CbN|ShocKWav3

As everyone probably realizes, gametype decisions are one of, if not the most discussed topic among pros. A lot of us are passionate about what we believe and it seems that at least in the area of gametype discussion, pros have a hard time coming to any sort of agreement. We all have our own opinions and defend them mercilessly, sometimes even stooping down to MLG forum troll levels and flaming each other in the Pro forum (which by the way, is not as sweet as all of you are probably imagining it to be). Right now, the big topic of discussion is whether or not we as pros feel that Lockdown Ball is a better gametype than Pit KOTH. I actually haven’t posted on this topic in the pro thread, but instead I decided to think about it more in depth and make it part of my blog, allowing for you, the community, to leave some feedback as to what you agree or disagree with.

 

Lockdown Ball

 

The first few times I played Lockdown Ball, I was disgusted with the gametype. The first obvious flaw in my mind is that this was a Foundry map. Many people who know my position on gametypes know that I absolutely hate Foundry. The idea of playing a map where there is a noticeable screen lag in my mind is not good competitively. The second problem with Lockdown is the spawns. While pros were discussing the gametypes before Columbus, a lot of players (especially the players from Str8) were highly opposed to Lockdown and had a lot of clips of ridiculous spawns. I personally had a collection of some ridiculous spawns on the map, spawning directly behind players in the bases or directly in front of them in various parts of the map. But as the community has been playing Lockdown more, I feel as if the amount of these random and ridiculous spawns had decreased. It has gotten to the point that we all expect some of these spawns and therefore they are not believed to be random anymore. Granted, there are some ridiculous spawns almost every game, but gameplay has evolved to the point where it renders these spawns mostly irrelevant. I’ve yet to see a spawn in the last two months in Lockdown Ball that completely and drastically changed the outcome of the game. If it happens, which I’m not saying it doesn’t anymore, it happens rarely. I’ve watched a good amount of VoD of Lockdown ball, and each has been a good game won by the team that was playing and using teamwork better, which is what a good, competitive gametype should have happen.

Those are the two flaws I see in the gametype. The first flaw, the map being on Foundry, is the most glaring and in my mind, important problem but it is also easily fixed. I have brought this idea up to MLG but have heard nothing about it, but it’s pretty simple; just remake the map on Sandbox. I don’t understand why this is such a problem. The forgers are all ridiculous, so I doubt recreating the map on Sandbox would be a problem in that sense. There is also a lot more freedom with the forging on Sandbox, with more useful pieces. There is a possibility that the map geometry could actually improve on Sandbox (in my mind, it’s more of a probability than possibility). Add that to the fact that there is not nearly the screen lag on Sandbox as there is on Foundry, and the gametype could actually be improved dramatically.

 

Here are some good Lockdown Ball games from the previous two tournaments.

 

iGotUrPistola in the Meadowlands Finals against Instinct

http://www.mlgpro.com/content/link/276881/IGotUrPistola

 

TC Legend in LBR8 in Columbus against Instinct

http://www.mlgpro.com/content/link/284024/Legend

 

Both of these games are good examples of Lockdown Ball and how it can be played effectively.

 

Pit KOTH

 

            Many people within the MLG community are no strangers to this gametype. Pit KOTH was on the circuit during the entire ’08 season. While many people are probably remembering a bunch of the good times they’ve had playing this gametype, I’m sure they forget all of the frustrations and problems that they have all experienced. One of the first major problems with this gametype has always been the spawns. Unlike Lockdown, the spawns on Pit KOTH are terrible spawns, as opposed to good spawns. Nothing is more frustrating than spawning in the opposite mauler, at least twenty seconds away from the hill twice or even three times in a row. Add that to the sometimes random spawns in the mauler that the hill is at, or where the hill is going to be at, and I honestly think that Pit KOTH is one of the most spawn influenced gametypes MLG has ever had. Try to remember all of those times you’ve played the gametype, and thought to yourself how much different the game would have gone if only you didn’t spawn where you did, or if the other team didn’t get that lucky spawn. The one thing this gametype does have going for it in my mind is that it is on a normal, Bungie created map. Like I’ve said in the Lockdown section, I really dislike Foundry maps. The hills are very fairly placed and it does take skill in order to control or attack the hills. The problem, like I stated earlier, is the amount of time it takes in order to engage the other team, especially when it comes to the base hills as well as the consistently frustrating spawns. If you want to see what I mean, watch this game from Vegas Finals ’08 from Anarchy’s point of view against Str8 Rippin in the WBF.

 

http://www.mlgpro.com/content/link/253334/Anarchy

 

At the end of this game, Anarchy gets a ridiculously lucky spawn and we win the game because of it. This is just one example I could find, but I’m sure if I dug deeper and watched more Pit King games, I would have found a few more games such as this. Unfortunately, I have seen too many games on Pit KOTH that have been too spawn influenced.

 

Here’s the same game, from Snipedown’s viewpoint. Watch it if you want to see a sick Pit KOTH gameplay.

http://www.mlgpro.com/content/link/253350/Snipedown

 

My Decision

 

            Personally, I really don’t see either one of these gametypes as an improvement over the other. I guess if I had to decide, I would currently say Lockdown Ball primarily for the fact that it is the gametype that has been played most recently. I’m more used to it as a player and I feel more comfortable playing it as opposed to going back to a gametype that has already been removed once before. I believe Lockdown has gotten to the point that spawns do not make or break the game anymore, as teams have learned to control the map more effectively. Also, I think Lockdown requires more teamwork and a team shot than Pit King, along with a more skillful use of the objective. It’s easy to sit in a hill when it’s on the side of a base, whereas it is hard to move the ball around away from the opposing team and keep control. The one major knock in my mind is that Lockdown is a Foundry map, which could be fixed if it is remade on Sandbox (where there is a less noticeably screen lag, or none at all). So I’m going to go with Lockdown Ball.

 

Gametime / Team Scrims

 

            If you are interested in gametime with any of the members of Carbon, check out our bios on Xbox Live. Our gamertags are The ShocKWav3, Yhslaw, Naded, and DDefy. These are our only tags, so if you are buying lessons or gametime from a different gamertag, STOP! There are a lot of people trying to take advantage of you by scamming, and it is your job as a consumer to inform yourself. Also, if your team would like to scrim us, send a message to either Yhslaw or The ShocKWav3 and we’ll get back to you. Oh, and I’ve been trying to put a gameplay up in the gameroom. It’s an Onslaught Flag game from Talent’s LAN earlier in the summer, but since I don’t have a capture card I’ve been having a hard time getting it up. Hopefully it’s up soon, and I’ll edit the blog when I get the link.

 

Next Blog

 

            For my next blog, I am thinking about doing what Neighbor did and trying to answer a bunch of questions from the community. If you want to comment on the gametype dispute, go ahead, or if you want to ask a question for my next blog leave a question in the comment. Thanks a lot guys, and I hope you are all enjoying your summer!

