Ghost's Profile

Well here I am the weekend before MLG Columbus blogging after a long night of practice. We played on and off before the LAN at Walshy’s, but have been getting on consistently since the LAN. We are well-practiced. Speaking of which, the LAN was a ton of fun. So I left off on the 15th at 10:25 AM with 2 hours of sleep, one bag, and my iTouch. I checked my bag in, but realized I lost my headphones the previous night. So I bought a new pair of headphones at the airport. Clutch. I get to Washington-Dulles, head to eat, and then head to the bathroom. As I pulled my headphones with my iTouch connected out of my shorts, the new endpiece slipped, causing my iTouch to fall into the airport toilet. I now had 7 more hours to think about what just happened. With only each flight being 1h30m tops, it was impossible to sleep. Either way, we all showed up later that night.

After seeing Mason bring 3 TVs over the airplane, we discovered one was broken. So after a trip to Best Buy and the Kiaeneto Shop, I walked back with my new monitor and a new clothing line thanks to Dave. He’s probably the nicest guy in the world haha. Then I found out why he’s so nice. He was raised by his mom. She was so kind and made sure that she had dinner waiting in a Croc Pot for all 8 of us every night.

Wake Up -> Game -> Lunch -> Game -> Dinner -> Game -> Sleep -> Repeat.

Yeah we played a different amount of series, had different meals, but we made sure we used this LAN time 100%. It really paid off. Defy is a complete beast. He doesn’t miss and is smart as hell. I’m glad things worked out the way they did. Count it down. Four Days Left. I’ll let our actions speak for ourselves.

The trip home was similar to the first.  3 hours of sleep, went through the same flights, all to come home to State College where they lost my checked baggage.  Worst two flights I've had in a while. Other than that...

Shoutout to Peridious for still being the man, Roy for being awful at Wolverine, and Neighbor for loving Halo 3 theater.  Good luck to everyone who attends Columbus.

 -Ghost

Haha, well I think we're finally a set team. Not four days ago I was here blogging about my positive outlook with Soviet, defending myself and my team. And now I'm here telling you that Soviet left anyways. Yesterday I received a text message, "hey im leavin the team, just dont things are gonna work out" Not too sure if I was supposed to just look for a fourth, or text him back. So I called him. "We didn't practice enough, didn't talk about our practices, and I just wasn't really having fun. Plus I'm looking for a team with a sponsor." Okay, so now we got a day or two to determine which fourth Carbon needs to pick up. Now, I finally took a step back and looked at what our team was made of. Cpt Anarchy, ShocKWav3, and GH057ayame. Three very versatile players. We all were 2006 veterans, and knew how to play support in Halo 2 when it was needed. So why pick up a slayer to form another XiT WoundZ? No wonder we got top 8 a few times and then a top 3 once. After cycling through players in my head, I came upon the one guy that was always meant for Carbon. He got asked once, but decided to stick with his friends instead. When StrongSide was kicked off in 2006, the 4th was between myself and Defy. Few calls, few texts. Just got the call back from Defy telling me that he'd be down to team with us. Team Carbon for Columbus is going to be pure teamwork. Might change our name to Team Selfless. -Ghost

So Meadowlands was another tournament of disappointment.  It's hard to come on here to type about what went wrong in a tournament or how upset you were, when all you want to do is get to the next one.  Like I said yesterday, I have never felt more confident going into a tournament.  In Halo 3, I feel that the entire team needs to be on the same page.  Yes, players can be on fire and that can overcome teamwork.  However, I believe that in Halo 3, decision-making and teamwork will out-play individual skill when both are pushed to their full potential.  There are so many different situations where you can bait your teammates or rush with them.  On the other hand, if your teammate is on the back of their base in Narrows TS, it's kind of hard to support them.  With Dmitry on the team, I knew he was a slayer, like Naded, but saw that he was geared more towards team-shot.

Now, I also believe that there are two ways a player can play Halo 3.  You can play the best to your individual ability, the way that you play best.  Or, you can play the best way for your team, and hopefully propel yourselves to a better finish.  If you can find a player that not only plays his best as a slayer, but also fits the team as a slayer, then that’s the guy to pick up for your team.  Pre-Meadowlands, we were all playing to the best of our team ability, much like Status Quo.  However, when we reached the event, tension and nervousness apparently got the best of us.  When we finally had a challenge, we changed the way we played to the best of our individual ability.  Thus, when we faced Str8 Rippin’ and a hot Triggers Down, we had trouble.  Triggers Down was on fire, and Instincts teamwork wasn’t as good as it could have been. So, the near-flawless slaying power out-weighed Instinct’s strategies, as they did ours.  Lastly, I go to tournaments to win, to be the best team.  On Saturday tD had problems, but come Sunday, they steam-rolled.  I strive to have a dynasty, to be part of a team that doesn’t lose, or can skew their play-style to accommodate upcoming strategies and players. 

On that note, that is why Naded says that I control the team in his interview.  Like previous, I feel that everyone should know what to do at any given moment.  Halo 1 didn’t really have roles besides power-weapon controllers. Halo 2 had extreme roles to create familiarity with the randomness.  Halo 3 is similar to Halo 1.  Everyone needs to be versatile.  I want to have a team that I can count on every teammate just as much as the next, that when I run the flag to sniper on Narrows CTF, my teammate is watching man cannon hole for my safety.  While Team Slayer is definitely more individual, I feel that baiting and switching can still remain supreme.  I feel that your place on the map should decide what role you have to take, rather than vice versa.  So when Naded joined the team, he wanted otherwise.  He didn’t want to be tamed or controlled, which is fine.  However, we feel differently, hence why he was replaced.  With Soviet, he was almost brought up by Walshy, so I figured I could mold him to the vision I had.  It worked out perfect. He’s sick.  Now post-Meadowlands, the second we took 8^th place at the event, I had good friends asking me if we were replacing Soviet because they already heard rumors.  Carbon is a team that is known to be very trustworthy and sincere.  We give every player that we pick up not only a chance to prove themselves, but sometimes extra.  And like Brett stated, it’s purely business.

Naded: I was kicked off. I still don't even know why. At Meadows, I was talking to Cpt Anarchy, and he said if I practiced more, they wouldn't have done it. Here's the deal. I was actually having a child with my girlfriend at the time, so how was I supposed to be getting on everyday? I think that's understandable. Anarchy told me that if I had said I was going to break up with my girlfriend, they would have kept me. It was shady. But it was a new reason every day. They'd tell people that I didn't work well with the team, or that I wasn't a team player, or that I was selfish, when the real reason was because I couldn't get on everyday and play.

We know Brett was having a kid.  We know that interferes with your game-time.  However, that didn’t impact our decision like that at all.  ShocKWav3 had a ton of school-work, but when he got on, he didn’t quit out of games.  Like Walshy said, when you get on, play 100% or else it’s worthless time spent.  Never would Anarchy threaten to kick someone off for having a child.  That’s absurd.  And those new reasons everyday? They’re all synonyms for the same thing. You weren’t a team player.  The reason you got dropped was purely play-style.  Which is why were still friends.

Naded: I'm not sure. Ghost runs everything on that team with Anarchy as a sidekick, so if he wants to kick off Soviet, it's going to happen. After Ghost offered me the spot, I tried to steal Soviet and Shockwave, but that didn't work out. Shockwave decided to stick it out another tournament with Carbon. He also said that even he didn't know they were trying to kick off Soviet. It was all Ghost and Anarchy.

Recently, I have tried to take a team-leader role because Chris is busy with school.  However, we have all been pretty much agreeing on every decision.  We talk everything over and make sure no one’s upset.  So after Meadowlands, Carlos and I were in a room on XBL with Brett and we had been talking about what went wrong at Meadowlands.  Now, this season is 5 events long, so each one is much more competitive.  We were thinking about our options for the future.  I knew Ben and Brett were dropping Defy and Best Man.  At the same time, I was getting told that Dmitry had been talking to Heaven and Earth and trying to team.  So I thought, worst case scenario, if he leaves, we have to look around.  With that on mind, Carlos and I asked Brett if he would ever join the team again.  Not immediately, or even pre-Ohio, but just the future or if things went wrong.  The rumors of Dmitry and HaE were debunked by Dmitry himself.  The reason ShocKWav3 wasn’t informed of us dropping Soviet and asking Naded is because it wasn’t planning on happening as an actual team change.  ShocKWav3 is the Team Captain of Carbon.  We all give our perspectives, but ultimately it’s his decision.

In conclusion, Team Carbon has never been so hasty to make a team change.  It’s history.  I’m glad that I’m still with my three teammates.  It’s nice to know that even though there might be shady rumors going around, that my Team Captain and new teammate stick with us.  Expect to see a much more prepared Carbon for Columbus.  Not only have we already gotten on to practice (very un-Carbon-like haha), but we’ve even set up a LAN! We’re planning our trip to Dave Walsh’s house for the 15^th of May.  We should be getting some good games over in Michigan.  Carbon fans – don’t lose hope! I know you were disappointed, but keep your chins up.  Soviet has still yet to be unlocked.  His potential will unfold soon enough, haha. Just wait.

 

 

Once again, let’s pick up where I left off:

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A month leading up to the tournament, we finally started actually getting on and playing.  The month previous, Carlos and I were playing a decent amount of games of playlist, but nothing compared to our pre-Vegas binge.  We had been slacking on practice. This was partly due to our team having a ton of internet problems.  My connection was dropping to 56k randomly throughout the day for about two weeks.  Soviet’s connection would drop him from games all the time, so we lost a ton of experience from that, haha.  And ShocKWav3 is in his 4^th semester at Virginia Tech.  As an engineering major, your last semester of Sophomore year is normally packed with heavy-load courses – his followed suit. On top of a drastic time difference, we were pretty sloppy getting our practice schedule together.  We tried multiple times to get on, but nothing was working.

Finally, ShocKWav3 came down to Penn State for his Spring Break.  He came over for four or five days and just played Halo with us 24/7.  We got our teamwork back up to par, and were ready to move onto the Russian.  So Chris left, and Dmitry booked his ticket.  He was to come up for the two weeks prior to Meadowlands.  Carlos had teamed with D in the past, but I had never really met the guy.  To be honest, he wasn’t even on my friends list when we picked him up, haha.  Carlos reinsured me that he was the right choice personality-wise too, so I was optimistic.  Even though he is a little younger than us, I know he had a great time coming up to visit and play.  The first week was just really getting to know each other, but the second week was straight gaming.  We hadn’t lost a scrim in at least a week, and we knew how to bait and switch like kings.  I had never been so confident for a tournament than going into Meadowlands.  Dmitry meshed perfectly, and Chris was playing as much as he could.  After a two week joyride, it was time to buckle down.  We were on the road to New Jersey.

