In the Stream I followed I managed to see Shank (21st seed) upset 2 teams, and nearly upset a third, only for them to invite an extra player into observer mode which got them disqualified. This was quite a shame as they did well in their second game. The first one they were 4-1 down, and Death Valley (12) seemed to just give up, then 2 of them left the server almost thinking they had won. This gave Shank the chance to grab a cap back, and after that they just steamrolled. In the second match, we saw them playing Crazy Toys (5). The match was played on PVC Factory, and was extremely evenly matched throughout the course of the game, with Shank surprisingly managing to pull off yet another upset.
Match 3 was Exordium (1) vs Nordic (8), and was certainly one of the most entertaining matches I have seen in eSports for a long time. Both teams were very evenly matched, and the game went back an forth for ages. In the final few minutes of the game Nordic were one capture up, and no matter how hard Exordium pushed they just couldn't manage to capture. They had 2 pulls in the last minute, with the final one getting within a few feet of the flag, only to be stopped as the timer ticked down to about 3 seconds to go. Nordic managed to hold on to the lead, but sadly lost out to inHarmony (4) in the next match.
inHarmony originally lost to Shank, but they were allowed to advance through as this was the game that Shank got disqualified. The game seemed to be in inHarmonys favor all game however every time they seemed to go anywhere AngryDay would step-up and make a seriously clutch play. Out of all the players, he impressed me the most as some of his kills were incredible and really kept his team in it. As we moved onto the Semi-Finals where inHarmony knocked out Nordic, we saw Forbidden (2) vs BlackBox (3). This was meant to be a grudge match since the two teams appear to be rivals. However the map it was played on (Neighborhood) is far to big for 4v4 and the majority of the game teams we just sat back in their base. There was very little action so overall it was a disappointing match.
The final took place on PVC Factory, and was between Blackbox and inHarmony. The game was over far faster than expected, with Blackbox picking up some quick captures and ending the game fairly quickly. Forbidden managed to defeat Nordic in the 3rd place match-up which was played off stream.
The commentating was fairly good as well, and was from a player known as Chipz. He was fairly new to the commentating game, as you could tell sometimes he wasn't sure what to say. However his energy when something big happened was incredible and was certainly entertaining to listen to which the matches were being played. With a few more weeks practice he will defiantly be a great caster to watch, and will offer a lot to the games being played.
Overall I was really impressed by the quality of matches being played, and the stream was fairly good quality. It was slightly lagging frame rate wise at times, but certainly watchable. The community was also hanging out on IRC, and I learnt quite a bit from them during the evening. I would like to also put a thanks out to Bacon, who is a Mod over on the MV site, for sticking behind after the tournament and explaining quite a bit more of what goes on within the scene. It was interesting to learn about it, and for such a small community there is a lot going on!