Carbon 

ShocKWav3

Defy

Walshy

Naded

 

I know a lot of people are probably wondering what has been going on with our team (although it’s not like MLG hasn’t done enough articles) but I wanted to write a blog explaining our situation and our decisions. I guess we need to start from the beginning. I gave this quote to MLG for their article “Straight From The Source.”

 Shockwave: “Usually after a tournament, there is always going to be a lot of rumors and talk going around the pro community. Not the kind of rumors most of the forums or MLG community will hear, but when things that are important pertaining to your team, you seem to always hear them immediately after the tournament. The biggest rumor I had heard was that Instinct was interested in picking up Ghostayame in place of Walshy. I wasn't sure if that was true, but obviously I wanted to find out as soon as possible because that kind of change is going to affect me directly. The day after the tournament, I called Ghost to clarify the rumors. He told me that Instinct had talked to him about the possibility of teaming and that if he got an offer, he would take it. I can't blame Eric for joining up with Instinct. He is making a business decision regarding his future and he feels that is the best possible decision he could make. I felt the same way when Karma left for Triggers Down. I'm never going to get angry at someone for doing what they feel is in their best interest.

After a full day of talking with Eric (Ghost) for updates, I decided to call Walshy. Obviously, he was aware of what was going on. I told him that if something happened, whatever it was, to give me a call. Later that night, I actually got a call from Walshy first that Instinct had officially dropped him and picked up Ghost. Almost right after, I got a call from Eric telling me the news and I wished him good luck with his new team. From there, it was time to decide what I wanted to do. I wanted to start something fresh, something new. Obviously with placing 8th twice in a row, something wasn't working out. I talked to Defy a lot the days after Columbus and we decided that we wanted to stick together. 

A day or so after Dave (Walshy) had been dropped from Instinct, I got a call from him. Basically, he came to me with an offer I couldn't refuse. He said that he and Strongside wanted to team up. Frankly, I agreed and realized that this was my new fresh start and beginning. I knew I wanted to team with Defy and I had been talking with him almost every day, multiple times each day. I called Defy right after I talked with Dave and he wanted to team as well. It was pretty much determined right then and there that this was going to be our new team. I know Brandon had been talking with Dave so it wasn't like my call was news to Brandon. We had both been talking about the people we wanted to team with and this was what we decided we wanted to do before Walshy had made the offer. After he made the offer, it just made it official and now it’s time to go to work. " 

This was true until last Friday when I learned that StrongSide was leaving to team with FB. During my drive to Talent’s house to LAN, I missed a call from Defy about fifteen minutes before I got a call from StrongSide. When I answered Side’s call, I saw the missed call and had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a good conversation for me. While we were trying to get StrongSide to team, he kept going back and forth between joining our team and joining back with sQ. Two different times he told us that he was officially on our team, only to call us later in the day and tell us he was going back with sQ. After the third time, it was made official. When something like this happens, as a teammate you are kind of worried in some ways about that teammate and his commitment to the team. Not that StrongSide isn’t committed, he’s one of the most dedicated players I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaming with, but there is going to be a little doubt in your mind. Needless to say, I didn’t expect the move to FB to happen but I wasn’t overly surprised by it. Like I said in my quote, I’m never going to get angry at someone for making a decision they feel is in their own best interest.

 

After getting off the phone with Mike, I gave a call to Walshy and Defy and we began to discuss the replacement but the one thing we did agree with was that we wanted to take as much time as we needed to make a good decision. We didn’t want to rush into anything, so we were prepared for a good time period to weigh our options and make the right choice. One of the people I wanted to team with was Naded, but I knew that none of us wanting to make a decision until we all were sure. Later that night, I got a call from Walsh telling me he had been playing with Naded all night and loved it. We all decided to sleep on it and the next day we all talked again and decided we wanted to team with Naded. Even though we agreed not to rush any decision, we felt it was just the perfect situation. We talked with Brett, and it was decided later that day. So going forth, the new Carbon looks to be a pretty exciting team and I look forward to teaming with Naded again.

 

Talent’s LAN

 

Last weekend, a bunch of players ended up at Talent’s house for the first of hopefully many LANs. The players Friday night for the LAN were Talent, myself, Defy, Demon D, Seb, NocturnalKernal, Maniac, JP, and Burns. We only really got one series in Friday night because we were a little disorganized and didn’t begin LANing until almost midnight. Saturday, Twylight and Decliner arrived but JP and Burns left. We got in at least 30 games on Saturday starting at around 6 that afternoon and it was really fun. I want to thank Talent’s Mom for allowing us to LAN at her house and for Talent for inviting all of us. I can’t wait to do it again, and this time we’ll make sure it is more organized.

 

My Life

 

Last weekend, I didn’t make out too well on the overall scheme of things. On Thursday, I was playing basketball and managed to break my ankle. This comes after I have been running and playing basketball every single day of the summer and I felt I was starting to get into really good shape. So of course, I had to be injured. I’m beginning to think it was my teammates praying for it, because now that I really don’t have anything else to do I’m going to be playing Halo pretty much exclusively all summer. And of course, the news of StrongSide coming during my four and a half hour drive to Talent’s LAN, those two days had to rank as some of the lowest I’ve had in a while. The good thing is that my first summer session classes end on Monday. Unfortunately, that begins a new set of summer classes that begin on Tuesday but I’m at least halfway through my summer of catching up in school. Either way, I’m excited for our new team and I’m going to be playing every day while my ankle heals. Good luck to everyone at Dallas.

                                                                                                                                                                                           

 

This is not going to be a blog about Halo. In fact, nothing in this blog is even going to be related to Halo. I'm writing this to give you guys some insight into my own life. I'm sure there are a lot of aspiring players in MLG that wonder what pros do with their time and I would love to share what I've been up to for the last year.

 

I am currently an engineering student at Virginia Tech. I am planning on majoring in Industrial and Systems Engineering. My sophmore year is now coming to an end and I can honestly say that I've had the two best years of my life here. Unfortunately, I may have had too good of a time because I'm going to be taking classes ALL SUMMER. I went into VT expecting to major in Computer Science, but let's just say that I'm not a programmer and leave it at that. Because I switched majors, I basically took a semesters worth of classes that became meaningless. Bummer. Either way, not only has this year been one of the best of my life, it has also been one of the toughest. I'm taking 17 credit hours here and some of the most ridiculous classes ever. I have one class, Theoretical Statistics, which is a senior level course and I have to say, this class is stupid hard. The average score on tests is around a 30%, which is now curved to be a C. Some other classes I'm taking are Deterministic Operations Research (what the hell does that even mean?), Manufacturing Processes, and Programming with C++ (god, I can't even begin to describe to you guys how much I dislike programming). Just with these classes, I've had to work harder than ever before. In a normal week, I have a minimum of three homeworks (each take around 2 or 3 hours) and a test. There have been weeks this semester where I had as many as five homeworks and three tests, along with a project. Take it from me, the most important skill to learn going into college and the rest of your life is time management. I know that high school teachers always tell you it is important, but I just want to stress that it is THE MOST IMPORTANT skill. If you can't manage your time well, you are going to have a lot of problems in college and later in your life.