Let's pick up where I left off shall we?

     So we picked up Cpt Anarchy after San Diego and were looking forward to performing well in Orlando.  Since I’ve teamed with Carlos in the past, I knew what he had to offer.  Luckily, ShocKWav3’s high school friend Paul had his own apartment in Philadelphia.  This enabled us to all play next to each other and hang out with one another.  Paul was nice enough to let myself, Carlos, and Karma all stay at his apartment for a majority of the summer.  He was also deemed our coach a little later in the summer for.

    Chris (ShocKWav3) lived only 15 minutes away from Paul, so it allowed him to be with his family, too.  Ben, Carlos, and I would just play non-stop almost every day.  We became Matchmaking Champions on our fake accounts, recognized for our pages of 1st place finishes.  Yes, we were AoD.  I was AoD Goddd for anyone who knows him.  Having these fake team accounts gave us no reason not to play.  When you’re on your normal accounts, you have to play with other people.  However, during the day, there weren’t many good players on.  So, when you’re on your fake, you can just join up by yourself and not have to worry about losing some dignity, haha. Besides gaming, we would go to the gym, WaWa (so good), and sometimes to the King of Prussia Mall.

    This way of life continued for most of the summer, with events and LANs in between.  The week before Orlando, we all flew out to TuLegit’s condo in Florida, about 15 minutes away from the event.  The first night of LAN’ing was very unsuccessful due to a monitor shortage.  However, Tsquared wouldn’t take no for an answer.  He left the condo determined, and after 2 hours, returned with four third-party monitors.  While Str8 played on ViewSonics, we were left with some pretty laggy non-22-inch monitors, and Carlos with a 15” Panasonic, haha.  We got crushed that first night, but hoped it was just the TVs.  Thankfully, it was.  The rest of the LAN we put up a really good fight against Str8, and I believe even came out on top if we didn’t count the first night.  Either way, we not only got better as a team, but got better as friends, with Str8, too.

    Carbon and Str8 Rippin’ have always known to be a rivalry.  But after LAN’ing with them, we got to be really good friends.  Each and every one of us had a ton of fun just doing random stuff together.  After LAN’ing for four days, Mason and Kyle had to go to the U.S. Championship in NY.  So there were 6 of us just hanging out with each other.  We got a few games in, but nothing major.  That’s one regret of my season.  I feel if we played the three days leading up to the event, that we would have placed better, but that’s the past.  A day or two later, Mason and the U.S. Champion returned, and were ready to head out to the hotel.

    Lammie and his brother decided to stop by Bryan’s condo for the last day, and Lammie was nice enough to chauffeur all 8 of us to the hotel.  After getting to the event, I felt we were definitely ready for the weekend ahead of us.  Boy was I wrong.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve lost 2nd round to anyone, not even in Vegas.  So losing to Chilled Reality 2nd round, and hearing CallMeGod telling my team and me that we’re a bunch of wash-ups really wasn’t in my Orlando predictions.  Kids, if you beat a pro team, don’t talk trash to them.  It’s fine if you say some things during the game, and if you come over after and shake hands and say it’s all in good fun.  That’s fine.  But to be the best, you have to play with the best.  And you’re not going to play with the best if you don’t have their respect.  Sportsmanship is a trait of a player that isn’t taken lightly.  Anyways, we lost 2nd round.  Ben crumbled.  I’ve never seen him so upset in my entire life.  Here we were, spending a ton of time together, playing online, LAN’ing, the whole nine yards, yet no results.  We did everything we could to prepare.  So what happened? `Whatever,’ I thought. `We still have the losers bracket.’  We beat Emphasis, and then our old rivals – XiT WoundZ.  Our next challenge was the newly emerged Team Classic.  We took them out, 3-0.  Now, Orlando’s bracket was pretty crazy.  Str8 Rippin’ also lost early, so we were on track to playing them in the future. After beating Team Classic, we had to play our LAN-mates.  We knew we could beat them; we had done it earlier in the week.  Well, they beat us 3-1, and we were forced to have a disappointing top 8 finish.  Top 8? What is this, 2005?

    So we went back to the drawing board – Paul’s house.  What went wrong?  Who played poorly?  We all played decent, but no one had a nasty tournament.  So we played harder.  This was the last month of summer.  Thus, Ben and I decided that this was sort of a decision tournament.  We knew something was wrong, but didn’t know how to fix it.  So we just hoped that we clicked and could go back into another tournament with a drive to get top 3.  I never thought I would be consistently out of the top 3, especially when Sundance referred to me as a top Halo 3 player in Meadowlands.  But you’re only as good as your last tournament.  So I strived to get out of 7th place.  I’m a contracted player, and I needed to start performing like one.

    Even though Chris had to move into college at VTech during the month of August, we tried to get as many games in as possible.  This time, we had Paul as our coach.  Since he is a good friend with Chris, he could help us out immensely.  To be honest, Chris stilled played Halo 2 up until the Vegas Championships.  He played like he could still double-shot everybody, and run through the map carelessly.  So talking with Paul and D Fury (ShocKWav3’s little brother) really helped Ben and I decide which path to take with Chris’ play.  We thought we were getting through to him, but we were wrong.  So Ben and I played more in a 2v2 style than a 4v4 one.  Because of that, Carlos was greatly affected at the tournaments.  While Carlos is the aggressive type, Ben is the laid back type.  Expecting Carlos to run alongside Chris, I figured we could work in sets of two.  Running in 2s works, but not for an entire game, and definitely not an entire series.

    After some crazy flight choices, we finally arrived in Toronto.  Some trouble at the airport almost set the mood for the rest of the weekend.  After settling in, we got to enjoy the luxuries that Toronto has to offer a bunch of young adults.  However, come Saturday, we were serious, poised and ready to play.  We made it past the 2nd round! Haha. Then came Instinct.  We got 3-1’ed by them.  Going into it, we really thought we could take them.  I don’t think anyone struggled in particular, but regardless, we lost as a team.  Okay, it’s Instinct, not too big of a loss.  Let’s see what we can do in the losers bracket.  After a few teams, we made it to play Ambush.  They took us to Game 5, and lucky us, it was Amplified Team Slayer.  We were up in the game by a decent margin.  Yet all of a sudden, I get stuck from across the map while under a base.  This marked our loss of the lead.  We had just lost Game 5 Amplified TS to Team Ambush.  As I look over my monitor, I see Nexus leaning over the monitors, fingers waving, and curses flying.  Like I said before, respect.  

     Anyways, Toronto was my most devastating tournament.  I went outside with Ben, Ms. Baretta and PoWeeZy and let my feelings go.  I felt like crap.  Top 8 twice?  Is CallMeGod right?  Did I not make a good transfer from Halo 2 to Halo 3?  I didn’t know what to do or say.  I felt so bad that I left Sunday night.  I had a flight to State College the next day, but I didn’t want to hear, “Hey, what happened this tournament?”  So our present coach, Tom, and I took the 6-hour drive home to Penn State.  This `decision tournament’ made Ben decide to leave Team Carbon for Triggers Down.  Ben was my boy.  He was one of my best friends, and we vowed to stick together since our teamwork was so nasty.  However, after a week of silence, I got a phone call from him telling me that he had been talking to many people close to him.  They were telling him that if you don’t know what’s wrong, how can you fix it?  One said that Carbon was a sinking ship and that he shouldn’t go down with the boat.  It hurt, but the comments were logical.  He said he was thinking about other teams, but didn’t sound too serious.  Well the next day I received another call telling me that he had left the team for Triggers Down.  Wait, without me?  It was a depressing day.  However it’s Halo, a business decision most say.

     So here I am, sitting in front of my laptop, wondering what free agent we should pick up for the last two tournaments of the season.  We didn’t have much choice.  It was the end of the season and without Ben, we didn’t have enough points to have a guaranteed spot in Vegas.  To seal our spot, we had to either pick up Naded or Legend.  After discussing both options, we all agreed that Naded had a ton of potential and that if tamed, he could be a beast.  Well, he can’t be tamed.  Like my other teammates have said, if he would have adjusted, we would have been nasty.  Anyways, we went into Dallas hoping that he would just fall into place, like I did when I was picked up in 2006.  With college present, we weren’t able to LAN before Dallas.  Carlos and I practiced a good amount before Dallas – logging a lot of MLG games in with Team Dom – Tsquared and Legit.  ShocKWav3 was too busy with school to get on.  And Brett just hated Halo 3.  He would get on for a few games and get off.  He would never play by himself because he hated it so much.

     During this month before the tournament, I tried turning Carlos into me.  Since we live together at Penn State, we play next to each other everyday.  So I taught him pretty much how to play Halo 3 alongside me.  Our teamwork became disgusting.  Playing with him made me realize how to play Halo 3 as a team, and not as individual slayers.  Our Narrows teamwork showed one another what was accomplishable through simple bait and switching.  So we were on our way to Dallas.  By this time, MLGs weren’t events to me anymore.  They’re tournaments.  Business trips.  I play, and I play to win.

     After playing in the first two rounds of the Winners Bracket, we were ready to take on our other rivals – Final Boss.  Once again, Round 3, Game 5.  Only instead of the most random game type, we had the second most – Guardian Team Slayer.  I remember we had kept a small margin in between our score up until the early 40s.  I was putting on a show bottom Green with my BR and my Sniper.  However, our communication stopped when we were holding down Sniper and Green.  So, one guy went bottom blue, while another ported over the Camo.  Why? I just got fresh sniper ammo.  Anyways, they both died, and we lost Game 5 to Final Boss.  Great series.

     Now we had the infamous loser’s bracket of 2008 in front of us again.  We took down the lower-ranked teams, and came to Team Ambush once again.  I’m not too sure what happened, but we got 3-0’ed.  Only this time we got handshakes.  Well, surprise! Top 8 again! People came up to me and said, “Well at least you guys are consistent!” Hah. Consistently bad.  Something I’ll never be proud of.  Consolation was against LeGendZ, to whom we almost lost to, but edged it out in a 3-2 fashion.  What could I do? How could I place better than 7th? And to top it all off, Ben won the effing tournament!  So maybe he made the right decision.

