HARD cool story bro moment
Class on thursday couldn't end fast enough. A couple classmates asked why I was so jittery. When I said "MLG", one of them freaked out and got super jealous x)
I drive home. There's like 2 hours to get the car ready before I head to JUJ's and meet everyone there. Paw texts me and says he's coming over early. He shows up as I change my oil, wash the car, and vaccum the inside of it. I felt bad at how bored he must have been just watching.
After a shower and packing stuff, we leave to JUJ's. We're late, and everyone made sure to remind us.
Our carpool had Me, Paw, Espy, K Prime, and Santi. JUJ's had Big Boss, Laurel, KoN, Slush, and Kyle. Epic ride was epic. The ENTIRE DRIVE we listened to techno. We kept joking at how JUJ was constantly plotting ways to lose us in the middle of afternoon traffic. He never lost us. The 5 hours to Dallas scared me though, because he speeds all the time and there were dozens of cops out.
Get to the hotel before midnight. It's right across the street from the MLG hotel. Grape. We walk into our rooms and there both suites, with 2 rooms in each one. Delicious grape jelly. We hooked up the tv's in each one (we brought 2 in case the rooms came with plasmas, which they did).
JUJ picked up Raziek. Since he was a fellow marth, he was already amazing and not one of those awkward outcasts. Much love. Houston shows up in the middle of the night (Sync, leaf, RT, Shadow, heytallman) and I go to sleep afterwards.
Friday morning. Everyone takes dibs in showers for 2 hours. We walk to MLG and get our wrist bands. They said to come back at 1:30, so we had 2 hours to eat. Walked down the road and raided a denny's. My table was epic, with Sync Espy and Raziek.
After we all eat, everyone heads back to MLG. Me and Raziek spend an hour in the hotel room for epic marf dittos. I thought he would absolutely molest me, but we went suprisingly about even (He ***** me on counterpick stages though lol). We head to the venue. I find Paw at a station. He said he already got used to the lag. I sit down at a station and play a friendly against Choice's falco. Holy crap, the lag ***** me. Espy shouts that he's already used to it. I play 2 more friendlies against Leaf. He was ****** me because of the lag. I was extremely concerned, singles was about to start and I was nowhere near used to it yet.
They stop friendlies. Okay, let's see who my first round opponent is.
"Nikers vs UTDZac on station 8.'
I knew he would wreck me like he always does, especially because of the lag and how he's g&w. I did get his nose though :3
Match is over and I talk to P4. He got bracket ***** too. Okay, maybe I shouldnt feel so bad, afterall this IS MLG Dallas. I talk to the other San Antonio players. Laurel, Paw, and Slush all got byes. Big Boss got a marth that wasn't on my level. Espy got PeachGuard and JUJ got an easy opponent. Only K Prime earned his way through, while KoN got Fogo and was sent early like me.
Very few times in smash have I ever raged at this game, but oh boy was I pissed off when I got the news from everyone else. How the hell did half them get through that easy? I was SOOOOO ready to bulldoze through losers bracket. Oh wait, that's not til tmrw. FUUUUU. Oh well. I spent the rest of the tourney supporting everyone and filming (the one contribution I feel like I can make to the community). Watched K Prime play Larry. Espy was trash talking hard in game1. When Prime started to lose the lead, west coast let him have it hard. I felt really bad for Prime, he's the last smasher who deserves trash talk
We were also looking at X's performance. After that one tourney where he beat all of west coast, there was alot of drama on the boards for a week about who was the better sonic. They both attended this event, and a little rivalry was starting to brew. He beat Lain in a dramatic finish and made it as far as Espy. Many eyebrows were raised, 2 sonics shouldnt be that far lol.
Right before the day ended and everyone left, I got in line with Espy to see who his next opponent is.
"Espy vs Larry"
Espy's reaction was priceless. He LOATHSSSSS falco. Ozz goes dead even with him and this is The DEHF. He seemed discouraged.