 

As I said before in a previous blog, I've been trying to start up a Delta Upsilon chapter here at Virginia Tech. We have recently been making good strides to becoming a chapter. Not too long ago, we were officially colonized which sets us on our way to getting our charter (the document necessary to become an official chapter). We have around twenty guys now, but we need to get around forty so we're only halfway there. 

 

 

So far the fraternity has been one of the most fun parts about my life at Virginia Tech. Since we are just starting up, we have been trying to get our name out there every possible moment. Recently we’ve been doing philanthropies, which are events hosted by other fraternities or sororities in order to raise money for a cause. These events usually last a week, and each day there is a different “mini-event” I’ll call it. These events are usually hysterical, such as a karaoke in which everyone needs to come up with a dance and perform or a sport, like field games including a relay and other fun contests. I didn’t really expect to get into Greek life when I came to Virginia Tech, but I personally am glad I found it. If you are planning on going to college, I would just say you should try to experience it for a little, just to see whether or not you enjoy it.

 

And of course, I somehow have to find time to play halo while doing all of this. Like I said before, time management is the most useful skill you can develop and will directly affect how you live your life. I don’t know how many of the MLG community is in college, but I would love to see everyone that is part of MLG remain in school and experience college. Remember, we all love to play halo and we wish it could be our full-time jobs, but when it is all said and done you are going to want to have a college education. One of the main reasons I decided to do this blog was to show everyone that you can play halo and still go to school. An education is the most important thing you can get, don’t screw that up. And now, I figure I’ll just leave off with this picture.

Well, this blog was a little overdue. Even though the attention span for most of the people on this site is short, I’m still going to pour out all my thoughts on this blog. And don’t get me wrong, I have a lot to talk about.

 

The Parting Of The Ways

 

Karma is now officially part of tD. Well, he’s officially been part of tD since he joined them a week after Toronto, but I figure now after a 1^st place finish, it is really official. Fortunately, I can report that the split up between Carbon and Karma was made on some of the best of terms. I still consider Karma one of my best friends, and I doubt whether or not he’s on another team will interfere with that. So after Karma decided to try his luck with tD, we needed to pick up a 4^th. It really did not take too much time to decide on who we wanted to pick up. We narrowed our choice down to only two real candidates, Legend and Naded. First thing first, we were better friends with Naded than Legend and that was probably the biggest factor that went into our decision. Both of these players are great in their own respective ways. Naded is amazing in his own way, pulling off ridiculous kills and coming up clutch, while Legend is just a solid all around team player. Both brought something different to the table, but we thought we would feel more comfortable with Naded on the team.

 

Dallas

 

Getting into Dallas, I was very excited. It felt so long ago, but as I got to the hotel I began remembering the past year. In the same venue and hotel, our team managed to win MLG Dallas ’07 for Halo 2. It was a tournament where we came out swinging and surprised everyone, dominating the tournament and dropping only 3 games (1 to Pokemon Breeders, and 2 to FB in a best of 11). I can’t lie when I say that it felt different without Karma. It felt weird seeing Ben occasionally throughout the tournament instead of spending the majority of the time with him. Plus, Karma had probably his best Halo 2 performance in the very venue we were playing, so obviously I knew he was going to be pumped. Either way, Dallas began with a bang, and I’m not even talking about the Championship Bracket.

 

Saturday Open Bracket

 

My primary goal on Saturday was to warm-up and get in practice with our team for most of the day. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of teams and games needed to be played in the Open Bracket limited any open stations. Luckily, Instinct invited us to LAN against them in their room with a full station set up, and we got in around two hours of some solid LAN practice. We were splitting games with Instinct, and felt very positive about our play. Afterwards, we all went down to the venue to watch the ending of the open bracket and the epic fight for the 8^th spot.

 

I believed that Antigravity would be able to pull it out for the 8^th and final spot in Vegas. They had been consistently placing 8^th all year and seemed to come up clutch against lower seeded teams. The Breaking Point and Antigravity series was really intense in the WBF, but Antigravity clutched it at the end and pulled it out as I expected them to be able to do. What I didn’t expect was a surging Legendz coming from the Losers to just catch fire and completely annihilate everyone. The Finals almost looked silly with how good Legendz was playing. I can honestly say that I think Legendz was winning about 80% of the straight up BR fights and were using some great teamwork. Antigravity took a Game 1 loss and just seemed to just not have any fight. They got down on themselves early, ESPECIALLY Eli, and did not play up to their skill. I hate to call you out Eli, but you were having a pretty rough series and it was affecting your head. It happens, but hopefully next time you’ll be more prepared. Either way, Legendz was playing great and won the 8^th spot to Vegas in dominating fashion.

 

After the series, our team stayed to watch the FFA finals for the gamestop event. A Bunch of us picked a player to support in the finals and cheered obnoxiously for that player. I managed to pick Cold Hard Killa, who pretty much dominated the FFA. He was in first within the beginning few minutes and no one was ever really close. Either way, it was pretty fun to watch and we all got really into it, adding to the excitement. Afterwards, we all went back to the room to get some sleep before the big day.

 

Sunday - Carbon

 

Our first series on Sunday was against FB, and we went into the series very confident in our teamwork. The first game was Pit CTF and once again, we made a lot of mistakes regarding our own flag caps. We lost the game 3-2, but I believe we should have won the game. On two different flag caps, we had major miscommunications and managed to choke. It was extremely frustrating to know something was in our grasp and have tiny mistakes affect the outcome of the game. Game 2 was amplified team slayer and we got slayed. It wasn’t a very pretty game, as FB got control early and were just running around spawn killing. They had a really solid strategy of making us spawn at a certain base and then swarming for the kills. I had a rough game in the first two games of the series, but I felt I made up for some of it in the 3^rd game of Construct KOTH. That is one of our team’s stronger gametypes, and I felt that my shot was on fire during the game. We had a good team showing in the game, all racking up good hill time and outslaying FB. The 4^th game was Narrows CTF, and it was one of the most intense games I’ve played. We managed to pull off a 2-1 victory, while each team managed around 10 flag returns. Naded went off during the game, always foiling any FB attempt at a flag run. The final game was Guardian TS, and FB managed to get up early and then just went kill for kill the rest of the game. The score ended up 50-44 or something, but we never really challenged for the win at the end of the game.

 

One comment I have from this series is just the fact that I can’t stand Guardian TS and Amp TS in the same round. I don’t know why it always works out like that, but I really dislike having both of those team slayers in one round. Both are easily my least favorite team slayers which is probably why I hate the round so much, but I was wondering if anyone else felt it was annoying too.

 

After losing to FB, we went into the Losers Bracket where we met up with Ambush. Needless to say, we got 3-0’d and the games weren’t very good. I don’t particularly remember the scores of the games in that series, but I don’t think we performed well as a team and I know I did not perform well individually.

