MLG Dallas Live Coverage Friday, Azael @ Blizzcon

**** There was some confusion today, and Ming asked Zilea to do live blogging today forgetting that it was my night to write an article.  Below is the preview that Zilea wrote up, but I will be doing the actual live blogging portion of the article for tonight.  Sorry for the confusion! ****


The long 3 day MLG Dallas event will be starting tonight at 6 PM CST (matches start at 7)  so be sure to tune in here.
(Note: I'll have an updated link when the tournament actually starts)

Schedule for today:

7:00 PM - 7:35 PM Round Robin: SK vs. x6tence
7:35 PM - 8:10 PM Round Robin: eMg vs. Fnatic
8:10 PM - 8:45 PM Round Robin: HoN vs. Gravitas
8:45 PM - 9:20 PM Round Robin: aAa vs. CompLexity

Will SK-Gaming USA bring home the gold in the mirrors?

Last weekend was a particularly rough weekend for SK-Gaming despite tearing down Button Bashers. They were stopped short by the RMP killer comp of pally/dk/hunter by both x6 and Shipit. This time around, however, there are many RMPs and a round robin system to go through so even if they lose to x6 and eMg, they will have another shot by facing off against the 4 other RMPs in attendance and Fnatic's RLS lineup. Enforcer is going to have a difficult road ahead of him if he does not come home with a 1st or 2nd place finish as he had been doing some pretty hefty trash talking over at the arenajunkies forums before Blizzcon. Trash talking when you're bringing home the cash (see here) is not a big deal, but when you start losing, that is when you start to realize how much of an ass you've made yourself look like.

eMg throws a curve ball with a new lineup (maybe)

I've been hearing from a number of different people lately that because eMg has been struggling on patch 3.2 with their main lineup of pally/dk/hunter against RMP, they are going to be running something new for MLG Dallas: priest/enhancement shaman/hunter. Now I've never played on or against that lineup before so making predictions/theorycrafting is going to be a little difficult. On paper it sounds like a pretty good comp vs RMP because you can grounding + shock polymorphs, and with the sheer pressure of enhancement shaman/hunter you can probably kill a rogue in 1 or 2 GCDs. On top of that, earthbind totem makes the team virtually unsnareable, so perhaps even training the mage could be very successful.

However, if the RMP begins to land CC in succession on the priest, the shaman or hunter will probably drop very quickly as a trinket will have to be blown by the priest, leading to a blind.

Will eMg stick to this new lineup vs the 5 RMP teams or go with their usual pally/dk/hunter? We'll find out soon enough!



Once again, I'll reiterate my predictions for the event (which I did a few days ago):
X6 and Fnatic will clean house as pally/dk/hunter destroys RMP and Fnatic will also do extremely well because I've been hearing about their performance vs RMP on the tournament realm.

This is going to be an exciting weekend as every match will be streamed, with 4 games scheduled for today, 18 games scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday) and many still scheduled for Sunday. Don't miss it!



So Blizzcon was last weekend, and I just wanted to thank everyone... who came up to the Steelseries booth to join the dueling tournament and say hi!  It was a blast meeting everyone as usual, and the tournaments themselves were extremely exciting, definitely a great weekend as expected.  I have quite a few insane stories, but since Zilea already handled the pre-blog you don't get to hear them, but I would like to give a shout out to Johnee from Tichondrius the only person to beat me in a duel at the tournament!  Congrats on your Steelseries Qck Mousepad!  It was pretty funny when it happened as a pretty large crowd had gathered around the booth watching the monitors facing outwards which were showing my screen, and when I lost the duel everyone started cheering super loud so it was a pretty cool atmosphere and everyone seemed quite into it.





It's always a really cool atmosphere there, and having so many fans of the game in one place certainly makes it really interesting as it's really the only time in the year you're able to see and meet so many recognizable figures from the WoW community.  Putting faces to the names and taking time to talk with those you know online is definitely really cool, so mark it on your calendar's and make sure you don't miss out next year - it's gonna be huge!