     So I played.  I went home with Carlos and we agreed that it’s Vegas and that we need to come out strong.  Every other event mattered dearly to me, but having the feeling of being a National Champion will never escape me.  I wanted that feeling more than anything in the world, and I still do.  By the time we left for Vegas, we were prepared.  We LAN’ed with Str8 Rippin’ once again, only this time it was with Snipedown.  Eric’s a pretty chill kid, too.  So we all got along once again.  Since the LAN was a few weeks before the tournament, we had time to get back online and practice our strategies against a plethora of teams.  I finally understood how to teach someone Halo 3.  Rules, boundaries.  I gave my entire team a set of rules that I follow throughout my gameplay.  After a few hours of speaking, I was ready to test out the new team in the MLG playlist.  First game, Brett didn’t listen to a word I had just said.  And from there on out, I knew that I had to work my ass off to perform well in Vegas.  Thankfully ShocKWav3 took everything in, and really prospered as a Halo 3 player, rather than his previous Halo 2 performances, haha.  So as I look at my monitor before leaving for Vegas, I see 750 MLG experience for me, and 850 MLG experience for Carlos.  I had never played so much Halo in my life.  Tsquared and Legit played alongside us through many of those games, so that definitely helped my game.

     So now Carlos and I are on our flight to Vegas.  We have high expectations this time.  We know what we’re capable of.  Carlos was a great player before Vegas, but he never in a sense, “showed up” to an event beforehand.  Since ShocKWav3 was on track, Carlos just fed off of him throughout the entire event.  The first series was our grudge match versus Triggers Down.  I wanted revenge, haha.  We took the 2nd seeded team to Game 5.  Well guess what game 5 was? Narrows TS.  I wasn’t losing.  Carlos wasn’t losing.  And we didn’t lose.  We played our game, and came through in the end to win the series.  Everyone went nuts.  Carlos was back.  He trash-talked after the game, which led to a technical, but it was all in good fun.  He’s notorious for his post-series performances.

      Next thing you know, I’m underneath the tower, waiting to hear Faruq announce the very-familiar “Carbon vs Final Boss” match-up.  We were too pumped from beating Triggers Down.  Carbon has always been a momentum team.  We’ve been known to pull some crazy upsets even when at the highest of disadvantages (Agency, haha).  So when we finally sat down to play Final Boss, there was no way we were going to lose.  The entire weekend, Carlos had been complaining about not finding the right way to sit in the chairs provided.  Luckily the chairs on the main stage were different.  As he sat down, he turned to me and said, “Do you feel this?”  And I reply, “What?” “I feel like I’m at home,” he said. “Let’s do this!” he yelled as he slapped me five.  Too much confidence.  Yet, the first three games I played awful.  I wasn’t performing to my best ability, and I couldn’t help but let my team know it.  Luckily by game four, the series was at 2-1.  Game four was Construct King.  Carlos turned to me once again, and told me to stop complaining. “You sound like Chris dude.  I only know you as Dr. Construct.” (an old fake name I used to play on)  `Hell yeah,’ I thought to myself. `DR. CONSTRUCT’s GOT A PhD!’ I had a new attitude.  On top of that, I had kills in the 40s while the rest of the players had theirs in the 20s.  I was unstoppable, and we won the series 3-1.  We had done it.  I got top 3.  I knew we could reach it, and then place depending on our individual skill.

     The next challenge in front of us was our friends, Str8 Rippin’.  Each game felt like a series to me.  We took them to game 5 in a crazy series, but got stuck back Gold in Construct TS, and got crushed in the end.  There are so many ifs that run through my head after a loss, but it’s the past.  It’s Halo.  So once again, the loser’s bracket was in front of us.  Only this time, it wasn’t against Ambush, haha.  We had to play Instinct.  We really thought we were going to meet back up with Str8, but Instinct was our perfect counter.  Their crazy play-style really destroyed ours.  We could have edged out another game, but we lost 3-1.  We had gotten 3rd place.  While I was disappointed, I was relieved at the same time.  We had beaten the 2nd and 3rd seed.  Just seeing Carlos’ face made me realize what I had gone through.  He had gone through two more years than me of distress with placings.  And after playing as many games as we did, I really felt like I earned my Halo place for once.  On the 2006 Carbon team, we only played 60 games before Orlando, and 15 each before the other two events.  So playing almost a 1000 games really struck me that Halo was my job.

     Carlos and I fly back to Penn State, and went back to the drawing board.  Carlos and Chris didn’t want to think at all about Halo for another month.  But I was persistent.  If someone didn’t perform, then they shouldn’t still be on the team.  And with the sudden team changes, I knew we had to make a move.  I remembered hearing how Soviet was taken under Walshy’s wing, so I figured I could take him under mine.  After a week or two of struggling, we finally convinced ShocKWav3 that we needed to make this change sooner than later.  Now, our team consists of ShocKWav3, myself, Cpt Anarchy, and KGB Soviet.  Dmitri is a great player, and a great listener.  Just a few days ago, I went through the same walk-through I did pre-Vegas.  He’s taken everything in, and even giving his input on where we should improve, a trait hard to find in a new teammate.  I have the 2009 season looking me straight in the face.

     By April 3rd, Team Carbon will be back.

So I got into Vegas yesterday around 2:00 PM with Cpt Anarchy (Carlos).  We had an 8 AM flight from State College, so we didn’t really get too much sleep.  Either way, we decided that it’s Vegas; you can’t just nap when you get there.  You got to go out and have some fun.  We met up with Legit (Bryan) and decided to head out to the strip.  Going out to Vegas is like walking around in NYC, but rated Mature haha.  It’s just crazy.  After walking around for a bit we called up a few friends we knew in Las Vegas and went to their condo and hung out.  Had some good times and then scooped back to the Hard Rock Hotel. 

Checking into our hotel room was pretty difficult seeing as how no one on the team is 21, so finally at 2 AM, our in-the-hole manager got us a hotel room.  Thanks Ray haha.  Saw some people, our coach Tom arrived, and then I hit the bed.  So now, I did a few things today, but I figured I have some time to write up a blog with some predictions.  Throughout the weekend I’m going to write up a huge blog stemming from post-Orlando to now.  Hopefully it’s interesting enough to read through, haha.  Anyways, let’s get to these predictions:

 

Personally, I think that Halo 3 is a very different game than Halo 2.  In Halo 2, if a player was just decent going into a tournament, there was always a possibility of him performing unbelievably.  One person couldn’t carry a team, but certainly slay a team by himself if he was playing well enough.  However, in Halo 3, the only way a player can drastically change a game is through the sniper.  One amazing BR or one amazing play cannot truly influence a game like it used.  While a nasty sniper, one could potentially destroy the opposing team, there are only 12 shots, and they don’t come around too often.  With shields taking as long as they do to recharge, there’s always the chance that you can stop an enemy push just by finishing a few weak opponents and then waiting to respawn.  With a 10 second respawn, and a trip across the map, chances are that your death will cause a loss in capping a flag, or taking over a hill.  Thus, I think that you can judge how well teams will play just based on their playstyles and how they will fill in each others’ shoes throughout the tournament.  If you have a very versatile team, there’s much more teamwork in game than individual skill.  Instead of having a sniper over your shoulder, you could have a BR on your side.  I believe that the most selfless team this event will win it all.  With that, I’m going to go into bracket predictions, round by round.

Str8 Rippin’ vs LeGendZ – Being the first round match-up, it’s the number one seed versus the number eight seed.  Str8 Rippin’ just is more prepared.  They’ve had two LANs going into this tournament, and won both of them.  With a loss on their shoulders in Dallas, Tsquared will not let his team lose.  His selfless play is just amazing to watch.  Tsquared and Legit have some of the most MLG experience in the playlist and it will definitely show in Vegas.  Legit just loves to slay, but with style, haha.  And by that, I mean on his way to the ball, hill, flag, the Objective!!  People say that there’s no such thing as an objective role in Halo 3. Well watch this kid’s VoD, he just can’t stand seeing the objective not being scrapped up.  With Elamite and Snipedown playing a lot recently too, this team is bound to reek of individual skill and preparation.  If Elamite ever changes his name, it should be VersatileKyle.  I mean this kid just goes all out at tournaments.  While he goofs around and tries to improve his individual game on the side, he goes all out at tournaments.  Coupled with THE Halo 3 sniper, SNIP3DOWN! Haha, you have a nasty team. 

With LeGendZ, I’ve seen Gandhi been playing a lot in the MLG playlist.  While he’s normally alone, as long as you’re playing, you’re honing your skills and bettering your knowledge.  Practice can’t hurt.  I know Legend plays a decent amount too.  Hopefully the other two have some secret accounts.  Either way, all four of these players didn’t win the spot at Dallas just to take eigth here.  They are all experienced tournament players and could possibly make or break a series at any moment.  If overlooked, they could become a force to watch out for.  Unfortunately for them, I still see Str8’s teamwork and skill outweighing LeGendZ’s performance.  I pick Str8 Rippin’ to take this series in a 3-0 fashion, but definitely a close game or two (most likely TS).

 

Instinct vs Team Classic – Instinct really choked at the last event.  Their flow was just off.  After Toronto, I felt that they should easily be in the top three consistently.  While everyone on the team might not be as individually talented as the next, they have been putting in long hours online.  Walshy knows what it takes to win a National Championship.  With him as a team captain, anything could happen.  He can easily instruct his team on what to do in-game.  Like I said previously, the most selfless team will win, and we all know how versatile the Claw is.  He does anything he needs to do, so hopefully it brushes off on his teammates to his success.  Roy has a solid BR and a pretty good sniper, too. Lunchbox is just an all-around consistent player.  If he’s on, they could definitely turn some heads.  Lastly, you have the Russian Clown, Soviet, hahaha.  This guy’s crazy personality can be easily seen through his gameplay.  He pulls insane moves and somehow gets away with it.  As one of the most individually skilled players, he can fill some shoes on his team.  However, if he gets carried away with his playstyle, it might come back to bite him and/or his team in the…    Either way, these guys are too consistent to place sixth again. 