We get back to the hotel. I use the computers downstairs to update smashboards and look at the bracket. Big Boss and Loko both made it Winners round 4 with all of the pros. Boy was I jealous of them. I drew brackets out on paper and went to the room. Espy took a look. He got really mad at how Polt was on there, and how his quarter looked the easiest out of everywhere (We hadn't realized the **** that MJG was going to do lol). Immediately he puts on a game face that I've never seen before and tells himself that he HAS to beat Larry. Before I went to sleep, Fatal, Tearbear, Cheese, Nicole, and a couple other people came in the room. I don't remember it though.
Saturday morning. I had to wake up before everybody in both rooms because I was one of the only ones in Round 1 of Losers bracket and it started at 10am. Everyone laughed at me lol. I get there at 8:30 before half of us are awake. I played friendlies with a metaknight and a diddy kong for an entire hour. I finally got the practice I needed, I was used to the lag! Right before singles started, I played a ROB. He planked me in our friendlies and was running out the timer. I was pissed. I'm so glad he did that, because it made me super focused on my performance. I thought I'd play Denti in round 4 of losers, so I HAD TO be ready.
First round was a random olimar. He didn't know how to whistle for super armor. It was an easy win. I turned it into a warm up for Denti. Second round I got a metaknight. Crap. Pulled an early lead game1 and held it. He counterpicked to battlefield and ***** my first stock. I somehow came back and won. He raged really hard when it was over, and I dont blame him because he so had it lol.
I thought I'd play Denti next. But in the next heat I hear "Nikkers vs Sync". NOOOO. He's one of my favorite smashers from houston, we're practically brothers and I didn't want us to play (he also made HUGE skill jumps in the past month). We hug before starting. Game1, I start off by giving 120% before takinga single hit. I was in the zone. Appearently, though, so was Sync. he brought it back and won with a "NOW" while I was at 84%.
"Smashville"
"Okay"
"You robbed me SO HARD"
"I KNOW, IT WAS BOOTY"
Love sync. Came back and won game 2. He c4'd his second stock on game3. At last stock each, he made a few mistakes and I capitalized on them to win.
Immediately after that, Espy vs DEHF was called. Had to go record. Espy got destroyed on game1. Game2 was looking like Larry was going to run away with it. Espy then pulls a combo out of his ***:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY0VN77EKgw#t=3m19s Larry was so shaken up, Espy came back and won the set. SA was going absolutely crazy and we all immedediately started hugging him for the upset he just pulled.
After this, Denti comes up to me. "We gotta play next". I feel ready. Knew it was going to be close set. It didn't dissapoint. Alot of people watched us and trash talked. Both of us started getting extremely nervous and messing up (he rolled alot from the pressure, and I choked the punish idk how many times). I got lucky at the ending of both games and won. We both played super sloppy, but a win was a win to me.
Next match was against Bizkit. Oh boy, heat check time. I was cold and he solidly beat me. It was a really fun set though, we kinda joked around the entire time and just had fun. I find out I placed 33rd, which was actually pretty good. I was happy.
Espy played Zac next. Zac won the last 3 times they played, but Espy was just on fire and won 2-0. Other side of the setups was a hyped Dojo vs X. It went to tiebreaker (never seen one before) and X won with high percent. Place went nuts. How can we know who's the better sonic if they both keep winning lol. Espy then played Shaky, while X played Seibrik. AGAIN they both won. They then announced that they were guarunteed in the Pro Bracket. Holy crap, is this actually happening?
Doubles happened. Me and Raziek entered as marth dittos. Of effing course we played Espy/K Prime first round. The winner played freakin Santi/Dojo. SA got the **** in dubs. After losing to Fogo/Bwett in first round of losers (Raziek kinda choked away game2), our hotel members went back to the room. We looked at the Pro Bracket. Espy got Rich Brown first round. Espy had his game face and said he was confident. I knew right then that he'd win.
The hotel that night was so hilarious though. We all kinda celebrated for Espy making it that far. so many funny stories and good times were had that I could list them forever.
Sunday morning. At 9:50 they announce the Pro's to their stations. Half of the smashers weren't even there. Rich Brown was a minute away from DQ for game1 when he comes sprinting in. The other matches were already playing.
