I decided to make a small blog about my experiences in the Assembly Steelseries Challenge LAN/Tournament. I'm going to include some pictures, but don’t expect any professional grade pictures. I’m not a professional photographer and I forgot my flash at home. It was actually quite a big mistake since there really wasn’t any big light sources at the LAN. It was very dark and only light source was computer screens which isn’t that great for taking pictures. I also didn't bothered to edit the pictures besides making them smaller.
Day 1
I have been in Kaapelitehdas, Helsinki many times already (They play a lot of smaller music concerts there) so I knew the layout quite well.
Assembly Winter isn’t as big as Assembly Summer but it concentrates more on games. I was very happy to see they decided to add SC2 to their game list. I think there were pro level CS:S and Team Fortress 2 games? Someone correct me if I’m wrong. I wasn’t too interested in those so I really don’t know.
There event layout looks something like this. First picture was taken right when I came to the event and second one later that evening. In both pictures the computers/tables extend even further out of the picture.
Pictures were taken from the 2nd floor which is the progaming floor where all of the pro’s played. 1st floor was full of sponsors, lan people and the main stage. As I’m talking about the main stage it looked like this.
Of course I spend almost all of my time on the 2nd floor so let’s go there. Unfortunately lighting there was even worse but I did manage to find TLO straight away. He was just about to start his games against RoX.KIS.LiveZerg. Here is few pictures from the 2nd floor with players like Tyler, TLO, Morrow, SjoW etc.
TLO’s opponent RoX.KIS.LiveZerg is right in front of him behind that wall. Next to TLO there is Empire.Kas.
TLO teddy bear spotted in the right!
TLO and Tyler watching few games. I think it’s HasuObs or Strelok on the left. I could be wrong thought so I’m sorry. There is also SjoW and Morrow in the background waiting for their games.
TLO’s first opponent RoX.KIS.LiveZerg and next to him Lions.StyGGeN.
I don’t really have any more even reasonably good pictures from the 2nd floor from Day 1 so I’m sorry. At some point I left to watch Grubby show matches that was held in the 1st floor. It was supposed to be him playing against his fans, everyday for couple of hours. 1st day every progamer wanted to take him on Here is the pictures from that.
Next to him busy playing with her Iphone is his beautiful wife Cassandra.
Here you can actually see his opponent which is MouzNaama. Orc mirror. You can guess who won
His next opponent was Root.QXC and he chose SC2 as his game.
After QXC it was LiquidRet’s turn to take on Grubby and he brought some backup in form of LiquidHuk.
After that even more people came. I think you might recognize some of them
After this I went back upstairs to watch some games. I don’t really have a lot of pictures after this. I think this ended at like 20.00 or 21.00 so the rest of the time I just chilled and watch some pro’s ladder.
Day 2
After waking up I headed straight for the upstairs to watch some more games and here is what I found.
Tyler and Huk watching QXC’s games. Next to him is Satiini. You can see a glimpse of Socke behind the computers.
TLO and ToD playing. HasuObs in the background. Not sure who the other guy is. I want to say Lalush because I know I saw Lalush in the tournament and he didn’t have his beard anymore, but the picture is quite poor It's just my only picture of ToD.
RoX.KiS.Pomi playing against Bischu.
I don’t have that many pictures from the upstairs just because I was kinda sleepy, hungry and mostly just wanted to watch them play. I also actually had to help Team Epsilon in one thing (Team Frotress 2 team) so I was busy. I talked to the manager of Team Epsilon and heard a lot of rumors regarding SC2 but I don’t think I should reveal them here.
When I was done upstairs I went to see some more games of Grubby playing against his fans. I didn’t really take a lot of pictures from it because I already did yesterday. But I did get one with Grubby and few of his fans
That’s Grubby with LiquidTyler and LiquidTLO if someone didn’t know already. Tyler looks badass and Grubby looks tall! I’m 183cm so I would guess Grubby is something like 190cm?
Grubby was the only reason I followed the WC3 scene, Tyler/Nony is and always will be one of my all time favorite Broodwar and Starcraft 2 players and TLO is one of the latest addition to my favorite players since beta so I was very happy to take this picture
Rest of my time I spend mostly just watching some great games but here is few pics from the finals.
I have more of these and I might add some more and edit the old ones. I'm sure the Internet is full of these pictures in a lot better quality but I just wanted to make my own blog about it.
I had a super fun time at Assembly so I'm very happy I decided to go. I got to talk with a lot of pro-gamers and I’m definitely going next year and thinking of going to some other incoming lans. I’m going to be in USA for the summer so I wonder if any MLG’s will land into that timeframe
Assembly seemed like a fantastic, fun event based on these pictures. The energy of e-sports probably permeated the atmosphere, creating a sense of pure awesome lol.
Also, it's quite funny to see how short HuK is when he is on stage. Very comical.
On February 14 2011 10:08 StarStruck wrote: One question: where are you? O_o
If you mean why I'm not in the pictures? For the most part it's because I was the one taking them but I do have a bff kinda pics with Grubby but it ended up to be very blurry so I didn't put it here.
On February 14 2011 11:23 eviltomahawk wrote: Assembly seemed like a fantastic, fun event based on these pictures. The energy of e-sports probably permeated the atmosphere, creating a sense of pure awesome lol.
Also, it's quite funny to see how short HuK is when he is on stage. Very comical.
Also, it Grubby's wife Korean?
Cassandra is ex-model and progamer from Singapore. Very beautiful place.
On February 14 2011 16:08 Certified wrote: wow awesome stuff the pics look amazing
and huk got a new hoodie? :O
HuK changed the hoodies on saturday in the middle of the day. Maybe the first one is his lucky hoody because he changed it after he lost
Thanks everyone for the comments ^^ I appreciate them.
On February 15 2011 04:25 Kralle333 wrote: Who won against grubby?
The ones I can remember from top of my head:
WC3:
Grubby vs Naama
Grubby vs SeiN
SC2:
Grubby vs QXC
Grubby vs Ret
Grubby vs Naama
Grubby vs Socke, Socke played Zerg
Grubby vs Random Masters
I didn't watch all the games so he might have played against some others too. Games against other progamers were actually quite close and I think he played pretty well. I'm looking forward how he will do in couple of months.
On February 14 2011 06:54 emperorchampion wrote: AdelScott looks like a crazy man, Tyler looks fucking intense in the one pic with Grubby and TLO, and Ret is pretty sexy with that jacket on :D
Awesome pictures!
You're totally right, I had an idea that Adelscott would look like a classy French guy. He looks like he just "showed" up in whatever.
Thanks Piski! This was exactly what I missed during the Assembly coverage. I got to see all the games, but these kinds of shots make a tournament more tangible and add to the excitement for people not able to attend in person. Great blog and thanks again.