be sure to cheer for them, and be sure to keep an eye out for a post-event blog!