 

Sunday – Finals

 

So after our team got knocked out, I decided I would watch the finals. I watched tD barely beat FB to get back into the finals game, but the finals was one of the best series I’ve ever watched. After watching VoD of the Narrows TS game, I’m still in disbelief as to how Str8 lost it. tD clutched it pretty hard. I think that game was the key game for tD to keep them in it because if Str8 had won, it would have been a 3-0. Fast forward a couple of games to the Onslaught CTF game. I thought that this game was for sure going to be the key game in the series. tD was leading 2-1 in the second series before this game. tD came out destroying in the game, capping I believe 3 times on Str8. But then Str8 broke the tD set up and managed to get control of the map, and it was just over from there. tD never got control of the map back and Str8 kept sneaking people around to disrupt anything tD wanted to do. I remember thinking after Str8 won this game; there was no way they weren’t going to win the final game.

 

I remember thinking before going into the final game that if it was Amp TS, I didn’t even want to watch. I would hate for a tournament to be decided on a gametype many consider random and for the most part isn’t very fun to watch. Thankfully, Pit TS was the final gametype and it proved to be more exciting than expected. The drama, the sniping, the crowd, everything was just amped up in that final game and it was awesome. Both teams had some ridiculous snipes, but Snip3down was just ripping faces at the end. That was one of the most impressive displays of sniping, especially under all of the pressure of the final game. I think the biggest mistake from Str8 though had to be the burning of the overshield by Legit. I’ve watched the rebroadcast and even talked to Legit about his decision to burn the OS and it was logical at the time, but Legit had time to grab that overshield. If he had waited and got the full OS, I think that would have been a huge momentum shift and game changer because not only would he have full OS, he had rockets as well. I can’t blame the game on one mistake, but I felt that was the big thing I noticed and I can’t even blame Legit for burning it. Either way, Str8 managed to tie it up near the end but a well timed push from tD on the training / sword side of the map got the best of Str8 and wiped them out. The game was easily one of the most intense games I’ve ever seen and tD played a really good series. I’m glad Karma was able to win a tournament this season and with the amount of time he puts into halo, I’m sure it was very rewarding for him. So congratulations Ben and keep it up.

 

The Str8 / Carbon LAN

 

We just got done finishing the LAN at Legit’s condo in Orlando. As I’m sure everybody first wants to know, the score of the LAN was 44-28 in Str8’s favor. The LAN itself was extremely fun and I had a great time. I consider Str8 to be some of my good friends at MLG so it was great to hang out with them for a weekend. The LAN itself was very helpful for both teams. We learned a lot about ourselves and our teamwork. A lot of the games were really close and were falling both ways, depending on the day. The first day we only got in one series that Str8 won, but we won both series on Day 2. During that day, we had a ton of close games that just fell our way from clutching it out at the end. On Day 3, Str8 won both series we played and they had a bunch of last second wins. I would say majority of the flag games were decided by only one capture, and most of the ball / hill games were decided in the last seconds of each game. Day 4 went both ways, with each team winning a series. There a few things I noticed at this LAN. The first is that Str8 is a freight train if they are on fire. If they control any part of your base, they are coming with the fury and will run around you in circles. At the same time, we noticed that we were able to take back control very effectively using some of our strategies and teamwork, which we got down a lot better throughout the LAN. I would say the biggest problem I saw at the LAN for Str8 was just getting down on themselves when they are losing, but I doubt that would happen at a tournament. Another issue would be montage clip hunting, but again I don’t think that would happen at a tournament. Str8 is a good team and will be a force in Vegas, but everyone already knows that.

 

I’m probably going to be putting a few gameplays up from the LAN in the Game Room. I didn’t do anything to sweet, but there were a bunch of just ridiculously close games and are really fun to watch. On top of that, Naded managed to pull off a ridiculously disgusting play. Yea, he got a killtacular against Str8, whats up. Easily ESPN Top 10 material and I hope he puts it up. The worst part is, he might have had a killtrocity, but Elamite hid knowing full well what was going on (haha, Str8 HATES giving out montage clips to people). After it’s all said and done, the weekend was a nice little break from school and a very productive weekend for halo.

 

Stride Championship Series

 

Stride has been putting out games from the championship bracket in a video series called the Stride Championship Series. I’m sure most people have heard about it or seen it on the front page, but if you have never checked it out you are definitely missing out. The SCS is actually awesome and really enjoyable to watch. I have to admit that it is always fun to watch a game when you are always watching the player owning at a given time. Because they have all of the viewpoints, they can find all of the best plays in the game and make sure to show those during the video. It usually involves a few awesome snipes and a bunch of sick plays. Add in the commentary from Sundance and Puckett and it really is just fun to watch. I would recommend these videos to anyone in the MLG community. Here is the link: http://www.mlgpro.com/video/stride&c=Stride%20Championship%20Series .

 

Our team Carbon has a few gameplays up in the SCS. All of the videos are with our original team in ’08 with Gandhi and Karma, and unfortunately… we lose all of the games… but they are still fun to watch.

 

Virginia Tech / Life

 

So while I was being a dumbass before Dallas, I was pretty distracted with everything else going on in my life. I’m now a sophomore at Virginia Tech and trying to major in Computer Science Engineering. Let’s just say that school didn’t get any easier this year. Most of my classes require much more work than before and schoolwork has really started to pile up. On top of all of the work, my friends and I are helping to create a fraternity chapter at Virginia Tech. We are helping to start up the Delta Upsilon chapter and have been working pretty hard to get colonized. So far it is around 13 or 14 of us, but in order for DU Nationals to colonize our chapter or Virginia Tech to recognize us, we need 20 members and so we have been searching for more people. In the meantime, we have been doing philanthropies and trying to get the name out there. It has been a real fun year for me at Virginia Tech, and I imagine it will only get better.

I'm trying to put some pictures up right now but I'm having problems. I'll edit and add pictures when I figure it out. 

Team Carbon

ShocKWav3
Karma
GH057ayame
Cpt Anarchy

I'm sure that everyone reading this blog already knows about the team change that happened a week ago, but for those that don't, Anarchy has filled in Gandhi's spot on Carbon. I'm sure what most of you would expect from me is a long, well thought out blog detailing the process and steps we took, the problems we had as a team and then the final split. But I'm not going to do that, in fact I'd rather not. What most community members need to realize is that there are a lot of things that happen "backstage". The halo pros are regular people with real life problems. We don't live in a fantasy world where everyone at the top somehow gets along with each other. The situation with Scott I believe was handled wrongly. I didn't handle it how I should have, but it has concluded and now we all must move on with our lives. While I will not go into detail, my teammates have already. If you want to read more about our decision, go to Karma's blog (www.mlgpro.com/user/karma) or GH057ayame's blog (www.mlgpro.com/user/gh057ayame).