- Wow that's an amazing green screen, they should start showing an image of the sky because it already looks like they're flying on that thing.

- Getting a pretty solid run down of SK Realz fridge atm, take notes kids, this is what a champion eats.

- Matches don't start until 8 EST I guess, I thought it was 7 EST, but it's not, so about 25 more minutes of interviews if they're on schedule.

- Douja - "Yog is kind of a FNATIC when it comes to queueing" HEHEHEHE

- Kintt interview......................... nvm awkward pause.




SK USA vs x6tence

Round 1 - RMP vs PHDk on Blade's Edge Arena

Both teams playing alliance, and x6 using a BM hunter.  SK opens hard on the DK of x6, and x6 is putting pressure on Pookz, which forces an early block and lets x6 swap quickly over to enforcer.  Pookz drops his block and BM is popped as they get back on him very hard forcing him to kite away and eventually use his second block whil Enforcer is still sitting on the DK of x6.  Pookz and Falcon are both getting quite low but Realz is completely out of mana and Souler is able to keep Falcon up as Pookz gets finished off.  It definitely seems like 3.2 will be tough for SK as they rely on quick kills against cleave teams and putting out the insane pressure that they're so well known for.  With this Patch it is a lot harder to do that so x6 was simply able to outlast Realz mana pool by putting enough pressure on Pookz to lock him down and prevent him from really putting out much damage or crowd control.

1-0 for x6.


Round 2 - RMP vs PHDk on Nagrand Arena

SK starts hard on Falcon while x6 puts pressure onto Enforcer getting him to about half HP then popping beastial wrath and swapping to Realz.  Realz gets very low but is able to get himself back up with pain supression, desperate prayer etc, and SK swaps hard onto the hunter of x6 (siler) and is able to get him very low as BM ends dropping him as low as 2k hp.  Souler was able to pick Siler back up though and the pressure never really ended on Realz as he was simply not able to keep up with it and eventually went down.

2-0 for x6. Seems like SK needs to change it up and probably get off the DK at the start, I am much more used to seeing Pookz control the DK hard at the start while they start on the Paladin but I guess they don't think it'll work with this patch.  Hopefully they have some ideas and can turn things around here quickly as I know they're capable of doing.


Round 3 - RMP vs PHDk on Ruins of Lordaeron

This is the SK I'm more used to seeing, they start very hard on Souler forcing an extremely early bubble but Pookz is also forced into a block and strangulate is put onto realz as they swap putting pressure on him making it hard to heal Pookz up during the block.  Pookz comes out of the block and Enforcer / Pookz are able to finish off Souler but Realz is simply taking too much damage from the DK / Hunter of x6 and is out of cooldowns, so he dies as well and Pookz drops very shortly after.

3-0 for x6.

They're playing out all 5 rounds for tie-breakers? I really don't like this at all, think about how insanely long tomorrow will be... 14 hour day anyone?


Round 4 - RMP vs PHDk on Blade's Edge Arena

SK once against starts on the DK of x6, but swaps quickly to Souler and he pulls a repeat from Blizzcon not bubbling before his death.  Pookz ALMOST dies but is able to block the Kill Shot at about 15% HP.

3-1 for x6.


Round 5 - RMP vs PHDk on Blade's Edge Arena

SK starts extremely hard on Souler, and x6 is on Pookz once again, this is looking more like 3.1.  They force a very early bubble on Souler and there really seems to be no pressure coming out from x6 as Pookz still hasn't even blocked.  x6 swaps to enforcer hard, but SK is on Souler dropping him to about 10% before wound drops and he crits a holy light bringing himself to full HP allowing x6 to train Enforcer out and knock him down shortly after.