Next, we have the infamous Team Classic. After coming into this season with a 2^nd place finish, they weren’t sure was the problem for the rest of the season.  Either way, Ant and Soldier stuck it out, and teaming up with the classic Mackeo and Victory combo can’t hurt them.  Both duos know each other very well.  I know they got in a decent amount of games against Str8 Rippin’ at a LAN.  It seems as if they given up though.  Before the LAN, I’m not too sure I saw any teammate immensely dedicated for Vegas.  You guys are seeded higher than us, get your… together.  Thankfully the recent LAN sparked some fire in Mackeo.  Hopefully he can turn that small flame into a forest fire on Instinct, haha.  Take down that forest that they’re hidin’ in, hahah.  Victory has always been a very smart player, and with a steady BR, he could definitely perform this tournament.  Ant has been playing since day one. Even though I don’t know him too well, I’m sure that a player that’s been in it this long isn’t playing to lose.  Lastly, while Soldier sometime doesn’t have the individual talent that his teammates have, his selflessness shines throughout each game.  He’s attentive and listens to what his teammates call out, not what’s on his screen.  If he sticks to a calm playstyle, he will easily boost his team tenfold.   In conclusion, I’d have to say that Instinct is going to win this series.  They have been apparently stepping it up at LANs and showing why they’re contenders in the end of this season.  If I saw more dedication from Classic, I’d give them better chances through the series, but I see a 3-1 win from Instinct.

Final Boss vs Ambush – This is going to be a great first round match-up.  I keep reading a lot of comments from FB saying that they’re trying to conform to picking up Mason.  Mason is a ridiculously talented sniper and flanker.  While he was known to be somewhat selfish in the past, I’ve seen his teamwork start to trickle through as he seems to be almost anxious to help shoot with his teammates on FB.  Even though he sometimes throws himself too far into a battle, it lets his teammates know to trust him.  Either way, the guy has soooo much MLG experience.  I thought he wouldn’t pass me, but this guy really wants to win Vegas.  He just plays and plays and plays.  Expect to see Neighbor in his best.  OGRE 1 and OGRE 2 have always been on top in Halo.  So to see them struggling is just plain weird to the community.  Baiting works in Halo 3, but you can’t bait your teammate to death.  They need to stay alive, and so do you.  If they stop taking pointless deaths, I can see some immense teamwork between these three players.  Then, the SIDE, haha.  Mike has really tried to change for Halo 3.  He seems to be getting along very well with Mason.  Thus, when you practice with each other, you start relying on each other.  Hopefully they’ve played enough MLG together that StrongSide gets Mason’s playstyle and conforms to it.  Mikey has always been a distraction in Halo, so maybe he can use that to his advantage for his team.

 Ahhh, Ambush.  We’ve lost to them a few times this season and it has not been pleasant.  I don’t really know where their strengths and weaknesses are, but they seem to be the 2008 5k.  They are all good players who just happen to work well with each other.  Pistola is and will always be individually talented.  Even though his smarts aren’t the best, he’s always four-shotting, and that can’t hurt a team.  Nexus appears to be the talented sniper on the team, but he’s an aggressive player at the same time.  With Heinz and Cloud supporting the rushes and the objective zones, I really can’t put my finger on anyone that really stands out.  They’re pretty much 5k…  If FB is sloppy, Ambush seems to be very consistent, and could definitely pull out a 3-2 maybe even 3-1 victory.  However, FB just seems too prepared for Vegas.  I mean, they have three National Champions on the team, and their fourth is ToxinsNeighbor.  I think that this series will definitely be a close one seeing as how it’s first round.  I think this series is a toss-up, but I’ll take higher seed FB 3-2.

Triggers Down vs Carbon – Ahh, the GRUDGE MATCH! Well here’s what it comes down to: Ben left our team before Playoffs and Nationals, left us in a tight spot, and then won a tournament!  Yeah, he’s still my boy and I miss him, but I’m not holding back in this series.  This series is pretty much our deciding one this tournament.  If we win, we’re definitely taking top three, and individual skill will take it from there.  If we lose, our road is longer to the finals.  So now for the nitty gritty: Carlos and I live together.  We play next to each other every time we play, and try to play as much as we can.  We have a ton of MLG experience and we’re ready to go into this tournament full throttle.  We lanned with Str8 and had a ton of really close games.  Even though we lost the LAN, our team gained a ton of knowledge about each other.  We never got to really play and hang out with Naded (Brett).  So the days we chilled at Bryan’s were a ton of fun.  I’ve been striving to become more objective oriented.  Watching Bryan scrap up time, all the time, just made me realize how much people take the objective for granted.  Carlos has been turning tripskis (triple kills) into Killtrocities, so I’m pretty sure he’s ready for this event.  ShocKWav3 finally gets it! Haha, he’s changed his playstyle from the unsure charger to the aware teammate.  Like I said previously, the most selfless team will win.  Then, you got that crazy kid called Brett.  He just goes nuts.  He’s either going to be watching my back, finishing all our kills, or getting crazy snipes.  C’mon selflessness! Hahaha.  If we finally come together as a team, expect to see good ole Carbon back on the Circuit. 

For Triggers Down, you got Ben, that sneaky beaver who just loves to cause chaos throughout the enemy’s setup.  I got eyes in the back of my head Ben.  Watch it.  SK is just consistent.  He’s always had that support mentality, with a steady long-range BR.  Speaking of consistent, FearItself is also on Triggers Down.  His decision making is pretty key to his team’s success.  Hopefully he chooses wisely.  Then you got the slayer of the team – Hysteria.  He loves that snipe, loves that spawn kill, he loves that quick and easy way to win.  Slow and steady wins the race, so maybe we’ll catch tD by surprise.  I’m going to say we win the series 3-1.  I know we’re the definitely the team to lose going into this series.  So I guess I got everything to win?  This is first round Vegas.  Let’s GO BABY!

Now that I got all of the team’s basics out of the way, let’s go through these other rounds quickly:

Winners Bracket:

Str8 Rippin’ vs Instinct – These are most likely going to be the two titans going into the tournament.  Both have proven themselves to be contenders for top three easy.  With LAN wins before the event, neither team can really expect to disappoint.  However, I pick Str8 Rippin’ to beat Instinct in this battle 3-1.

Carbon vs Final Boss – Like I said earlier, if we beat Triggers Down, expect to see us go for top three.  We beat ourselves last tournament 3-2 in a Guardian TS game.  This time, we’re not looking to go to game five.  I know they’re well-practiced, but I’m really looking to win this series in a 3-1 fashion.

Str8 Rippin’ vs Carbon – Ahh, wouldn’t it be nice to hear this WBFinals match being called? I’d like it anyways.  I’ve worked pretty hard this season and to not make it to a Winner Bracket Finals once this season is a huge disappointment.  It’d also be nice to spark some rivalry with Str8 again.  I know we’re all buddy buddy now, but if we go to main stage, we’re not friends out there.  They’re the enemy team, and I play a first-person shooter.  Good thing I keep my enemies closer.  This match is a toss-up in my mind if we make it this far.  I think individual skill will play an immense role since we know how each other play so well.  However, in toss-ups, it goes to the higher seed, lucky…  Str8 Rippin’ 3-2?

Losers Bracket:

Team Classic vs LeGendZ – What a match.  These are the type of matches I love to watch.  Both teams are similar, yet excel in different ways.  Both of these teams have strengths and weaknesses, so expect to see a 3-2 final score.  However, gametypes can play a huge role in this series.  Then again, attitude can greatly affect either team.  And like I said, Classic seemed to be down on themselves.  I expect to see LeGendZ send Team Classic to top 8.  Advice: Leadership.

Triggers Down vs Ambush – After two disappointing losses from either team, I can’t see Triggers Down placing top 8.  Ben is a spirit-lifting anchor on any team, and will show why in this series.  I believe that Triggers Down will win this series 3-1.

Instinct vs Triggers Down – This is going to be another good match-up.  Both teams have a National Champion on their team.  But Instinct beat Triggers Down at the LAN, so I’ll have to use that as my guidelines.  Sorry tD, but Instinct wins this one 3-2, unless Hysteria goes nuts and gets clutch.  But then again, you can’t match Cpt. Clutch.  Walshy wins this one.

Final Boss vs LeGendZ – Hate to say it, but this seems like an obvious win.  Final Boss doubled LeGendZ at their LAN.  If LeGendZ is on fire, they got a chance, but I see FB winning this one 3-1.

Final Boss vs Instinct – Another grudge match!  You got to love seeing Walshy get revenge.  He’s the nicest guy in the world.  I got to go by LAN scores again for this one.  Instinct wins 3-2.  You never know though, Final Boss could pull this one away.

Instinct vs Carbon – Both teams will be weathered. Which team will perform and show why they deserve to play in the last series of the 2008 MLG Circuit.  Carlos and Soviet used to be teammates, so they know each other’s playstyles.  We’re both balanced teams, but I see us winning in a 3-2 fashion to see Str8 Rippin’ in the finals.

I’m not going to predict the winner of ourselves and Str8 Rippin’ in the finals if it happens.  If we get that far, it’s fate.  So I’ll let destiny take care of that one.  These are my predictions.  I’m not trying to be cocky when I win a series in these predictions, more along the lines of best possibilities and confidence.  I won in 2006 and it was the best feeling in the world.  Taking 2^nd place last year sucked.  6-0? And to follow that up not one top three placing this season?  I’m not taking any… this tournament.  I’m pumped and ready to play.  Could play in three series, could play in much more.  If you’re a Carbon fan, show some support!!! We need you now more than ever!!!

Consolation:

Ambush vs Team Classic – I believe that Ambush is more balanced and will take this series 3-1.

Triggers Down vs LeGendZ – Ben knows that Scott is his weakness.  He lost to him in 1v1s, and always got affected by his smack talk.  Scott could definitely affect Ben’s gameplay, but I don’t think it’ll hurt the team.  But then again, Hysteria does have that weakness also…  Even though I think that Triggers Down is more talented than LeGendZ, getting into someone’s head can seriously poison a team.  I mean, we beat Str8 Rippin’ in Vegas 2007 by just calling out Neighbor.  While Triggers Down is consistent, they could be taken over by LeGendZ. Like before, it’s a toss-up, higher seed, Triggers Down either win 3-0, or they lose 3-2.  Higher seed wins out…

Final Placings:

1.       Str8 Rippin’/Carbon

2.       Str8 Rippin’/Carbon

3.       Instinct

4.       Final Boss

5.       Triggers Down

6.       LeGendZ

7.       Ambush

8.       Team Classic

Hope you all enjoy the show.  Scoop up and have some fun guys! It’s VEGAS! Can’t wait to see this top ten.  Lastly, I’d like to thank all the leagues sponsors, but especially Stride Gum.  Without you guys we wouldn’t be here in Vegas.  I really appreciate all you’ve done and I hope we can continue our relationship in the future.  VEGAS TIME!!!