San Diego

I'm not going to go in depth at our San Diego tournament like I did for Meadowlands, primarily because I don't see a point now that we have a new team. Like our team, many other squads decided to switch around players after San Diego. Triggers Down and Instinct swapped Victory X and Snipedown. Classic picked up Naded for Fear, and VGA / PSK picked up the remaining pros and formed a team of Defy, Bestman, Gandhi, and Fear. Str8 pretty muched rocked everyone this tournament. It wasn't even close. From the standpoint of seeing a dominating tournament, this ranked up there with Vegas '07 and DC '05. For our team, getting top 4 was just a sigh of relief, but did not feel gratifying at all. In all honesty, we had the easiest bracket for top 4 possibly in MLG history. I don't mean any offense to the teams we played to get into the top 4, as two of them pushed us to the limit in a series that took 5 games, but realistically if we did not get top 4 then it would have been a big disappointment. As far as our old team was concerned, we did not prove anything at San Diego. But we plan to prove ourselves in Orlando, especially now that there are significantly more doubters.

Str8 LAN

Tsquared has invited us to join Str8 Rippin a week before the tournament in Orlando to LAN with them. This is a great oppurtunity for us to get a feel on how we play as a team. Str8 just dominated everyone in San Diego, and just playing them should really help our team improve. The LAN will be starting around July 4th, lasting until the Wednesday before the tournament (these are tentative dates, not official). You guys should be expecting updates all during the LAN and there should be a bunch of games we'll be putting up on our fileshare.

Want to Scrim Carbon?

For those of you who haven’t heard, we are doing team scrims for those aspiring to go pro. These scrims show what playing a pro is like. If you want to scrim against Carbon, e-mail CarbonScrims@gmail.com. Rates are $20 for a game, $50 for 3 games, or $80 for 5 games (This is not each, but total). Method of payment will be paypal only. Between and after games, our team will go over possible strategies or techniques to help your teamwork. We will also each watch a video with one of the players on the challenging team for a gametype to help individual skill as well.

Karma is also doing best of 3’s in where you play him 1v1 on three maps, and he then goes over what you did wrong from match as soon as the game is over. Karma is one of the smartest players in the circuit so he can help you with anything.  

- From Cpt Anarchy's Blog

Look for a part two coming out soon...

So, this is definitely going to be one of “those” blogs. It is going to be long, REALLY REALLY REALLY LONG, and I’m not going to try and hold anything back. I’m very passionate about Halo 3 and I am very opinionated, hopefully everyone can understand this. And I’ve done these blogs before, and I know at the end of reading this, some people might go try and say I’m making excuses. Frankly, go to hell. The last thing I ever try to do is make excuses. Nothing good comes from excuses, and they can only make a player worse. I’ve been playing Halo long enough to understand what I’m doing, and the last thing I want to do is try and pretend like I’m some all-knowing halo god. I make mistakes, everyone makes mistakes, and I usually try and rationalize them, which people sometimes misinterpret as making an excuse.

Meadowlands

It has been a few weeks since Meadowlands happened, but it is still the hot topic. So obviously, I’m going to have to mention it. I guess I’ll start from the beginning.

I’ve never had trouble getting to a tournament for a long time, but this tournament really was difficult for me. Like an idiot, I procrastinated getting a plane ticket for the tournament until the last week and a half came around. At that point, flights to Newark and La Guardia from Roanoke airport (the biggest airport near Virginia Tech) were upwards of $1,000. So, after talking to my parents, we decided to take another route. Instead of flying directly to NJ / NY, I was going to fly to Philadelphia Thursday night and stay with my family. Then, the next morning, one of my parents would drive me up to the tournament. The only problem: flights to Philly were even more expensive. It seemed that no matter what I did, I was going to have to spend close to a thousand dollars to get to the tournament. Luckily, one of my friends that lived down the hall from me at Virginia Tech (Doug / Halownage) was going up to the tournament and he was driving, so I managed to get a ride from him. He was teaming with my good friend from back home, Paul aka Shooka. So the plan was to drive up Thursday afternoon and stay at my house for the night in Philadelphia (about a 7 hour drive from VT), and then drive up Friday morning.

Thursday

Thursday at about 3 in the afternoon, we got all our stuff together and started to walk outside to Doug’s car. On the way to the car, Doug asks me, “What is your favorite N64 game?” I was pretty confused by the question but answered anyway, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Obviously. So anyway, we get to the car and as we are putting our bags in, I realize that I forgot my backpack with my laptop back in my room so I ran back in to get it. When I got back to the car, I realized there was an N64 controller on my seat and where there normally would be the navigation system, the Zelda opening screen was playing. My face must have been like a kid at Christmas, because Doug immediately started laughing when I realized I was going to be able to play Zelda during the car ride. Anyway, Doug’s car is sick. It’s some sort of ridiculously awesome Volvo, and Doug had managed to use a device in order to put an N64 on the navigation system when he wanted. I don’t know all the details, but basically Doug knew what he was doing and basically made the car the sickest road trip car ever. Fast forward a few hours, and I get a call from Paul. He asks me whether or not we have left yet, and I tell him we are a few hours on the road. He then tells me how he hasn’t eaten for 2 days because he’s had no money, and that his car recently broke down and he won’t be able to drive to the tournament. Paul lives in Northern PA and goes to a satellite campus of Penn State, an hour or so north of where I live. So we decided to keep Doug’s teammate and my friend alive, we would go up and bring him food and take him to my house.

Friday

So after about 8 hours of total driving, we got Paul and managed to get back to my house. I was really happy to see my family. I hadn’t been able to see them since Spring Break in early March. So anyway, I got a good night of sleep and we headed out in the morning. When we got to the Meadowlands, everyone was really excited. It was Doug and Paul’s first event, so I could sense they were pretty anxious to get out of the car and get into the venue. So we parked pretty far from the venue and walked to the venue. Unfortunately, I had to go do a quick photo shoot with my team so I had to leave them once we got to the front of the venue. It was a pretty fun experience, because I got to see all of the other players. It had been about 5 months since I had seen anyone else really, so it felt good to see everyone again. Anyway, we checked in, got our “temporary” A40s, and then proceeded to go back and check into the hotel. It had been a long time since I’d seen Ricky (our coach), probably at least a year or two. So anyway, we checked in and got settled, and then all of us went back to the venue for warm-ups. The venue was pretty much the exact same as it usually is, only instead of TVs there were Viewsonic monitors everywhere. We got into the pro lounge and started gaming. I have to admit, I love split screen. It was so nice on the monitors and it felt great. To start the day in the pro lounge, ghost and I were tearing it up. The first few rounds started and the first two rounds were a breeze. I think that was the end of the night, so we just were able to go back to the hotel and get to sleep.

Saturday

My sleep schedule was really messed up from staying up late at school, so I didn’t get to sleep until at least 4 or 5 in the morning. Upon waking up, I had a stuffy nose and a bad cough, realizing that it was very possible that I had gotten sick. I wasn’t the only one to feel like this though, because Ricky and Ben didn’t feel so well either. Anyway, I took a shower and put my mind off of it and looked forward to do the day ahead. The third round was next and we got matched up with FBI Jackalopes. For those that don’t know, FBI Jackalopes consists of Tupac, Killer N, Eleven, and Commando. All of these players made names for themselves back in Halo: CE, and Tupac and Killer N made names for themselves in early Halo 2 as well. We played this team online a few times and we knew they were good, but we managed to beat them out 2-0 in the open bracket. I don’t remember the games exactly, but I do remember they didn’t go down easy.

