What is so good about the MLG experience?
MLG Dallas Championships of 2010 was my first MLG experience. Hands down the best tournament experience of my life.
1. MLG rents out an entire hotel. Not just any hotel but some of the best hotels a state can offer. One with a conference room the size of a football field.
2. Halo, Call Of Trash, Dota, StarCraft, Smash and more are held and each game has obscene amount of players. It is the one time where PC and Console come together to form TRUE professional eSports. Each game has its own unique stage, crazy lighting, music blasting, streaming set-up (top notch btw) and referees (more on them later).
3. While walking around in the conference room, sponsors like Dr.Pepper, Hot Pockets, RedBull, Bic, Doritos and more are giving away free stuff all weekend long. I literally watched human beings eat 5-6 times a day and their diet consisted only of Dr.Pepper and Ham&Cheese Hot Pockets. The hotel toilets never knew what hit em'. It was glorious.
4. Booth Babes are around to tell you about the sponsors and are will to give you free stuff and take pictures with you. Mascots walk around and hype **** up.
5. Security. You are scanned by a metal detector machine and are wand-ed before you walk in. The environment is safer than any event i have held or attended. You just feel at ease and safe. It is hard to describe.
6. As for TO-ing. The event in ran in "heats" or "waves." There are no pools and there is no seeding. When your heat has been called you literally have 3min to get to your tv and if you are not in your seat, the referee DQs you without remorse and the set-up is empty until the next heat. MLG literally runs by timers. Every minute is accounted for because they have 2-3 days to eliminate and crown a few champions out of thousands of players all the while keeping media/sponsors happy. The event is ran very solidly and smooth. No delay. No problems. No johns.
6a. Referees (usually volunteers) have an interesting job. They stand next to each set-up and never leave. They tell you when to start, when to stop, explain any/all rules and wish to know what characters you use, on what stages and how long each match went on. By doing this, they collect data. The data collected is beautiful and a really nice insight as to how players play smash. Here is the very cool data from the MLG 2010 Dallas Championships that i attended:
http://smashboards.com/threads/mlg-brawl-2010-matchslip-statistics-and-analysis.304174/
6b. A bit off topic but the data above REALLY puts into perspective my views of Brawl/Smash 4/Metaknight and the Smash 4 newgen behavior that was adopted from the late Brawl era. Looking at this data now truly makes me think that i am a literal prophet of smash.
7. Anyways, the rest of what i want to tell you is hard because it is only understood if you EXPERIENCE the event. I highly recommend you go. You will never regret it.