Equipped with signs, beer and a lot of enthuiasm: Five German nerds are heading to the Universal Hall in Berlin. Finally a tournament in our hometown. Finally a chance to see some of our favorite players live.
Preparations
The day before, we prepared for the finals. We made signs featuring our favorite players. For uncreative players like us, that was not only far more difficult than we thought but also really time-consuming. But we motivated each other and put a lot of effort in it. As a result we could proudly present our works:
Fan signs yay
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The event
We arrived almost one hour early. We wanted to be at the head of the queue to get seats in the front rows and we succeeded. We succeeded because nobody was there. Just some admins who were a little bit surprised: "Errmmm..... You cannot go in at the moment". No problem at all. We had our beer and slowly but surely like-minded groups of Starcraft-fans arrived. People who share our passion. People who love watching young kids battling it out in a video game. Crazy but true.
Then the first pro arrived. The bearded guy who looked like a forest ranger at first turned out to be TLO. He does not want to shave again until his next good tournament finish. Good luck with that.
TLO is a great guy. We welcomed him and he approved our sign. He said: "Hey guys, it's really cool that you came along!" as if we were good friends who just arrived at his birthday party. He shook everyone’s hand and went in.
Then some guy with locks/dreadlocks (or whatever it is on his head) and neon green headphones passed the building. I jokingly said that it has to be stephano. Five minutes later this guy came back. And it really was stephano; he had trouble finding the entrance.
Stephano is a much more focused guy than TLO for example. He headed straight into the building to manage his computer settings and didn’t let himself get distracted by us too much. But he was still friendly, greeted us in a very shy way and thumped up our signs.
Then we could finally go inside. It was a nice location with a little hall, a VIP area, an area with a bar and an area with PCs for practice. Players like stephano and kas used these computers constantly for practicing. Other players like TLO preferred a bath in the fancrowd as long as he didn't get massaged. Technical difficulties aside, it was overall very well organized and it was amazing that you had the chance to walk up to the players and talk to them.
VIP area
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Playing area - Stephano and some admin playing
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Playing area - Stephano and Kas playing - Grubby’s wife in the background
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Kas seems to be a vampire. Not having a reflection in the mirror proved this theory
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A massage for TLO
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Gradually all the players arrived and of course we hunted them. We wanted their autographs and pictures with them. Just being fans you know? Stephano, Grubby and Ret were our main targets, but we asked the others as well. In return we showed them our Berlin hospitality. Especially Goody got his own arrival ceremony:
Salute Goody!
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Ret arriving with a cold
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TLO with a sign representing his favorite races
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Can’t DUTCH this
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Foxy from the SC2 Zerg Lair
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We had plenty of time. Delays caused by technical difficulties seem to be an inevitable part of every Starcraft event. Very stressful for the audience but especially for the players who stopped practicing a while ago. Most of them either relaxed on the couches of the VIP area or just hang around, being bored or annoyed. Only TLO was running around having his fun.
After 2 hours of additional waiting time even the last spectator was annoyed. Drinking beer was helping us out quite well to get over this situation but after having been at the location for almost 5 hours in total we remembered that we came here to see some good Starcraft games and that just did not happen, even though the moderator kept telling us that they will start “soon”.
And then, finallyat some point in the evening the first games started. We were pumped. We sat in the second row, had our signs ready and a great match was coming up: Socke vs Nerchio. But what followed were the worst games of the tournament by far. Socke Forge FEed on Terminus while Nerchio grabbed 2 expansions. Nothing uncommon so far despite the fact that Nerchio, for whatever reason, planted his third literally right in front of Socke’s home door which was greeted by 4 Voidrays off Socke’s unscouted 2 stargate-follow up. Oh yeah. GG. Second game Socke forge FEed on Tal’darim and let Nerchio runby with 6 lings. GG. Third game was okay but Socke did not play his best and Nerchio outplayed him by capitalizing on his mistakes. Similar bad story for Kas against a really good-looking Ret, at least in ZvT.