The next round was against another decent team, but I can’t exactly remember the team we played. I do know that eventually (I think in the 5^th round), we had to play against Type Z in order to get into the Championship Bracket. We ended up beating Type-Z 2-0 and advanced as one of the 16 teams into the pro bracket. We were 17^th seed going into the open bracket, but managed to move all the way up to 9^th seed for the championship bracket. Now, for me personally, the problems started. The championship bracket is all full screen, and I guess I can safely say I just didn’t make the adjustment well. I really don’t know how to say it, but I felt like my sensitivity was going crazy. I played on 4 sensitivity all throughout the open bracket, but as soon as I moved to full screen, I kept switching from a range of 2 to 5 sensitivity, never finding a comfort zone. My cough was also started to start up and I started getting that sick feeling again, but I figured it was just due to a major lack of sleep rather than anything else. Ricky (who now attends medical school) was helping me throughout the day with what I should eat and take medicinally to make sure I was still on top of my game. I kept drinking coffee (I hate coffee) and taking Sudafed pretty much all day, so I didn’t feel too bad. Anyway, while I was still having issues with my playing, we played the first round of the championship bracket. Surprisingly, we had to play against FBI Jackalopes again. It wasn’t the ideal matchup, but we managed to squeak through with a 3-1 victory. They were a tough team and ran us pretty hard, especially on the TS game. I played well surprisingly, and figured I would be fine as the day went on. The next round was against the Rainbow Riders (at least, I think). I don’t remember the series, but I think it was 3-1. They were unexpectedly tough, as I really didn’t know anyone on their team. They were definitely a surprise team this tournament. I played extremely well during that series. I felt good, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, as the next round was probably one of the biggest matchups / best matches of Saturday.

Saturday Night

Our team messing around before taking the main stage against Str8 Rippin

Obviously, we were excited to play Str8 Rippin. I’ve had a rivalry with Str8 Rippin since I started my Halo 2 career (even though no original members are on Str8 anymore), and this rivalry has definitely followed to Halo 3. The first game was Narrows CTF. Basically, the only things I remember about this game was Ghostayame owning and my ridiculous flag cap. On the first flag cap, I started running the flag to their sniper and then was about to jump on one of the ramps when basically everyone on my team died. They knew I was by the sniper because I had dropped the flag to run faster. While my team was dying top middle, I realized that I probably wasn’t going to be able to run it and doubled back towards their mancannon. I managed to mancannon over to our side without any of them noticing and as my team spawned, was able to hold back Str8 as we captured the flag. I think Ghost went on a killing frenzy that game and was controlling top middle by himself. The next game was Onslaught TS, and frankly, our team never practiced anything Onslaught. We went into the tournament assuming we were probably going to lose every Onslaught gametype, and Str8 Rippin made us pay for our laziness. The game was close up until about 25 kills, but then Str8 set up somewhat and just ruined us. The game ended 50-35 or something, it sucked. But we basically knew we were probably going to lose that game, so it wasn’t a big deal. I would have to say that our biggest mental mistake for this tournament was not being prepared for every gametype. It definitely played a factor in our performance. Unlike the Carbon of the past, we were almost giving away free wins to teams by just being too lazy to practice certain maps and gametypes. So anyway, the next gametype was Pit KOTH. We managed to win that by enough, with Karma going absolutely huge. I remember I was basically playing as Karma’s meat shield the entire game, and he was just picking everything off. The next game was a game I would like to forget, as we got stomped in oddball guardian. The game started off really well for us and we took an early lead, but as soon as Str8 got set up we started to get owned. I went pretty negative in the end, where I’m assuming I just started charging endlessly. Anyway, the 5^th game came down to Construct TS. The most memorable part of the game was the end, where Karma was hiding in glass / sword entrance and I was in the top open purple. The score was either 47-46 or 47-47. The enemy, Elamite, was about to charge Karma in glass and finish him off, but luckily I managed to turn the corner fast enough to put shots on Elamite and keep him away. A few seconds later, Gandhi and Karma made a mad rush into top closed from glass while I ran out towards the rockets. Gandhi and Karma both picked up a kill and Elamite tried to run by jumping out of closed towards the rockets, but I was there waiting for him. It was a pretty feel good moment and I remember jumping up out of my seat after getting the final kill.

Looking back on the series, I was pretty much just a giant decoy, if not just plain useless. Each game, I either went even or negative. For some reason, it seemed that no matter what I did, it was as if someone was standing behind me yelling “WRONG!!” when I would get killed. In Narrows, I was primarily getting into their base and running the flag, so I didn’t really have too many opportunities where I was sniping / slaying, so I know I played well during that game. I did decent in the Onslaught game, but our team overall just didn’t play well. In Pit KOTH, I felt like I was playing well but I was getting no kills to show for it. I remember getting to a few good places to make sure my team spawned near me and holding down parts of the map, but usually I just got overwhelmed. For the most part, I would hold down good parts of the map only all of a sudden fight three of Str8 at once. I guess it was the smart play of Str8 that owned me, but I mean I just couldn’t get anything going. It was almost like I knew exactly where they would be, but I just couldn’t do anything anyway. So whatever, Karma and Ghost were obviously the MVPs of the series for our team and I was just kind of there. We went back to the room and were looking forward to the next day.

Our team after a victory against Str8 Rippin

Sunday

I got a much better night of sleep, but I still woke up feeling sick. It was a pretty bad feeling, but I took some Sudafed and got some caffeine into my system before heading to the venue. We started warming up and again I was having a hard time still with full screen. I kept changing my sensitivity all throughout warm-ups, between 3 and 4. Anyway, the first match we had was against Team Classic. They obviously were no joke because we had heard about the LAN they had with FB, and knew they were going to play well. The first game was Onslaught CTF, and that was a pretty bad loss. We started out playing well and it was pretty even, but they managed to sneak in two caps before just totally taking control of the game and putting us on spawn for their other three caps. We lost badly, but again we were expecting it. We thought we would be able to get back at them in the next few gametypes. Pit TS was Game 2, and we lost a heartbreaker 50-49. Throughout the first 25 to 30 kills, we were basically running it and were up by around 10. Unfortunately, they got a rocket spawn and then got control of our base and went on a pretty huge run, tying up the game at around 30-35. The rest of the game was basically a kill for kill stalemate all the way up until 47 or 48 kills. I specifically remember a part at the end when I was low our sniper and Soldier was our side sword, and we both made each other one shots. I assumed that Soldier would back down and I tried to run towards our flag and away from danger, but Soldier read me like a book and threw a perfect grenade instead of expecting me to pop out and challenge him. Immediately after he killed me, our teammate got Soldier and resumed the stalemate at 48-48. We ended up going kill for kill again, making it 49-49 and as I spawned, one of my teammates was in the process of dying. I remember shooting the player at our green while he was attacking my teammate but he managed to get that kill before I could finish him off. I remember the play with Soldier specifically because if I had just either stayed still or challenged, the outcome of the game would have been different. Because of the kill for kill stalemate and how the other kills played out, me living would have given us an edge and would probably have given us the win. I know it is stupid to blame the entire outcome of a game on one play, but in my mind it was one of my biggest mistakes of the tournament and it stood out to me. The next game was Construct KOTH and we were pretty demoralized from the Pit TS game. I can’t remember whether or not we had the lead during the game, but I do remember we were up by a little before the hill moved to its last location in top closed for the last minute. TC was able to get a ton of time in that hill before we got them out and we started to mount a comeback. The play of the series had to be Fear at the end. We had killed off all of TC besides Fear and Karma and Gandhi were in top closed purple, right next to the hill. We were only down by about 3 or 4 seconds with 10 seconds left to play. As Karma and Gandhi went to the hill, Fear managed to port up behind and contest the hill, while meleeing each of them once before they could finish him off. TC then spawned top open and managed to pick off both Gandhi and Karma before we could get the time needed to take the lead and ended up losing the game by 2 or 3 seconds. It was a pretty demoralizing defeat because of how close the last two games were.