During game1, Mikehaze started to trashtalk, trying to get into Espy's head. I was worried that it'd work (especially when his lead started to dwindle at time ran out) but he held on. As soon as the game was over, espy turns to me and says "My tooth fell out in the middle of the game" and he held it up to show us. The ref started to chuckle a little. Rich won a solid game 2. Espy won on Pictochat, and Rich won on green greens. By now, all other matches were done. It was game5, and EVERYBODY at the venue watched and showed support. Dphat starts getting even with the trashtalking. Both players get to their last stocks and the crowd starts chanting, drawing in a bunch of spectators from tekken, startcraft, and halo. Espy gets a good lead and it looks like he's gonna win when Mikehaze starts chanting "Brush your teeth". Everyone else just got quiet. Seemed like a major lowblow to Espy. Rich Brown whistles 2 killing bairs in a row and grabs. So intense. West coast starts chanting, everyone else starts screaming, and Espy barely pulls off a win. Mad intense, everybody went crazy. Rich Brown seemed mad obviously. He had to play mikehaze, and I think he knew that if he didnt win that he'd have little to no chance against mike.
X also won a game5 against nick riddle. Omg, this race for the better sonic can't go much farther. Well, it did. Espy 3-0's Tyrant (he didn't seem to recognize how Sonic worked on some stages) while X beat Lee. That was a big upset, Lee seemed like he shouldve won.
Dojo played Ally (Gnes knocked him into losers). Every game Dojo would do a **** combo and Ally would slowly bring it back. Game5 looked to be a repeat, but a couple early utilts gave Ally the lead for good and he won.
Espy vs ESAM was announced and everybody from TX got happy. He plays K Prime every single week for the past 2 years, he KNOWS pikachu. It looked like he had all the momentum going into game5, but ESAM gave him the **** in the end. X also lost to Gnes without much of a fight. The sonics were in losers quarters.
Espy vs Ally and X vs Tyrant were called. Espy was a little phased. He knew that all the pressure was on him to win against the best snake. Tyrant seemed likely to lose to sonic. if that happened and Espy didn't pull off the impossible, X would place higher. It didn't seem right at the time, considering he already sent Tyrant to losers.
Espy ended up not winning. Still, he got alot of cheers for getting that far already. Other side of the stage, Tyrant vs X was ending:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoZrTS7_k2s
They both got 5th. OH YEA, CONSOLATION MATCHES. Wow, they have to play each other in essentially a $750 money match. Everybody in the venue got hyped. This would finally settle the "whose the better sonic" debate. The ditto argument wouldnt matter considering how far they both got and how much money was on the line. This was it. Winners Finals didn't get near as much hype because the crowd could only watch one of them lol. Espy won game5. Never been so proud of him.
After that, everyone watched LF and GF. Gnes won the entire tourney, losing only 1 game to ESAM. As soon as Gnes Tyrant shook hands, M2K next to me says:
"I feel like I couldve won this."
"Maybe next year, Jason."
It seemed like a pathetic answer, but actually the MLG CO had a hype speech that encouraged hope for next year.
We left the venue after an hour or two. Then something absolutely crazy happened. While following JUJ onto the highway he switchs lanes on us. 18-wheeler right next to me. Typical of JUJ, he was plotting to lose us again. I speed ahead of the semi and jump in front of him to get behind JUJ. Another truck tries to get onto the my lane right after I do. He sees me though, and swerves back. We think we're okay.
We look in front of us at JUJ. An SUV tries to get into his lane from the access road. He doesn't see JUJ. He comes about 2-3 inches to slamming into JUJ at over 60mph (NOT JOKING). Everony in the car lets out a huge shreik. JUJ swerves to the left uncontrolablly. The SUV FINALLY swerves to the right, and it almost HITS THE WALL. SOOOOOO much chaos. JUJ was that close to getting totaled, and we were that close to driving right into it. Soon as we all stop at a Jack in the Box, JUJ's carpool climbs out like they just saw land for the first time in months.
We all eat at Jack in the Crack with houston before making the journey back home. JUJ loses us on the highway before we leave Dallas. he finally lost me. We made the journey back home without him. Was a really fun car ride. we get back to JUJ's house before his car, and we thought it was witchcraft. He shows up, and everyone parts ways home.
Best weekend of my life.