As you all probably know by now, Carbon has dropped Gandhi and picked up Cpt Anarchy. So, I'll try to explain the situation in the most respectful way possible. Early in the off-season I was thinking about leaving Carbon to join Anarchy and Hokum. We were looking to obtain a fourth - most likely ShocKWav3. The reason I contemplated leaving was due to the lack of practice and dedication we had as a Halo 3 team. As soon as December 2007 hit, it felt like December 2005 again. I was playing non-stop; I wanted to win more than anything; I wanted to practice to become the best. However, we rarely got on the play Gamebattles matches. With our awful online play, many expected us to be out of the top 16 come Meadowlands. Well, we stuck together and made the best out of it. I know that I really only told my ideas to Chris (ShocKWav3). We have always been on the same page socially, so I decided to keep my thoughts outside of my team really. You never want bad thoughts in your head going into a tournament. For me, as soon as a game starts, I forget about everything else and just play. So when people tell me to get team changes out of my head, it really doesn't affect me in-game. After Meadowlands, we were more than disappointed with our finish. Chris had never placed out of the top four and it was a huge mental hit to the rest of us. Yeah, we beat Str8 when it counted and we proved everyone doubting us wrong, but that wasn't it. We used to be the National Champions. We wanted first. Not sixth. After getting tossed around by triggers Down and Team Classic at the event, we knew we had to practice more. Thankfully, college ended in early May for myself and Chris. Chris mentioned to me that he was bringing his setup to his friend Paul's house so that he could game all day with us. Seeing as how it was only an hour and a half away, I decided to bring my setup, too. After constant playing for a week with Chris next to me, Ben, Scott, and Ricky drove up to practice also. With a few LANs falling through, Scott had to return to high school. We got a few games as a team in, but nothing really significant. When Scott and Ricky had to leave the next day, Ben decided he would stay the week leading up to the WCG event. So, Chris, Ben and myself were all playing non-stop in preparation for WCG and for MLG San Diego. We tried to scrim and practice, but we really never had the chance to play more than a few games as a full team. Knowing that this was Scott's senior year, we believed it to be the least time-consuming out of any year of school. When WCG came, we lost to FB. Stats wise - Chris performed the worst. But stats really don't show how a team's chemistry is. Myself and Ben have unbelievable teamwork, but Chris and Scott just never really connected in Halo 3. Scott played less of a charging role, and more of a laid back objective one. As most of you know, Halo 3 can be played very aggressively. But to do so, you need to charge in pairs or a full team. So when Ben and I would hold down a position, Chris and Scott could not do the same. While all this was going on, Scott really didn't show us the motivation that he wanted to play with us. We just didn't feel like friends. Chris and I realized that Scott had really grown apart from us within his senior year. We didn't want to start anything before San Diego regarding team change talks, so we kept to ourselves really. Chris and I never really conversed with Scott at all, but we figured Ben was still pretty good friends with Scott. So, we didn't want to poison their relationship a week before the event. However, after WCG, we all went home, but Chris went with Ben to his house. After a week of solid playing there, he decided to bring up the problem we had within our team. He agreed that there was turmoil between us, but to let San Diego play out. We all had massive amounts of teamwork as a core three, or individually. But as a complete team, we had 15 games of practice. When San Diego finally hit, so did the reality. We just didn't have the teamwork or the same in-game mindset. Yeah, we got 4th place, but only due to brackets and capitalizing on other teams' faults. We lost to Instinct and triggers Down. These were the only top five teams standing above us that we played against. We all played individually well in the games, but there wasn't enough teamwork to push us over the top. I know I played awful on Saturday, but on Sunday of the tournament, everyone was playing amazing individually. So the teamwork should mix right in. Wrong. We squeezed out three series 3-2 (The Influence, Fatal Images, Believe the Hype). So in my mind, how can we barely beat these teams, yet get crushed by the other top teams? We want to win. And with Str8 Rippin' plowing the other teams, how can we expect to take first? We've been playing together for so long, but Halo 3 is just not Halo 2. We all have a ton of potential in Halo 3 to be amazing, but our chemistry wasn't working. We constantly felt belittled by Scott or just plain disrespected as teammates. This is Ben's job, his career, his entire life. We let him down. We didn't want to take away Scott's senior year. We all had it, we all played through it.  We just wished that Scott would have dedicated himself more towards Halo. Everyone enjoys their senior year, but there is always time to play Halo at night.  Thus, we realized it might be time for a team change. With college now approaching in the fall for Scott, we were worried enough about his practice schedule in his senior year. It was a decision we would either make now, or forfeit the rest of our summer season to see if we could take first. I don't believe Scott wouldn't play at all in the fall, but making predictions off of this past year was inevitable. We've been a team now for two years. Since May 2007, we have not had the same chemistry or teamwork as before. Everyone says that sticking together helps. Well, you're right. So we played smart and stayed together up until now. It just didn't pan out for us. We weren't clicking. So we have to take the approach that any boss would. If your employee doesn't come in 5 days a week for work, he shouldn't still receive a paycheck. You can only have a few vacation weeks because your bosses' success depends on your work ethic. It's been 10 months since Halo 3 has been released, and there hasn't been any substantial amount of teamwork in the mix. So with MLG Orlando hastily approaching, we needed to make the decision. Do we wait until after Orlando to decide? Or was it just another StrongSide dilemma? (Keep trying to incorporate each other and have teamwork, but fail to take first for 8 events) It was like we were judges looking at past trials in order to come about a sanction. Yes Scott is nasty individually, but does he really fit in with our team anymore? He was a great friend of mine, but the past four or five months have really separated us. While all this is going on, we've been friends with Carlos (Cpt Anarchy) for forever. I could honestly say that we had more practice with Carlos as our fourth than with Scott leading up to San Diego. We're a contracted team - sponsored by Stride. We want first. It's what we do in our free time. If your team isn't all on the same page, it won't work out. We tried to practice more and perform well, but the results never appeared in our favor. So, it's time for a change. I have no doubt in my mind that Scott played amazing in San Diego. With the least practice out of anyone, he performed unbelievably. But it's the teamwork and chemistry that held us back from taking down a top five team. After playing with Carlos quite a bit, we've determined that he is currently our best option in order to take 1st place. His teamwork with Chris has been amazing since December when we gametype-tested in the MLG Office. MLG Orlando is going to be interesting. I wish the best of luck to Scott in his Halo career. It's been a pleasure teaming with him for these past two years, but we've just grown apart. I know he still has the talent and potential to take first and I hope he gets on a good team to prove that potential. We just weren't clicking to take first. I'm sorry Scott. I hope that this business decision doesn't destroy our friendship. Best of luck to you.

 

-Ghost

Hey everybody, just figured I would write up another blog, but this time about what happened at Meadowlands. So, this past Thursday, Fiori, Tom, and myself all left Penn State to drive to my house. That night, there were a total of 10 people staying at my house. So, when we got there, PisToL had just arrived. We all went inside, and my mom had cooked a pretty bomb meal for everyone coming. After we ate, Tom and I left to pick up Cpt Anarchy and Bradfox at the airport. We picked them up, brought 'em back, they ate, and then we just hung out for awhile. Finally, Karma, Gandhi, MeatWad (Carl), and Rick0nidas (Ricky aka Scott's brother) arrived at my house. It was pretty late, but they ate and hung out for a bit. We knew we had to wake up early for Meadowlands the next day, so we went to bed at a decent time. The next day, we woke up, showered, got some bagels, and headed out to Meadowlands to make our photoshoot. I was pretty pumped about getting new photos 'cause I look like a clown on my team page (from Charlotte). We had to stand outside for the first time ever and wait, but it wasn't too much trouble. After a little bit, we got called up the stairs to start taking photos. ShocKWav3 made it to Meadowlands right as we went to grab some Chipotle. Next, we got our custom Astro headphones, something we missed so dearly, haha. We practiced a bit in the Pro Lounge, and were then ready to play in our first two rounds of Halo 3. Coming into this event, we hadn't had any LAN practice as a team, and we weren't really the dedicated online team either. After coming up short in the Ladder and Online Bracket, we were really turned off by online gameplay. Anyways, we got a bye through the first round, and we won our 2nd round. That was pretty much Friday, haha. We had some Chili's, and then made sure to get some rest for the next day. This event was much different for us. A lot of teams had a leg up on us due to practice time and LAN, but we were still confident. The main reason being was due to having Ricky and Carl as our coaches. While Ricky was the strategist and vocal coach for our team, Carl was our opponents coach. He scouted a lot of teams out for us to get a feeling for what worked and what didn't. We didn't have any sense of strats or start-off strats coming into the tournament, so we made sure to create some over Friday night. When we woke up Saturday, we were ready to play. We got some fruit and bagels, and headed over to the venue. After playing throughout the open brackets, we didn't lose a game. We were very confident going into the Championship Bracket. Coming into the tournament as the 18th seed, we went into the brackets as the 9th seed. We won our first round, which brought us to the infamous Type Z. This turned out to be the opposite from our online scrims, probably because Lil Seb wasn't invincible, haha. In Construct King, I went pretty huge, something like 41-23. That game really got my confidence up. Not once online did I ever go pretty positive, let alone +15. This led us to the third round and final series that night, Str8 Rippin'. Previously, in the Pro lounge, we were losing like 236-19 in Guardian Oddball to them. We weren't all playing our hearts out, but it definitely affected my views going into the series. However, before the match, we hear Puckett over the speaker giving the favorite to Str8 Rippin'. He then mentioned to watch out for me since I was on fire. Luckily, I fulfilled that stigma. Right off the bat was Narrows CTF, in which I had a Killing Frenzy and 16-10-6 stats. It felt good to win a Narrows CTF game, haha. Next, was Onslaught TS (the new Warlock for us). We lost it, but didn't care, like Warlock TS in 2006. We just let it go. We took the next game, Pit KotH, and Str8 took Guardian Oddball. While at first we had a lead, they took the game. Even though they won, it wasn't 236-19 this time, so that was another vote of confidence. The final game, Construct TS, was one of our best gametypes online, so hopefully it was going to transfer to LAN. I honestly don't remember anything in the game, besides the last two kills. I was in sword, and I saw Ben in glass moving towards closed purple. Elamite was already one shot there, but he was towards the street. I hugged Ben in glass, and we both shot Legit in the purple to make it to 49. As we plowed through, we saw Elamite the one shot move towards street. Luckily, Chris was top mid to finish him off for the final kill. We had done it. We blew past all the predictions online, everything everyone said. We were the underdogs and we came through ontop. After an interview with Sunny and Puckett, we went back to our hotels to get some sleep. Thankfully, Carl had been scouting all day. So we had some decent strat talk back in our room. The next day, well, it was much different to say the least. We woke up, ate, and hit the venue to warm up. We had to play Team Classic. We were pretty confident going into this match, basically due to who they were. Ant and Soldier have been playing Hardcore since the playlist came out in Halo 2, so we were too worried about LAN. However, we forgot to take into account that they had previously LAN'ed against Final Boss. We start up our warm ups, and I knew I was off. I probably said this line to everyone I saw that day, so I guess I'll make it public: "I feel like I'm pistoling with a 10 sens on Halo 1, only I have a BR in Halo 3." I just felt off. I couldn't four-shot a person for my life. Coming from yesterday, I just felt terrible. Either way, we lost the first two games in the series. As the final game, Construct KotH came to a close, I spawned bottom open. There were three people in the hill, and one open street. I went up sword, towards glass, where Ant had jumped from open street to bubble shield. With only 20-30 seconds left, I put 2/3 shots into him, threw a 'nade, and headed towards closed purple. I banked my second 'nade off a wall, which hit two of the guys in the hill. By the time I made it into the purple, my 'nade had killed Ant, and I killed the other two with my BR. I had gotten a hella clutch triple kill, but the fourth guy killed me. With seconds dwindling down, we couldn't kill the last guy in the hill, which led to us getting 3-0'ed by Team Classic. Props to them, coming from nothing, to taking 2nd. Our next series was against triggers Down (tD). Another team of online champions to us, we were pretty confident going into the series. Scott went off. He just destroyed the first game of Onslaught CTF. We lost the next game, but then it went to Pit KotH, one of our better gametypes. Ben was going nuts that game, just sniping everything. However, I couldn't get anything going for myself. I kept trying to set up zones, but was getting flanked because not everyone was in the right spot at the right time. Either way, my BR was garbage, and I put up a -16 finish I believe -- one of the worst games of my life. After that, I knew it just wasn't my day. We lost 3-1 to tD, and then had to play Str8 Rippin' for our consolation match for 5th/6th. Both our teams were disappointed to play consolation matches. My team pretty much gave up mentally. If we beat Str8, we would win an extra $300. If we lost, we'd have a better seeding for San Diego. So we weren't really into the series. If we won, we won, if we lost, we lost. We ended up losing the series, 6-4. Thus, we finished 6th place. While it's definitely a disappointment (our lowest placing as a team), we got out of it what we put into it. With school and other obligations out of the way for San Diego, we're looking to LAN for once and practice as much as some of the other top teams do. We proved to the community that we weren't top 32 Carbon, that we could beat Str8, and that we can hang in Halo 3. We performed on Saturday, but just didn't do so well on Sunday. However, we're determined. This season is different. Watch. -Ghost