 

So we went into the loser’s bracket and ended up getting matched against tD to make it into the top four. We knew tD was going to be a really hard match and we tried to get ourselves pumped up. I don’t really remember too much about the series except that we somehow managed to win the Onslaught CTF game. Overall, we got beat and it was obvious that tD deserved the win more than we did.

 

Unfortunately, this has been my lowest placing in three years and I have never had to play a consolation match. Put bluntly, it was probably just the most demoralized series our team has ever played. Gandhi and Karma decided they felt like playing split screen and as a team we decided to not use our A40s. Frankly, there was absolutely no communication between us and we played half-heartedly. I don’t want to take anything away from Str8 Rippin’s win, but I assume they were probably in the same position as us. They were expected to place nothing less than 2^nd and most predicted them first, so I’m sure playing us in the 5^th/ 6^th consolation game was the last thing they wanted to do. I remember the CTF Pit game against them, as it was one of the only games I played really well in during Sunday. Other than that, we got run on. The games were kind of close, but there was definitely no motivation for our team. I didn’t hear too much excitement from them after winning either, so I assume they felt the same way as we did, except they just were playing better. Thinking back, I’m almost ashamed of the fact that our team didn’t go all out even in consolation. There should never be a reason at a tournament with so much money on the line to not go all out, and I know I will never do that again. Like I stated in the first paragraph of the blog, I’m not trying to be in the habit of making excuses. Str8 Rippin outplayed us in the consolation match, but fact of the matter is neither team seemed to be going at 100%.

 

Immediately after our loss, I had to go back to Virginia Tech. I had classes on Monday so Doug and I decided we would go all the way back to Blacksburg Sunday night. We started the drive and dropped Paul off at college, and then proceeded to head directly down 81 for at least 6 hours. Of course, what is a car trip without something going wrong, so of course I accidentally spilled blue Powerade all over Doug’s nice orange leather seats. Hey, it wasn’t my fault, he shouldn’t have accelerated so fast and Volvo shouldn’t have made their cup holders so terribly. Really, I blame it on Doug (I’m sure he’s going to enjoy reading that, haha). So I played Zelda for a while, and we ended up making it back to VT at around 2 in the morning.

Post-Meadowlands Thoughts and Reactions

I think the first tournament was definitely a surprise for a lot of people. Most people predicted our team to barely make it into the top 16, so it was definitely a good feeling to prove everyone wrong. For how much our team practiced, I thought we played well. I wish we would have been able to pull off a victory against Team Classic, but they prepared well for this tournament. One major thing I noticed is that every one of the five teams that placed higher than us all had LANs against each other. I think that Halo 3 will be a game where practicing with other teams on LAN will be very important. FB had a LAN with Instinct, tD, and TC. Instinct also had a LAN with Str8 Rippin. I don’t know if there were any more LANs between these teams, but they definitely must have benefited from them greatly. Unfortunately for our team, three of us still have school and summer doesn’t begin until early may (for me and Ghost) and then the middle of June (for Gandhi). Hopefully we’ll be able to put something together before San Diego in terms of a LAN, but I doubt it will happen. I’m looking forward to trying to attend more LANs though as soon as school ends, as I think it will definitely help me get better individually. DMAQ is probably going to be holding a few LANs and I’ve heard of some stuff in Northern PA, so I will be sure to check it out. Overall, I felt my play personally was lacking. As soon as I made the switch to full screen, I just couldn’t get anything going. I was having a major sensitivity crisis and changing almost every game from a 3-5 sensitivity span. I think in one game against tD, I changed my sensitivity around 3 or 4 times in a single game. I don’t know if it was because I just wasn’t in the right state of mind, or because of the new monitors MLG is using, but regardless I am going to be prepared for it in San Diego. The first thing I will be doing upon getting home is buying one of the MLG monitors to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

 

I’m going to have to say that FB surprised me by winning this tournament. I honestly didn’t expect them to come out on top, especially after they were defeated by Instinct in Round 3. I also thought Str8 Rippin was going to be a lot better. I don’t mean to offend them, but I was definitely expecting a top three finish for them at the very least. I didn’t think Team Classic would do very well because of the fact that they had never gone to a tournament before, but I guess they silenced all of the critics including myself. They played extremely well for MLG virgins, extremely well. My own personal pre-tournament prediction for Meadowlands was 1^st and 2^nd going to tD and Str8, followed by an assortment of FB, Instinct, Bad Co., and our team. It almost worked out that way, but TC definitely made a great first impression. I don’t know exactly how San Diego is going to work out with all of the teams now practicing a lot, but I can’t wait to play in it.

Summer LAN

I think I’m going to try and convince my parents to have ShocKWav3 LAN ’08, but I don’t know how that is going to go over. For those that don’t know, ShocKWav3 LAN ’07 consisted of Carbon, Legendz (Fonzi, Defy, Vash, Anarchy), and RoC (D Fury, Dysphoria, Joe, Ownation) all at my house at the same time for about a week and a half. It was a blast and I’d love to do it again, but I don’t exactly know how willing my parents will be.

 

Here are some pictures of the last LAN, courtesy of Fonzi.

Carbon vs. RoC with Defy listening in on the coach headset

 

What is that in the background? Nice…

 

Yea, you could probably get lost in that mess

 

RoC (It can get a little warm down in the basement aka a shirtless I Joe I )

 

The sleeping area in the other room of the basement

 

Everyone (Carlos got owned)

 

So yea, hopefully I can get another one of those LANs going. The great thing about that LAN was the people at my house. We were all pretty much real good friends and that made the LAN that much more enjoyable.

