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Friday, June 10th 2005

Team EG's trip to WEG Season 2 has been full of ups and downs so far, but overall it's been a great time without a doubt. The event is conducted in a very professional manner, as all of the players stay at an extended stay hotel (Human Touch Ville) with three rooms per team: two for sleeping and one for practicing (five computers with internet are provided to each team). WEG representatives CAN and Crystal do a great job of keeping us up to date and accommodated, so we can pay full attention to practicing. To be honest, we miss our home computers (generously donated to us by ABIT), but these will certainly suffice.

The matches are set up in a very professional manner as well. Each match is broadcast nationwide on Korean TV (this is a country in which 8 million people per night watch live StarCraft broadcasts) on KMTV (Korea Music Television). The stage for the matches is absolutely spectacular - there are colored lights everywhere, as well as LCD monitors, and of course, TV cameras taking in all of the footage. There are two professional broadcasters taped from a separate blue-screen room who cast every match. The actual broadcast presentation is also excellent, as camera angles and shots frequently change to suit what's happening in the match - for instance, when there's a 1v1 situation, the broadcast changes to a split-screen format, so that each player's screen can be viewed.

Now, there are many cheerful topics I'll discuss in this first diary entry, but I also want to give all of you an inside look at how a team deals with a moment of absolute devastation.

Some of you may have heard what happened in our match on de_nuke against Pentagram last Sunday, but I'll recap for those of you who haven't. After winning the T pistol round to start the match, and with Pentagram's entire team stacking outside, one of our players accidentally exploited the flash bug under the floating box in the ramp room. It had no effect whatsoever on the outcome of the round, but WEG immediately paused the match in order to review the situation. After it was officially determined that the flash bug had indeed been exploited, WEG's Head Referee announced to the two teams that by WEG rules, the remaining 11 rounds of the half would have to be forfeited to Pentagram. Both our team and Pentagram agreed on an alternate solution: simply restart the match (after all, we'd only been playing for two minutes). The Head Referee would not flex, and awarded Pentagram the half by the score of 11-1. We managed to win the CT pistol, but lost the fourth round (a gun round), and the fifth (a half-buy), which was all Pentagram needed. They took the match by the official score of 13-4.

Now, it's hard to describe what we were all feeling at this point. We had been preparing our de_nuke offensive strategies for over a month, and worked very hard to ensure they were top notch in terms of both their tactics and execution. Yet in one swift moment, all of that effort and concentration was made for naught. It's a gut-wrenching sensation I simply cannot articulate in words. As we were leaving the set, WEG's Head Referee went to shake Pasha's (EG.Lari) hand, and Pasha almost stood him up - that's how angry and disappointed we were.