So Meadowlands is only a few days away. I'm getting pretty excited, but I'd have to say I'm nervous at the same time. Transferring from one game to the next takes a ton of practice and skill to master. While most rosters have made team changes, we've stuck together. Even though there have been some harsh times through practice and the ladder/bracket, we've decided that Carbon is sticking together. "How come you and your team don't practice that much?" Wow, haha, couldn't have told you how much I've heard that line. Regarding practicing online, or on LAN, we've just been occupied with other subjects. I know Scott is in his senor year of highschool, so while he probably does have a lot of free time to game, he also wants to make the most of his last year before college. Ben, well, he plays nonstop, haha. For Chris, he majoring in engineering at Virginia Tech, so a ton of his time is filled with work. Whether it's a project or a test, he gets his work done and then we get on when we can. For myself, I've been drastically trying to bring my grades up in Penn State. While they aren't terrible, I want to prove to myself and my family that I'm not taking it for granted. This, coupled with fraternity life (a lot of meetings), really minimizes the hours and time I can play. I know the rule, no excuses; so, I've been playing until the late night with Fiori and a few others. We all know practice can decide a match, so I've been trying to play every gametype evenly. Either way, some teams are going to have not only more practice, but also LAN practice. I have played Halo 3 in a LAN setting before, but not with my team, and not with 8 different TVs/monitors. We're all going to have to adjust when we get to Meadowlands, but we'll make the best of it. With our performance in the early ladder matches, and in the later playoff brackets, we have been denied a top 8 finish within the forums. Sometimes I'll browse the predictions thread, only to see Carbon not even making pro. While online does show skill and teamwork, LAN is what it comes down to. You cannot predict online, the shots hitting or missing, the skipping, or even the melees sometimes. I know my team, and we play to win. Whether it's a Gameboy DS game (Ben), or the entire Halo series, we are competitive. Anytime I'm feeling down about my team, or I feel helpless, I turn to my Season One DVD. Flip on the Orlando Hype Video, and I'm good to go. As players, we are capable. As people, we are capable. And as a team, we are capable of winning. It's the drive, motivation, and teamwork that will push us over the top. I want to win. -Ghost

Just thought I'd let you know I came back last night from Penn State for my spring break week. Unfortunately, only a few of my friends will be home this week, but I have plans to see PisToL, Fiori, stop into MLG offices in NYC and chill with my brother til tomorrow when he goes back with ShocKWav3 to Virginia Tech. Karma stayed over ShocKWav3's house for the week while he was off, so expect some improved teamwork to show up in the near future. Regarding ShocKWav3's and Karma's blogs about my play time: Apparently to them, I don't really play at all. However, they didn't know that I've been playing on a 2nd tag from 12am-5/6am daily with FIori. After practice almost every night, FIori and my friend Tim come over to game and chill. So, I've been logging a ridiculous amount of hours, more than ever before, yet I see their blog posts, haha. So, I have been playing a ton, but I'm going to turn towards customs more in the near future

My mom watched weather news yesterday and saw this giant storm coming through so she figured she'd move up the time to get me from Saturday morning to Friday night. Recently, she just started getting into texting, but she missed the one where I said PisToL would come up to bring me home; so, she ended up taking 5 hours for a normal 3 hour trip in pouring rain. To top it off, when we loaded up and I got behind the wheel, I could barely see because her wipers weren't really clearing the rain, just messing it around. Tthe fog was was pretty bad and she was back-seat driving the entire time. Anyways, I finally got home after midnight and went to a friend's house where my brother and some friends were hanging out. I got to catch up and chill with everyone I hadn't seen in months, so that was nice.

I'm getting pretty excited for the opener in my home state of Dirty Jerz. Anarchy is coming in a day early to stay with us, and my mom treats him like a 3rd son when he's not being his sarcastic self. It should be a great event, more to follow as the day gets closer.

-Ghost

Well I know it's surely been quite some time since I've blogged, but I figure I could sum up what happened this past weekend for the public. Anyways, over my Christmas break, I played a decent amount of Halo 3 for the first few days. D Fury, Cpt Anarchy, Hokum and I all completed the Halo 3 Legendary Campaign including the skulls online. It was funny 'cause after we beat it and got all the skulls, for some reason Carlos didn't get one of the skulls. So we all went back to the level and got it for him. So we were all about to leave, and then Hokum realizes that it didn't register as him completing Legendary. Carlos said eff that and went to hang out with friends, so I Joe I joined up and we beat the game for Lester after a tedious and boring dozen runs in the warthog (I hate you D Fury). Anyways, after that day, I just played a lot of matchmaking with Carlos and a few custom games with Ben. Ben came over for Christmas and then on the 30th I went to see my girlfriend in Atlanta. There were some bomb restaurants. When I came back on the 4th, I had already planned a bunch of things with my friends. Since there was supposed to be a local tournament in the Meadowlands, Carlos booked a flight out to hang out with us and also play. However, by Monday, they had already pushed the tournament back an extra week. So, with his flight already booked, and me heading back to school, we couldn't play in it. Either way, I ending up chilling with PisToL, QuinN, Cpt Anarchy, and Karma for a few days. We played a lot of Halo 3 and some Halo 1, too. On Thursday, DMAQ hosted a LAN and a good amount of people showed up. It consisted of myself, DMAQ, ShocKWav3, Karma, Cpt Anarchy, Brother John (Paul, one of Wav3's friends), I Joe I, PisToL, and Kamron QuinN. Surprisingly, Halo 3 is a lot of fun on LAN. Thankfully, it's a lot different on LAN, too. The next day, ShocKWav3, Karma, Cpt Anarchy, I Joe I, PisToL, QuinN and I all went into NY around 7pm to LAN more Halo 3, but focus more on the gametypes themselves. With Calc, Puckett, and Killa KC there, the games went pretty well. Previously I had heard pros complaining about v2 because of the 110 damage and 90 recharge rate. However, 110 felt pretty good to all of us. Regarding the recharge rate, the 90% makes you wait an extra 0.5 seconds before recharging. So, it really isn't that big of a deal. It's a different game, so it shouldn't feel like Halo 2 where you can run away constantly with your head down or pop out when you're one shot but get kill 'cause your shields didn't recharge. Puckett and KC also agreed with all of us on the 110/90. After LAN'ing for non-stop, we decided to hit the sack. The next morning we woke up and LAN'ed some more, but after all the gametypes, we split into groups of 4. While I played Halo 1 with PisToL, Karma, and Puckett (and destroyed), the others played my fy_iceworld map 2v2 for like 3 hours, haha. It's turning into a favorite for 2v2s and warm-ups. Heh, I'll use this blog as an advertisement: Check out my map Fy_Iceworld under the Forge contest or my file-share and make sure to download the CS 1.6 gametype. Back to the weekend, after we finished up at the office, we went back to my house and hung out. My mom wasn't home and my brother had already left for school so we had a pretty good time. What sucked was that I started packing late at night because I was leaving at 9 in the morning for Penn State. So, now I'm back at school, with the hardest semester of my college career in front of me, hoping to manage highschool friends, college friends, Halo friends, grades, Halo 3, fraternity, and my girlfriend. Good sesh. Happy Birthday Los.

