MLG Toronto 2008

I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that the MLG circus was making a return trip to Toronto after we hosted the Canadian Open back in November 2007. My son and I went last year, so this year we were totally stoked to be going back. I went down with him on the Saturday as he tends to get bored after the thrill of seeing Walshy and the ogres (his favourite players) in person wears off, so sitting for hours watching the final on Sunday would not have worked out so well.

The event was held in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, which is significantly larger than the venue from last year, though the MLG portion of the show was quite small. The headlining attraction at the show was FanExpo. This is the ComicCon of Canada (I’ve learned). Personally, I don’t like comics, or anime, but these people sure do! I have never seen so many freaks and Star Wars characters in one room in my life. It was quite a sight. We basically headed straight for the sounds of frags and BRs, you know, cool stuff!

Astro Gaming had a booth set up showing off their A40 headset which I so wanted to buy, but the ‘boss’ put a stop to that pretty quick. I’m still pissed. The cool thing was that you could try them out on a 2v2 set up on Guardian. I’m telling you that this headset is the real deal. I could hear so much detail and directionality. Definitely on my Christmas list. Of course when I got up to the front of the line, Nezir and Maziik (the coaches of Classic and Triggers respectively) were at the front too. I’ve never felt like such a newb in my life. They may be coaches, but they are also very good players. I think I went 3-5-10 in that game. I blame the headset ;)

On ‘Championship’ Sunday, my friend and I went down just in time to see the winners bracket final between Str8 Rippin’ and Instinct. The stands were packed, so we decided to just join the horde of people waiting for seats to vacate. After about an hour of standing and watching the match, we got promoted to sitting cross-legged on the carpet in the front of the bleachers. Other than the ass-pain, the seats were spectacular. We sat there for the next 3 hours.

The gameplay was amazing. At first, it was a little hard to watch so many players at the same time, but after a while, it was really neat watching how teams are set up on the maps by watching each screen.

Walshy was playing like the old Walshy: getting pumped, pulling off sick flag caps and clutch moves. It was great seeing him play so well. The crowd was chanting his name whenever he got a double or capped the flag. I also have a newfound respect for Lunchbox. He was playing amazing. His BR was right on, and his positioning, even better. They were running the table on Construct King (except when they played Str. It was a truly amazing performance by them.

Final Boss was another story. Neighbor didn’t look like he was really getting along with Strongside during the games. They sat next to each other, and I know that Neighbor is a reserved guy and all, but he was getting upset a few times when he wasn’t being supported. Their play showed that as well. They dominated the TS games, but when it came to objective, they got run over by Instinct. One example of this was on Guardian Ball. There was one point in the game where Instinct held the ball in bottom blue for about 100 seconds straight. FB could do nothing to get close to them. Instinct just outslayed the whole game. When they got close, Walsh would just drop the ball on snipe lift, and someone at S2 would just grab it and the whole team adjusted quickly. I can’t wait for this one to be put on VoD.

After Instinct won, Puckett interviewed Walshy, and asked him what it felt like to beat the team that booted him off. He calmly replied, “It was like taking candy from a baby, but the baby would have put up more of a fight!” The crowd went crazy.

Then was the Championship match between Instinct and Str8 Rippin’. This was a great match, even though it wasn’t particularly close. Instinct played their heart’s out, but Str8 was just too much in every respect. Snip3down showed that he can slay on any team. On Amp TS, he got something like 30 kills, and on Construct King, he got 40+. Incredible.

My favourite moment was when the Amp game came up in the final. Everyone started to yell, “VETO!! VETO!!” I guess people don’t share the fondness that I have for Amp. On the whole, the event was very enjoyable, and I hope that it comes back to Toronto next year.

X.

Nothing to say

Well, I'm bored, so listen to me. I'm going on vacation next week, and all I want is for today to be Friday (which It's not). If anyone has a Napoleon Dynamite-esque time machine, PM me.

Coffee, hmmmm, Coffee

Further to my previous blog about Tim Horton's coffee, I lined up this morning and decided to time the line from back to front. It took me 13 minutes. What a colossal waste of time. The funny thing is: not one person even looks like they are getting impatient. Is this because of the "Canadians are so nice" stereotype? Or is it that Timmy's is teh bezt! (that's right Char). I like to think the former. I rarely get mad or impatient at anything.

The Amuricins are Comin'

Tonight the Buffalo Bills invade my nice, clean city and bring with them all the RVs and BBQs, beer, and rednecks that we usually only have to look at on the TV. They are playing the Steelers at the Rogers Centre (where the Blue Jays play) My friend has tickets, but didn't invite me Maybe next time. They have closed down an entire street outside of the Rogers Centre for the tail gate. The media is warning all of us to flee the downtown core before 6pm if we want to be able to drive home. I don't know how this is going to turn out. I know the Bills are just testing the waters up here to see if an NFL franchise is viable, but without all the TV and advertising contracts, how can it be? The NFL is a media and marketing behemoth, without the contracts, how are they to make money?

Canada Sucks at the Olympics

You would think that out of the 343 athletes (if you want to call them that) we would eek out one frickin' medal. Well, not so far. We came extremely close last night when Brown came 4th in the 200m Grannystroke Breaststroke. He missed out on the bronze by something like 0.09 seconds. Fuck! can we not just get ONE and then call it a day? I was laughing out loud when he missed the bronze. It's becoming comical. I guess we will just wait until the winter Olympics so we can pwn n00bs in the 400m beaver skinning event.

Random Gaming Thought

I downloaded Fable 2: Pub Games (trial version) last night. I have to say, this is a blatant marketing ploy by Lionhead, but it is working. I would actually buy Fable 2 if I got into the Pub Games and racked up some gold. I don't know why, I guess I'm a sucker like that.

Cloverfield in Toronto

X.

Back to Work, ugh

Well, I’m back to work. I always find it hard to get back up to speed from a week playing Oblivion and Halo. It’s noon  and all I have managed to get accomplished is making fun of Bubba, and getting a coffee. Must.    Work.    Now.

So, last night, I finally got to play with my new MML team, SBWL. We scrimmed Team Fir3. I was very impressed with the quality of my new team. White, ek, and Tman are crazy good. My goal is to try and stay in positive territory and help out where I can. Hopefully I don’t get traded again

Stay-cation

Oh yeah, baby! I'm on vacation next week. Just me and my son (Trenton), I can't wait. We already have a list of all the things we are going to do:

1. Halo (of course)
2. Oblivion
3. Soccer (real soccer)
4. Dark Knight (batman ftw)
5. Indiana Jones
6. Maybe some attractions

There is nothing better than a week off in the summer when you really need it. It has been one of the craziest summers so far. I work in the investment industry, and usually July-August is the slowest time of the year. Clients are away on vacation or just generally not interested in talking about money, and I usually just catch up on my Fantastic Contraptions ;) With the market going through some seriously trying times, and a bear market looming, July has been incredibally busy. So, bring on the vacation.

I'm also looking forward to some comp. Halo in the coming weeks, which I have been missing since the downfall of the ladder (is that still going on?). I played some MLG customs last night, and I'm stoked. It's such a different feeling from MM. More consistent from game to game. No ghosts, or warthogs to piss you off, just really good players shooting you from god knows where.

Anyway, I'm off to mow the lawn and clean the house. I dont want to have to do that shit next week.

X.