Starcraft

Jul 092014 Tagged with Starcraft, WCS

WCS America Season 2 Finals (2014)

You know what, I think the third time might really be the charm. In a world were WCS NA was questionably handled by both MLG and NASL, it seems that ESL has really dedicated an American team to doing this product justice.

I was able to attend the 2014 WCS America Season 2 Finals (yup, it’s still a mouth-full) in beautiful Burbank California at the brand-spankin-new ESL studios. This location really is new, and this was their first big SC2 broadcast. They had time to practice with Tanks and promos, but it seemed as if this was finally the real deal for them. The first real test. After whipping up the warehouse into a badass studio and production house, they put on one hell of a show for not only oodles of online viewers, but a packed house of SoCal local attendees. Thank’s for letting me clown around at your new home ESL.

So onto the event itself: In a world were I get most of my WCS knowledge from liquipedia, I started off a little under-enthused going into the Ro16. Major was there, but no players who I really cared about, or could have good dinner conversation with, made it. Luckily I had my hands full taking oodles of pictures of them smexy Korean’s. If you’d like to just look at pictures (maybe you hate my writing, maybe you always just had a thing for picture books and magazines, I don’t judge) you can look at them all here: Day 1 // Day 2
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Oct 242013 Tagged with eSports, NASL, Red Bull, Starcraft, WCS

WCS america Season 3 Finals!

Hey Now~

Here is a real quick share of some pictures I took Sunday October 20th at Red Bull HQ for the WCS Season 3 America Finals. This was a free admission event hosted in Santa Monica California that featured the top 8 Americans (Read: Koreans). Unfortunately I was only able to attend Sunday, but felt right at home with a, small, hyped crowd and a bunch of friends from NASL and the SoCal scene. Personal highlights of the day included the copious amounts of free Red Bull, Gretorp hugs, Jaedong remembering me, and a Polt W.

WCS NA S2 ro16 Day 1

My grandma would have no idea how to read that title. WCS, NA, S2, ro16. It’s practically jibrish.

WCS NA kicked off its first live broadcast at the NASL studio Monday. 3 of America’s top players (Jaedong, Ryung, and Oz) were all in Rancho California to play infront of a live audience. Since a fire broke out at the original venue the crew did not have much time to turn their office into a studio, a la MLG. Something new to this live WCS NA event was an audience! It did not come over well through the stream, and the guest list was 90% VIPS, but people were there watching and rooting for NA’s best. Since Violet could not come it was a rather short day with not too much to shoot, but a fun time with friends nonetheless. Hope you enjoy some of the pictures. Unfortunately this was the only day I am able to cover WCS stuff. I fly out to TI3 Friday. Hype as fuck.

Full album can be viewed here

Additional shots and a vine pan of the set on my twitter

~Leaf

Jul 052013 Tagged with eSports, MLG, Starcraft

MLG Anahiem 2013 Advetures

Hey Now,

Who’s excited for another event recap blog?!? Here is my stories from MLG Spring 2013 in Anaheim California. If you don’t want to read the words and instead just look at the pictures, you can find them by clicking on this big ol’ link.

MLG is arguably the largest eSports organization in America. For the last three years the crown jewel of the MLG circuit has been MLG Anaheim. Located in southern California, and stones throw from Disneyland, Anaheim draws an unparalleled crows in the USA. All of those nice things were true again this year, but only for 66.666666666% of the featured games at the event.

Upon entering the doors of MLG this year it was obvious that they changed up the venue floor format. Here is a very not to scale, yet artistic masterpiece, map of the show floor.

Red Bull Training Grounds Santa Monica 2013

Hey Now~

First a little bit of house keeping. Bringing the site out of “beta” today with some graphical and miscellaneous updates. No longer scared to link people here. Looking forward to the pointers I get on improving the place.

So I got a VIP invite from Rob Simpson and Sean Plott to attend the “Open House” final day of the Red Bull Training Grounds event. For the third of fourth time red bull opened the doors of their socal headquarters to the Day[9]tv squad to host a starcraft event. Two red bull sponsored startale Korean players, joined two Europeans, and four NA players for a three day production. Training grounds allowed these players a lot more than just the opportunity to play in an invite only tournament. These eight players were being put up for an entire week in Los Angeles and given the opportunity and tools to practice in preparation for MLG Anaheim next weekend. You can find the liquipedia recap of the event [here].

[If you are just interested in seeing my album from the event you can click on this big ‘ol link.]

This was my first time visiting a production at the red bull HQ. I have only ever seen pictures from their previous events, even though I live rather close to Santa Monica. I arrived at about 1pm and the show was scheduled to start at 2. When I got onto campus I was greeted by some nifty cubicles and a massive wooden ramp spanning the length of the warehouse. The party was going on towards the back of the complex. Security escorted me through the cubicles and to the set. Everyone was just hanging out and I learned that the show was going to be delayed until home story cup was over for the day. The interwebs gave them a lot of love for this decision, and I agree. At the end of the day it was far and away the best business decision they could do tho.
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