Thankfully Sparrow informed me that I needed to be at the hotel at roughly 11AM Dallas time on Wednesday. Due to this statement, I was forced to wake up abruptly at 6:30AM EST to take a 8:30AM flight. With only three hours of sleep, I figured I would sleep on the plane. I couldn't have been more wrong. The flight was the most uncomfortable trip I have ever taken. With four hours to waste, I had no choice but to pull out the laptop. After countless hours of recording at the RoC/Carbon/LeGendZ LAN, I went to work on cutting out some sick clips from not only my point of view, but Gandhi's also. With only two hours down, I spent the rest of the two hours trying to sleep, or just plain thinking. "On behalf of Continental Airlines, we'd like to be the first to welcome you to Dallas, Texas." As soon as I stepped outside, the HeaTWav3 hit me. I tried to call for the shuttle, but I got denied. Thus, I had to take a taxi by myself to the hotel. When I arrived, Sparrow and Final Boss were already there, but I decided to get into my hotel room and get settled. About an hour later, Gandhi and Karma arrived and dropped their luggage off in our room. After enjoying some lunch at the restaurant in the hotel, we decided to part around 4PM for the Gamestop signing. ShocKWav3 wasn't joining us because he had to attend college orientation at Virginia Tech until the next day. So, we traveled with Sparrow, while Final Boss took a separate cab. We arrived at the Gamestop to see a great turnout. While our team hasn't previously attended a signing, Final Boss and Sparrow both noted that they were a lot of people. On top of that, the setup was pretty sick. There was one TV that was running split screen Halo:CE across the room. Closer to the entrance was a table that had a poster behind it and a bunch of pictures to sign of our team and Final Boss. With Sharpie markers flooding the table, Final Boss started to sign autographs. In the meantime, the three of us started to play on a Halo 2 station. There were two 20" TVs with Halo 2 hooked up to both of them. Therefore, the immediate thought that came to mind was 2v2s. Each time we played, we would team up with a fan or customer from the store to face the other team. I went undefeated for a little, but then Karma and a well-practiced fan beat us. They had a run, but then Gandhi defeated them with another player. We kept going back and forth until we decided to start signing the photos for the fans. I cannot even begin to count how many times I scribbled my GH057ayame name over my picture, haha. Some people wanted one for their friend, their brother, and so on. It all comes down to what the stacks of pictures looked like at the end of the day. Now while I would much rather be modest, Final Boss decided to draw some certain things on our faces on one of the pictures. Thus, I'll be open and say that our stack of pictures was smaller at the end of the day. Either way, we all had a great time and I really got to talk and interact with a bunch of fans. It was also pretty nice 'cause a few players were Gears of War fans. So, I got to tell them about the season and how I planned on playing, yet was actually coaching at Dallas. After two hours, a smoothie, countless photos, and unlimited autographs, we called it a day around 6:15PM. I really enjoyed myself that evening. At first I thought it was going to be boring and I didn't think the turnout was going to be so great. However, the small event hastily changed my outlook on the future of gaming. With such a minimal amount of advertising, a lot of people showed up. I was pretty content with my first day in Dallas. After a good night of hanging out with the staff that was in the hotel, I went to bed so I could prepare for the next day. -Ghost

After the week at the beach house, everyone was originally supposed to go home to their respected places for four days until we all went to ShocKWav3's house for a week LAN. Well, plans changed to make it easier for Karma and Gandhi. Therefore, instead of those two driving back to Virginia and then to Pennsylvania again, they just came back to my house for four days. We played very little Halo 2. DMAQ visited, as did I Joe I and also PisToL. Whenever these clowns come over, we end up playing Halo 1. So, the first day, we just had a good time and played 2v2s and 1v1s. The next day came and PisToL and also Cpt Anarchy arrfived. So, we just played constant Halo 1 2v2s and 3v3s for the majority of the weekend. We were all just looking forward to that Monday since it was the LAN at Wav3's house.

Monday morning came fast. We all saddled up and got ready to leave for PA. I drove Karma's car since he doesn't like driving during the day. It was a very humid and hot day as we began our trip to the Wav3's. Before we did, we met up at RoC Joe's house where Joe, Dysphoria and Ownation had been waiting. Joe drives an Acura TSX while Karma drives a Pontiac Grand Prix. Fortunately enough, Karma's air conditioning didn't work. Thus, Anarchy hopped in Joe's comfortable car, while Scott, Ben, and I all had to drive with no air for two hours. This was my second driving trip to Philadelphia. My first one happened to be MLG Philly 2005. Ironically, I drove to that event with MLG Nexy, his girlfriend, and another friend with no air conditioning. The results were uncanny haha. Our backs were drenched. You'd think that I had dunked the back of my shirt in a pool.

Anyways, we arrived and only Fonzi, ShocKWav3, and D Fury were there. So, we pretty much brought the party, haha. We set eveything up, and proceeded to Best Buy to buy two TVs for the LAN. The only team that needed to be completed was LeGendZ. VaSh and Defy were still en route to the house. However, the held the last TV. So, we were forced to play 2v2s until they arrived later that night.

When the two clowns finally arrived, the LAN had begun. I could go into detail about every day that took place, but it would just be repetitive. The only major difference was our meals and that we saw Harry Potter. I think that it was very boring to be honest, but I don't know. I'm not a hardcore Potter fanboy. Anyways, in the beginning of the LAN, we didn't lose a game. I don/t know what our record was, but I think it was like 56-0 or something. By the end of the LAN, we had lost four team slayer games to LeGendZ, and won 100 other games. You can check out Fonzi's blog for full statistics. LeGendZ drastically improved their teamwork, while RoC also showed individual and teamwork improvement. I recorded the majority of my games and also quite a few of Gandhi's perspective. Make sure everyone looks out for an upcoming surprise in the near future. :)

After the LAN ended on Sunday, everyone drove home. While many teams practice together online afterwards, we aren't as fortunate. Chris (ShocKWav3) has to attend freshman orientation for the next four days. Thus, he will not be present at the Gamestop signing, nor online to practice. So, we got in our practice, and hopefully it pays off at the future events. With Karma hosting, prepare for a new and improved Team Carbon to arise.

-Ghost

After Meadowlands, our team really didn't practice much. We all knew that we had to LAN and try and practice as much as Final Boss, but everyone's schedules conflicted with each others. Thus, we were only left with three days or so of online practice. With ShocKWav3 going to Virginia Tech next year, he had a lot of work to do. On top of that, he also got his wisdom teeth taken out. Luckily, our entire team found a spare week to spend time with one another.
Karma and Gandhi drove from Virginia up to ShocKWav3's house on a Thursday. The following day, they all drove together to Avalon, NJ. Chris' family owns a beach house about two blocks down away from the beach. At the same time, my mom and I drove down to Avalon from where I live in NJ. It was not only a team vacation, but also teams' families came, too. At one point during the week, it was my brother, my mom, myself, Karma, ShocKWav3, his brother, his sister, his parents, Gandhi, and his parents. We didn't practice at all. We just had an amazing time at the beach swimming, body-boardiing, and body-surfing. Everyday we were there, we went to the beach and played football and frisbee. It was a great time. Later in the week, we saw Transformers and Live Free or Die Hard. Both were pretty sick movies. To end the 4th of July week off, we all went to the beach and watched fireworks and went out later on.
This week really showed me that I could spend a drastic amount of time around my whole team. While many people have good friends, you'd think that one another would get annoying after a week of constant time together. Well, that was the complete opposite. We all finally got back to the same team from 2006. We were all friends and didn't have any interference throughout the entire week. I really appreciate Chris and his family's contribution as to letting us all stay at his shore house for a week. Now all we needed to do was practice as a team to make sure our skill and teamwork were still there...
-Ghost

Interview with Brick:

First off, can you just talk a little bit about the Meadowlands as an event?
Okay, well, Meadowlands as an event was pretty much a throwback to last season's opener. It took place in the same venue, hotels, and location. The major differences included the numbers, the games, and the inside of the venue. It was also the most exciting and smoothly run event yet.

What was your Meadowlands experience as an individual player and a member of Team Carbon?
Well, seeing as how I placed poorly in the Charlotte Pro FFA, I had to play through the Amateur FFA. Ever since I have been on Team Carbon, my FFA skills have decreased drastically. However, I felt as if I could still prosper through the Open FFA. Well, I was completely wrong. I got knocked out in the fourth round of the FFA. Thus, I got to take the rest of my night off and prepare for the 4v4 the next day.
It seems that as individuals, and as a team, we can recognize immediately after the first game of a series whether we are going to win or lose. We also tend to have the ability to determine whether we are going to win the event or not. As soon as we played games in the last three events of the 2006 season, we knew we were going to win the event. However, this season, even in warm up games, something was different. We weren't playing like ourselves even against lower seeded teams. Our spark just wasn't there anymore.
In both Charlotte and in Meadowlands, after a series or two, I had a feeling that we weren't playing to our full capacity. While I knew we had the capability to place very high, I personally wasn't sure about beating FB. The expressions of doubt also crossed my teammates' faces when we lost games to lower seeds and had challenges when we faced top four teams. As an individual member of Team Carbon, I felt like I didn't play as well as I had last year. I do believe I played better than I did at Charlotte, but I never once caught fire in a series. I just felt worthless as a player. As a team, I feel like we played much better than Charlotte, but not as well as last season. While FB has improved substantially, we felt like it was the beginning of the 2006 season.


What do you think the addition of Strongside has done for Final Boss? Where do they stand in your eyes as compared to the Final Boss of the past?
The addition of StrongSide has created a new play style and improved FB. Many stated previously that with the addition either FB would fail miserably, or to succeed, the three members of FB would have to mold to fit StongSide. I feel that StrongSide has improved and FB has changed their strategies to differ greatly from previous events. In my eyes, they remind me of the FB in the early 2006 season. We just have to catch up.


Were you surprised by the play of Perfect Storm in the Meadowlands? Any other teams that surprised you?
I wasn't entirely surprised by the play of Perfect Storm in Meadowlands. I knew that they would place well, but not as well as they did. I didn't expect Xtrem1st to improve so hastily in such a short time span. With the help of his teammates, it seems as though he's approaching the same level as top six or even a top four player individually. That team has natural teamwork and will only improve in my eyes.
Not many other teams really surprised me. While various people mention RoC as a surprise, I have been following them since they've been teaming and noticed their teamwork. RoC reminds me of a lower-seeded version of 5k. Even though they are all individually talented, it's their teamwork that will make them surpass other teams.


Whenever a top team starts to fall out of their position rumors start to fly. Can we expect a team change on Carbon if you guys don't take 1st at Dallas or soon?
I think a team change is probably the worst decision a team can make. All of our team members know we have the potential to take first place and to beat Final Boss; we just need the same drive as last season.
I do not believe that anyone would be dropped or kicked off the team. The only potential option is if someone became disappointed and left, but that would only be under extreme circumstances. Personally, I would never leave my team and wish that no one else would either. We are all friends outside of Halo and I've never had a team like this one.


Two fourteen year olds placed 1/2 in the Pro FFA event. A lot of younger kids are coming up in the ranks. Is it only a matter of time before the younger generation takes over the old?
Regarding FFA ranks, I believe that the younger generation will certainly take over the old. With younger competitors come faster reflexes. Halo 2 as a game takes fast reflexes to succeed and a FFA really tests a player's speed and hand-eye coordination to the max. However, it isn't necessary for a top FFA player to be as experienced or as intelligent as the top 4v4 players. While Legit and Naded are known to be not only top FFA players but also top team players, Factor and iGotUrPistola aren't recognized as fear-striking 4v4 competitors. That being said, I do believe with maturity and experience, they will gain much knowledge over a short time span.