Socke
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Post-game interview
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Next game worth mentioning was Stephano vs Grubby game 1. It was the series that we were all looking forward to the most. Two fan favorites: Grubby who improved a LOT in his time in korea and of course Stephano, the new foreign superstar. And indeed the series was so good that it could have easily been the finals of the tournament. Grubby had a really interesting build: Forge FE into fast robotics for a sentry drop in the main. The follow up to it was a quick plasma shield upgrade and constant production of immortals. Never seen it before and it kicked ass. Grubby showed some world-class micro when he kept loading/unloading his sentries in his warp prism to save them from drones/queens/lings while force fielding the ramp and harassing the mineral line with zealots. In total he force fielded the ramp like 15 times, it was heartbreaking for all Stephano fans and all zerg players who ever experienced this kind of stuff. God it was annoying! And when Stephano finally cleared up the attack, Grubby had a big ground force with 5 immortals and +1 shields. What a great build. Too bad his opponent’s macro is absolutely horrific and he magically pumped out a huge roach force with hydras in addition despite the economical damage that was dealt to him. Grubby could have finished him but he missed his timing. What followed was the best game in this tournament, a really long super high-level ZvP. You REALLY have to check it out. Get this replay ASAP:
http://drop.sc/60371
Important to mention: Grubby showed us the strength of the mothership in the late game. This unit is not just some gimmicky stuff to toy around with your opponent. It is a really helpful unit in PvZ lategame and it is a mystery to me why it is utilized so rarely. Blizzard removed it because it never appears in important games but Grubby showed us the best arguments for overthinking this decision.
Nonetheless, Grubby lost and he was REALLY sad after the games and angry at himself. This guy is so ambitious, it is amazing. In the following interview he stated that he does not want anybody to blame imbalance for his losses but only his own mistakes. What a great guy, what a great attitude. You just have to love him. Then he and his wife left the location and haven’t been seen again….
Socke casting
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Post-game interview
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Goody vs Stephano: What should have been the worst one-sided games of all times, turned out to be the biggest upset in this tournament. Stephano showed huge weaknesses against mech play, getting supply blocked all the time, chose the wrong timings for units and tech and thus just couldn’t handle goody’s brilliant mech timing pushes which he has been doing over and over since the game came out and therefore executes them really precisely. Goody won and became the ultimate fan favorite. The fans went crazy when he won the games, it was soooo loud. “Goody” shouts everywhere. It was not the biggest crowd but a really passionate one and I have to say that this was the best part of the tournament. The atmosphere was just so great and it was a pleasure to be part of it.
Funny sidestory
As you might have seen I made this sign comparing Stephano to Jaedong in terms of zerg skill (Please no overraeaction of anti-fanboys, it is just a fan-sign) and of course I wanted to show it to Stephano. When I made it I already had this bad premonition that Stephano might not even know Jaedong and it got confirmed. “Who is Jaedong? Not an SC2 player? What .. Starcraft 1? No I don’t know him!” Too bad so he couldn’t really appreciate the sign and thus feel honored. TLO was really shocked by the fact as well and couldn’t resist to laughed at him “Are you kidding me? It’s like you played basketball and don’t even know Michael Jordan!!!” Stephano was still kinda unimpressed but well, he held the sign for me and I was happy
Stephano comparing himself to Jaedong
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Stephano and TLO in love with a fan
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Well for the finals: not much to say. Nerchio has played Goody a LOT in EU online tournaments and he has always won. He just knows his style and knows how to counter it. And he made it look damn easy. Get those roaches out and tech to broodlords fast. If he comes out, just counter attack him to buy time you need. And yeah that’s about it, broodlords do the rest. Nerchio 3-0s Goody to win the tournament. Look at how happy and proud he is:
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Ret casting
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Funniest moment of the series: A queen SOMEHOW managed to sneak into the bottom right expansion of Goody and killed the mules. Nobody knew how the hell the queen got there but it was super effective. Too bad you cannot really see it in this picture.
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Final interview
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At like 1-2 AM the tournament was over. Pretty late. An aftershow party was planned but most of the fans and the progamers were already gone. We decided to go too so we don’t know what was going on but we know that Goody started to drink his well-deserved beer and cocktails and we are pretty damn sure that he sticked with it.
Goooooooooooooodyyyyyyyyyyy
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Final thoughts
Forget the technical difficulties for a moment. The event was awesome. It was not as big as MLG or Dreamhack yea. There were also not that many players yea, but the players were well chosen and absolute fan favorites. The atmosphere was really great and cheering for the players was one hundred times more fun than shouting at the stream in front of your computer. And watching starcraft games within a cloud of fans is just another way of experiencing it. A much more entertaining one. I cannot really describe it with words.
Well, if you ever have the chance to go to such an event just do it. It’s worth it! Compliments to the organizers, I hope there will be more events in Berlin in the future!!
My signed t-shirt
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