4-1 for x6.




eMg vs Fnatic

This should be a pretty interesting match as there has been a ton of talk in the pro community about how amazing Woundman is, so I'm excited to see how he performs here on LAN.  If eMg plays DK Hunter Pally then it should be an easy win for Fnatic as it was already winnable in 3.1, and the advantage moved to RLS in 3.2 as long as the warlock is playing affliction in my opinion.  There has been some talk about eMg playing Priest Enhancement Shaman Hunter though, which in theory could be very hard for RLS, so it'll be interesting to see if they end up running that, and how well they're able to play it in order to counter RLS.

Round 1 - RLS vs Priest Enchance Hunter on Blade's Edge Arena

eMg is playing their counter comp, so it should be interesting, pretty good map for RLS though.  Spirit wovles, lust and everything is popped right away and they're pet zerging yog extremely hard, as Fnatic focuses on Kintt quite hard at the same time.  Yog really isn't able to do much of anything at the moment and is taking huge damage, but beastial wrath falls and Yog is able to get away and start spreading out the dots in order to take control of the match.  Yog's HP really isn't moving and eMg swaps over to Woundman bringing him under 2k HP multiple times but unable to bring him down.  Flexx is extremely low, but they both get picked up and eMg swaps to Yog and brings him extremely low before he ports away but is finished off by Twix's pet.  The match isn't over yet though as Douja and Woundman are almost able to 2v3 them and Twix drops below 1k HP with Flexx also dipping extremely low before Woundman is finally finished off.  Insane game.

1-0 eMg.


Round 2 - RLS vs Priest Enhance Hunter on Nagrand Arena

Enhancement Shamans are pretty much as annoying as it gets for a Warlock, so I feel bad for Fnatic losing such a close match in such a tough matchup.  Lets hope they can bounce back here, but it will be much harder without Yog being able to port up top on the bridge.  Woundman gets a sap on Kintt as he's very slow getting in combat, but lust and wolves etc are all popped very early and Yog is taking massive massive damage dropping to half HP quickly.  Fnatic is putting big damage onto Twix though and dropping him quite well at the same time as BM drops.  eMg is still hard on Yog getting him to sub 3k HP but Twix is extremely low as well and aimed shot falls letting Douja pick Yog back up to full HP which allowed Fnatic to finish Twix off and take the second round.

1-1.


Round 3 - RLS vs Priest Enhance Hunter on Ruins of Lordaeron

Douja is really wearing a lot of PvE gear and it makes me wonder if they wouldn't be able to focus him some, but they're once again on Yog hard with lust, wolves and BM.  His pet is getting absolutely raped by Soul Link damage and he's extremely low very quickly.  His pet died, and I'm not sure if he noticed because he lived for about 5 seconds without Fel-Doming before he finally went down.  eMg was really just pumping damage into Yog as even Kintt did 15,000 damage in a game that really only lasted a few seconds, that's quite the zerg.

eMg 2-1.


 Round 4 - RLS vs Priest Enhance Hunter on Dalaran Sewers

I wonder if Douja would be able to find the time to get some Hex's off, I really haven't seen any going out but I could easily just be missing them as it's pretty hard to see what's going on with all the lusted pets on the map.  eMg is able to just sprint right in with wolves and start on Yog right on top of his Demon Portal, this is pretty much the worst spot a lock can be in as you need to try kiting away from the portal, but instead of sticking to Yog eMg swaps to Woundman dropping him insanely low in an intimidation before NS is blown and they swap right back to Yog and drop him extremely fast while Douja is caught in a fear with Tremor down.

eMg 3-1.


Round 5 - RLS vs Priest Enhance Hunter on Blade's Edge Arena

With the match already over, Fnatic is just playing for pride.  My stream just lagged out, so I missed the final match but the commentators said that Fnatic won.

eMg 3-2.




Button Bashers vs Gravitas Gaming

The first of many RMP mirrors for the weekend, should be pretty interesting as a revitalized Gravitas Gaming team takes on Button Bashers coming off an underwhelming Blizzcon performance.  Many expected them to win the tournament or at least finish in the top 2 or 3, but with a pretty disappointing showing from their rogue Hannival, it left many wondering if they're ever going to be in the same form that they were at ESL with Dker where they won and made a name for themselves.