Our Senior Staff Writer Jason asked a good question I'm going to steal: If Halo were magically deleted from the universe and you suddenly had to play a different game professionally, what title would you pick?
I would pick Gears of War. While I know the majority of people would choose Shadowrun, I haven't played it too much. When I was in school, I put about a month or two into GoW and I got pretty decent at it. After only a few weeks, my 360 broke, and I didn't get it fixed until after Meadowlands. Now that I have it back, I've been playing GoW a lot during the day. I love the community and just the game itself. While there are some glitches and inconsistencies, it's a fun game and I'd love to go pro in it.
I'm actually looking to skip the Amateur FFA in Dallas and to join a GoW team. However, I haven't gotten a team offer that I want to accept yet, but I will continue searching.


Ok, Gears teams take note. Moving back to Halo, what's your favorite map and favorite game type?
My favorite map would have to be Midship when I'm playing my best. However, my favorite gametype would be Sanctuary CTF. I am very consistent with my playstyle and my stats on it, so I love to play it.


Are there any gametypes you’d like to see put on to or removed from the circuit?
I would like Warlock TS to be removed and possibly Ivory Tower TS (map default) be added back.


Any parting thoughts/shout outs?
Shout out to everyone except for Nexy, 'cause he smells and doesn't own.*

-Ghost

My first year at Pennsylvania State University has just ended. Thus, you would think that it's now time to hang with friends, party, and go to the beach with my high school friends. Nope, I decided to sacrifice the majority of my social life for MLG Meadowlands. Therefore, I decided to hang out with my friends for two days until that upcoming Tuesday. However, it quickly approached, and I took a car ride from my house over to Chris "ShocKWav3" Smith's house for what was supposed to be four days. We played from that day until Friday, straight. We logged over 100 games in just a few days. So, we decided we needed a break.

Now, at first, I believed that Chris was more of the antisocial type who doesn't really do much besides play Halo and Guitar Hero. Jesus Christ, I couldn't have been more wrong. We go out on Friday night to this Jersey Party. Of course, we both rock Carbon jerseys. The first person I meet is the guy who answers the door: "I'm gonna call you Eric, but I know your real name is Ghost." That comment pretty much set the theme for the rest of the night. Everyone knew and loved Chris, and they all knew me somehow. It was a pretty sick party, too. Anyways, we had a good night at Vance's place. The next night, we went to Fiori's house, the kid with the dirtiest P in Halo 1. That was an awesome party, also, 'cause Fiori's so gross. So, after Chris' friends and parties reassured me that he was actually one of the cooler kids in school, we set off to play more Halo on the following Sunday. Now, I was supposed to leave on that Sunday. However, we were meshing pretty well, so we decided I'd stay until Tuesday. Well, that idea didn't last so long, as I overstayed my welcome up until Thursday. Originally, I was just set to go home. Nevertheless, Chris came with me. He stayed from Thursday up until Monday. Thus, we got in just about two weeks of practice together.

With Meadowlands hastily approaching, I was pretty pumped for the next event. Now, as most of you know, I've been good friends with Carlos "Cpt Anarchy" Morales since I teamed with him on eX. So, I had two days to have a social life, before he came to my house on that Friday. When he came, so did armageddon. He's a wild and crazy party kid who's fueled by a punk rock spirit and is always looking for adventurous journies. In between our adventures, we played a crap ton of Halo. We made sure that our shots were on, and Carlos said he wanted to learn from me. So, like Chris taught me, I taught Carlos. So, I take full credit for anything and everything he did at Meadowlands :D .

After another week of a lot of Halo and Hardcore, Thursday night had already approached. We were going to celebrate my birthday on the Saturday of the event, and Brent "Tha B ReeZy" Hewitt (my brother) on the Thursday. So, after Scotty (Gandhi) and Ben (Karma) arrived, we decided to have a delicious dinner. Finally, the captain arrived, and with him, Fiorgasm, and Colossus. They had some leftovers, and then we proceeded to have the birthday cake. Much later, I decided to go visit the venue and my girlfriend Erika. After a few hours with her, I went back home to where Vindicator, Gandhi, Tha B ReeZy, and ShocKWav3 were still playing Halo. Thus, we all went to bed in final preparation for our enormous weekend ahead of us.

-Ghost

I wake up at roughly 11:30AM because yesterday we were told that we had to do photoshoots and media coverage around noon. So, I do all my morning stuff, and then head downstairs to where the sign-in line already wraps around the entire hotel. I had never seen a line like this one, especially since it was never-ending until like 4PM. Anyways, we did our individual shoots, and our team ones. Sadly, they made us take photos with xXx when he's not even that big of a deal ;). After we did all of the usual stuff, there was a "bro blaya meeting babooom!" in the same room. Thankfully, we just finished our photos so we all got front row seats! Haha, but yeah, it was a sweet discussion and it showed us what to expect from MLG in the near future. Once the pro player meeting was over, I decided to finally check out the venue. Now, after seeing the 2005-2006 season transfer, I didn't really expect anything that would be new. Since the changes were so drastic and enormous, I figured the venue would be tweaked slightly. I couldn't have been more wrong. The Pro Player Lounge now had two tiers: one consisted of the pro station, Redbulls, candy, and Guitar Hero; the other included two 360s, candy, and a lounge. After spending some time in the lounge, I decided to check out the rest of the venue. The second major difference was the giant structure that was directly behind the stands. While the bottom had another private lounge stocked with Redbull, the top part had multiple lights, computers, and media gear. It was like having box seats to the main stage. Besides these two sick improvements, MLG also accommodated the previous traffic issues. Thus, they decided to leave a lot of free space when you first enter, and to set the Halo 2 and RSV stations on either end of the venue. This enabled a lot less crowds at the opening, so it was much more efficient to walk around the venue. Anyways, after I finished checking out the venue, I decided to watch my teammates ShocKWav3 and Gandhi play in the Amateur FFA. I watched Scott destroy a few kids, and then decided to hang with Erika. Once Chris and Scott got knocked out, we decided to grab something to eat, and then hit the bed. While this day could have been a lot more detailed, I figured that I would just give you a brief synopsis so I don't bore you. Enjoy, and check back for the grueling Saturday story soon!

-Ghost

Well, I arrived at the airport at around 11:15 PM. Luckily, my brother (Tha B ReeZy/Brent) drove to Charlotte with his teammate Vindicator (Tim). Thus, he was able to pick me up from the airport. However, there was a bit of a predicament. I promised Scott that I would go to the hotel to check in so he could go to bed. I also promised Gran_Calc (Danny) that we would go to Steak 'n' Shake with him. On top of all this, I promised Christiana (BaBy Ac3) that I would wait for her at the airport and go to the hotel together. So, I figured that we could drive around for a bit until she got into the airport at around 12:05AM. So, she finally got in at 12:25AM and then we had to wait for her baggage. Well, luckily, the airport knew what they were doing with baggage claim and the bags came promptly at 1:35AM. So, we went back to the hotel, checked in, and Scott went to bed. Next, we all went to Steak 'n' Shake. We ordered our food from this crackhead of a manager and he brought out our food 20 minutes later. So, we're eating our Frisco Melts and then Christiana pauses and stares at her food. She found a giant, black hair in it. So, we all stopped eating, got the check, and paid. However, I told Scott I would get him a strawberry milkshake. So, we ordered it, and the manager not only got us Scott's milkshake, but also got a Mocha one for Christiana. He didn't do this out of sheer kindness, nor pity for the hair in her melt, but solely because he was drugged up. This was the foreshadowing for every meal to come over the course of the entire weekend. We all finally got back to the hotel, got in the room, and of course, we went straight to bed. Thus, the first night in Charlotte had already passed.

-Ghost

Today was the second day that we all LAN'ed at PSU and let me just start out by asking a question: Why the hell was that random scumbag Tim at the LAN again? We kept playing and he kept bugging us to play. Since it was the same kids as yesterday playing, we decided to run some Dere FFAs and then some 2v2s. I was teaming with the best pistol in the game, Fiori. Hoss was with Cyrax, Jumper with H2Cold, Nizzy with Sandman, and the random with some other random. Myself and Fiori got a bye, 'cause we're amazing, and so did H2Cold and Jumper. Anyways, we played some FFAs and then got to the twos. The finals ended up being Fiori and I versus Jumper and H2Cold. They won the coin toss, so they chose to have the nice TV, and to host game two. Thus, we were on the bubble TV and got host games one and three if it went to it. We hosted Hang 'em High and clutched the game with a score of 50-49. So, they had host the next game and it just happened to be Prisoner. Now, keep in mind, it was off-host, on a bubble TV, and through a router. However, you also need to realize that we had John Fiori's abnormally, disgusting pistol on our team. Why would anyone submit themselves to a pistol war on Prisoner? Anyways, the game started fresh, and it was going well. Mid-game, H2Cold out-pistol'ed me and decided to scream "EWWWW." Although he thought he had the game in the bag, we just started three'ing and imitated that "EWWWW." With my support, and Fiorgasm's dirty P, it was unfair. We ended up winning the game and the series with a 50-36 win. MLGPRO.COM, BlogItUP nucca!

-Ghost

Well, today I played with the old H1 LEETS, haha. This furious force consisted of Fiori and Cyrax. As few know, these two were insanely good at Halo 1 way back in the day. I met them through my teammate ShocKWav3 since he went to high school with them. Luckily, I got to play with them today at Jumper's house. The LAN included myself, Fiori, Cyrax, Maloy, Jumper, H2Cold, Nizzy, Hoss, CT, Sandman, and some other random tall kid named Tim I think (he was weird as hell). But anyways, we played a bunch of Derelict FFAs, 2v2s, and 4v4s. Everytime I would die, I'd watch Fiori's screen, and he has the dirtiest pistol in the game. He'd always talk about three-shotting people like he was breathing, but I didn't believe it. His pistol is the best I've ever seen, including VoD H1 clips. He even carried Cyrax to a win on Wizard 2v2s with 39 kills. Since either of the two have played in three or four years, they were a little rusty. However, over the span of a few hours, they both had their shots back (Fiori was on as soon as he picked up the controller). Anyways, we had a ish load of fun playing some games, and plan on doing it again tomorrow. PSU LANs are amazing, just like Fiori's three-shot.

-Ghost