Round 1 - RMP vs RMP on Blade's Edge Arena

Looks like a standard horde Frost / Mute / Disc for GG, and Frost / Dance / Disc for BB- BB opens hard on Toez and GG tried doing the same thing to BB as they put hard pressure onto Numberone.  Both priests went low then were able to top themselves up but Numberone was forced to blow his pain suppression and got caught out down below the bridge in LoS dropping as low as 3k HP before getting a divine hymn off as wound fell to top himself and his team off.  Toez is hugely behind on mana at this point so it looks like advantage BB as Toez spends the last of his mana and they swap their focus onto Toez and are able to take him down.  I'm not really sure how Toez was able to be THAT far behind on mana as Numberone had to have had about 8-10k mana when Toez was at about 1.5k mana, and Numberone hadn't even been burning because he was under focus at that point.  The only thing I can figure is his Shadowfiend was either not used or was CC when it was, either way something has to be fixed with that because losing that badly on mana really shouldn't happen so early in the game.

1-0 BB.

Round 2 - RMP vs RMP on Ring of Valor

Both mages pop water elemental as the game starts and once again both teams are going on the other teams priest right off the start.  Pain supressions are forced and Numberone start dipping quite low but is BB was able to peel for him and put huge pressure onto Toez with Numberone casting into him while still at quite low HP allowing them to take him down extremely fast.

2-0 BB.

HoN really seems to be into the matches and you can hear them yelling a ton on stream, looks like they want to prove that Blizzcon was a fluke and show everyone that they're for real.

Round 3 - RMP vs RMP on Nagrand Arena

Once again both teams start hard on the opposing teams priest, but no serious progress is made, GG swaps onto Hannival and dips him to about 30% hp before he's picked back up to full and BB starts to go hard onto Kigz as Numberone gets a fear on Toez.  Numberone is pretty much completely oom but Kigz is brought extremely low as Numberone is able to get some mana back w/ Shadowfiend, and keep Hannival up through the pressure as his team finished Kigz off.  Gravitas put out huge damage that game but BB was able to heal through it and control the game enough to last late into the game and finish Kigz off late game.

3-0 BB.

Round 4 - RMP vs RMP on Nagrand Arena

Gravitas will have to change something up as Button Bashers seems to have control on the series thus far, and with the MLG format using total rounds won to determine who moves onto the final rounds they need to squeeze out every win they can.  It definitely has to be disheartening for Celex as I know he was very confident going into this event and having to brood on a bad loss all night before a long day tomorrow is not good for their team.  Toez is sapped early, and BB is going extremely hard on Toez with Gravitas putting a bit of pressure onto Numberone before swapping hard onto Hannival.  Gravitas simply can't seem to pull Hannival off of Toez though and it's looking pretty bad for him as a CS -> Deep Freeze allows BB to finish Toez off.

4-0 BB.

Round 5 - RMP vs RMP on Blade's Edge Arena

Final match of this series and I don't see BB changing anything up as going on Toez has really been working well for them so far.  Orange Marmalade pops an early pet and charges in with Hannival as they go hard onto Toez while GG once again is focusing on Hannival who dips to about 6k HP and then gets caught into a kidney which he trinkets and then cloaks and sprints away allowing Numberone to top him off.  Hannival tried to restealth but was knocked out allowing Gravitas to swap onto Numberone and force a Pain Suppression, but Numberone lives easily through it but is then caught into a sheep as they swap onto Hannival who jumps off the bridge to kite and survive through the CC.  Hannival once again gets caught into a kidney and cheat death is forced, but he's once again able to survive until BB swaps onto Kigz and quickly takes him down with a Shadowdance.

5-0 BB.

With the new 1 minute cooldown on Shadow Dance it really opens up a whole different way to play the spec as you simply get that many more chance for a kill, which really seems to fit well with the Korean playstyle.  They simply love to kite out the game until the perfect opportunity comes up and they can really take advantage with the huge damage from Shadow Dance on top of the damage from their aggressive priest and mage.  It's also really fun to watch.



Complexity vs aAa

Even though CoL takes a lot of **** for being a sub-par team, I for one think it's largely undeserved and am excited to see them play with Reckful.  I talk to this team pretty frequently and their strategy for RMPs is different from anyone elses that I have heard or seen, so if they're able to pull it off they should really catch a lot of teams off guard which will make for some very exciting matches!  Stay tuned!

Round 1 - RMP vs RMP on Ruins of Lordaeron

Venruki starts the game off with a PoM sheep on aAa's Priest, and almost instantly kills Phoenix bringing him below 3k HP, but aAa is able to pick him back up and go hard onto Reckful.  Pain Supression was forced shortly after on Reckful and he was caught into a Kidney Shot not long after with no cooldowns allowing aAa to take him down and win the first match.

1-0 aAa.

Round 2 - RMP vs RMP on Ruins of Lordaeron

Complexity starts on the priest of aAa, but is not really able to do a ton of damage to him.  aAa is once again going very hard on Reckful, who really wasn't doing anything that game as he was just under huge pressure and didn't seem to be able to get anything going that game.  I know damage really isn't a great indicator but he ended that game with 6159 damage, and Hiss finished with 53282, and anytime the damage difference is that huge you're really going to be in trouble as you simply will be behind the whole game if you play like that.  With Arcane really not working out Venruki is going back to Frost and with their original strategy not working they're really in a tough spot down 2-0 to aAa.

2-0 aAa.

Round 3 - RMP vs RMP on Dalaran Sewers

With this round being a true mirror it should be interesting to see how it plays out, hopefully CoL can pull out some wins.  CoL opened onto Phoenix once again and aAa is starting hard on Reckful who is caught into an early trinket which he chooses not to trinket.  Sodah is blinded and trinkets it instantly but Reckful is just under huge pressure and is forced to swap onto Hiss who he catches into a kidney.  Both teams pop Pain Suppression and top their rogues up, but as the cooldowns fade Reckful is once again caught into a kidney and goes down in a hurry.  I really am not sure what's going on here with Reckful, he once again did 6649 damage compared to Hiss doing well over 60,000, and you just simply cannot win games like that, he needs to choose a target that he can put some pressure out on, and at this point I'm really not sure what that is.  They should probably just try to dumb down their strategy and zerg the priest or maybe have Reckful just wait for Hiss in order to get some pressure out here and attempt to get something going.

3-0 aAa.

Round 4 - RMP vs RMP on Ruins of Lordaeron

Good, Reckful opens hard onto Thorkin, but aAa is once again focusing him hard and pulling him off of his target.  He's caught into a vanish cheapshot and comes out of it at very low HP, is able to get a cloak off with about 300 hp but is finished off right after.  It's not looking good for Complexity, and it's extra tough when you have to brood on a match like this for an entire night before a very very long day tomorrow.

4-0 aAa.

Round 5 - RMP vs RMP on Ring of Valor

Will the last match of the day end in frustration for CoL?  Lets hope they can get something going here to take some positives out of their first match moving into tomorrow.  Venruki is able to knock Hiss out right away and CoL chooses to start on Phoenix as aAa opens on Reckful forcing him to swap onto Hiss dropping him relatively low.  Reckful is caught into a kidney and trinkets immediately but is ruptured and not able to get away at all, however he's able to stick onto Hiss and they catch him in a kidney while he's dipping quite low and finish him off to end on a positive note.

4-1 aAa.


Well, that's it for today - hope you enjoyed the live blogging and be sure to be back tomorrow for more of the same as I believe Zilea will be picking up where I left off and blogging for about 14 hours straight! I wish him luck!

It was quite a bad day for North American RMPs, so I hope they can pick it up tomorrow as our 3 RMPs were a combined 2-13 today.

Until next week...