Post-Meadowlands Life

As soon as I get home from Meadowlands, I was probably the most depressed I have been after getting home from a tournament in a while. It was rivaling my Chicago depression (if you want to read about that, I posted a blog a few months back about it, so check out my profile and find it). I didn’t really do too much except try and hang out with my friends as much as possible, and even then I couldn’t stop thinking about Meadowlands. About a week later, I was finally able to get my mind off of it and start playing halo again. I haven’t really gotten on my The ShocKWav3 tag, but instead was playing with friends from VT and back home almost exclusively. Honestly, I haven’t played Halo really for about two weeks, which is definitely a mistake. Unfortunately, there isn’t much I can do now that finals are coming up. I expect to not play too much Halo until I go back home on May 7^th, so as soon as I get back home I’m sure I’m going to start gaming like a champion. I’ll probably invite Karma up to my house for a week or so in order to motivate me to start playing again, and there is a possibility Eric will be able to come too. That way, we can try and get sort of a min-LAN going on in my house / my friends Paul’s apartment. It should be a good time, but I still have a lot I have to do before I can start the training.

Coaching Change

So, I know that we only had Ricky coach us for an event, but unfortunately he is unable to make it to San Diego due to school reasons. Ricky is taking the MCATs the weekend of San Diego, so he obviously won’t be able to make it to the event. So, we’ve decided to pick up B Danny as our coach. He has been our extremely good friend for a long time and has always wanted to coach us, but never got the chance. But we also don’t want Ricky to stop coaching us either, so we have managed to strike the perfect deal. Since Danny doesn’t want to give up competitive halo, he has agreed to coach us for the events that Ricky can’t make. So far, Ricky will be unable to make it to San Diego and possibly Toronto, so Danny will step in for those tournaments. For every other tournament, Danny is going to play and Ricky is going to coach us. It is a pretty good arrangement, and either way we have a great person as our coach.

 

Me and Danny being idiots at MLG Meadowlands ’08 (picture from Smiley’s Photo Essay)

Thoughts On Halo 3 / Onslaught

After a full MLG tournament, we finally got to see Onslaught in action on LAN. I’m going to have to admit that I’m very disappointed in the way the map plays. I am not blaming it on MLG or the map’s design, but instead just the simple fact that Onslaught seems to have too many problems for what it is worth. I don’t understand why, but every time I play the map I feel as if I’m underwater. It seems that shots don’t work like they do on the other maps and that I’m either getting perfect shots or absolutely nothing is hitting. I have a feeling that MLG will definitely make an upgrade to Onslaught before the next tournament though. I felt that the map itself was lacking somewhat and that it was almost too easy to play. As soon as teams control the top of the map, there is next to nothing you can really do. It doesn’t take the kind of map control other maps take and I think that makes it a weaker map. I’m confident that MLG will try and give Onslaught a revamping and make it into a much better map for the next tournament. But at the same time, I’d be very happy to get rid of Foundry in general. I feel it is easily the most non competitive map for MLG right now primarily because of the entire lag and frame rate issues. I’m probably very alone in my thought process, but I’d much rather play Isolation than Onslaught. I guess you can say I’m just a fan of Bungie created maps as opposed to user created, but I just can’t stand knowing that there is more of a delay on Onslaught than on any other map.

 

I guess on the topic of Halo 3 in general, I’m a huge fan of the game right now. On one hand, it seems that Halo 3 has a very nice skill gap and will be alive for a while. One major part about this game I wanted to mention was that the up close game is very limited and upsets me with the lack of skill needed. Here is a post I made in one of –NaStY-‘s Sweetspot thread with my thoughts about the melee system:

We have been talking about Halo 3's "sweet spot" in terms of competitive gameplay and I agree completely with the notion that it is the short-mid to mid-long range, but I want to talk about close range combat for a minute. I think almost everyone can agree that close range combat does not take the skill once required in Halo 2 or Halo: CE. Breaking it down game by game, Halo: CE's close range combat was heavily dependant on weapon choice. The shotgun, plasma rifle, assault rifle, and plasma pistol (to some extent) were all quality weapons in close range combat, with each having its own pros and cons for situations. If a shotgun guy was fighting a plasma rifle or assault rifle guy straight up, chances are the shotgun guy is going to come out victorious because of the weapons power. On the other hand, if a player with a plasma rifle is able to come at an angle and use the weapons farther range than the shotgun to his / her advantage, the plasma rifle destroys the shotgun and assault rifle. These two weapons created a very interesting dynamic into Halo: CE's close combat strategy and required a high level of skill to counter act each other. You shouldn't go charging around corners with plasma rifles, but they are great in open spaces. Shotguns rule hallways. Add the double melee into the mix and it created yet another possibility, especially if both players did not have a close range weapon.

Halo 2's close range combat system was geared more towards the melees / lunges. I remember back in the early days of Halo 2, melees were just as unskillful and worthless as they are now. But, as the game developed, new techniques such as the BXR changed the skill required for the close combat game forever. Halo 2 played with basically two close combat weapons, the shotgun and sword. The shotgun was a devastating weapon if a player got close enough, but it had a terrible range. The sword was... the sword. The sword was definitely a much more potent close combat weapon, but the shotgun trumped the sword almost every time in a 1v1 fight. Then, add in the fact that BXRs were able to counter both weapons consistantly, and you have a really good dynamic in the up close game.

Now, we have Halo 3. In terms of close range combat, MLG settings are lacking completely. The game itself does not have very good options for close range combat, but unfortunately I feel that MLG settings further restrict this skill set. I'm not bashing MLG for being idiots or anything like that, far from it, but I feel that there IS a possibility to try and recreate some sort of up close strategy. It is obvious right now that in regards of melee fights, close range combat will continue to be unskillful and inconsistant, but I think there is a dynamic we can create with weapons. If we were somehow able to incorporate the plasma rifle back into the MLG gametypes along with possibly the assault rifle, the close range combat of Halo 3 would be greatly improved. As it stands, you basically either try and shoot twice and melee, or you get a mauler. If a mauler fights someone with no mauler, mauler wins. Period. Mauler vs. Mauler, draw. No Mauler vs. No Mauler, no one can really predict the outcome. So it goes without saying that we need SOMETHING to try and balance out the close range combat. Personally, I think a plasma rifle or two along with an assault rifle placed somewhere in the map SHOULD increase the close range strategy used in this game.

The New Maps

So I’ve been playing a lot of DLC Slayer in order to get used to the new maps and I’ve had some pretty preliminary thoughts. Basically, I think Blackout is terrible and Ghost Town is great. I guess it is just the fact that Ghost Town was an original, asymmetrical map with a nice change in scenery. Overall though, I feel that Ghost Town is in fact a very balanced map and I would love to see at least Team Slayer played on it. I like to think of it is primarily a slayer map, but I would love to see how CTF would work on it if the flags were placed properly. I could imagine it would be an extremely fun map and might be balanced, but either way I would love to see Team Slayer on Ghost Town replace a current team slayer (probably Onslaught). I really haven’t played too many good gametypes on Blackout, but I guess I’ll just have to wait until MLG says what is going on with the map.

The Ending

Well, if you have made it this far by reading the entire thing, god bless. This must have been the longest blog I’ve ever written and might be the longest I’ve ever spent writing anything almost all at once. I’ve literally spent all day writing this piece by piece. If you are just reading this part, I honestly don’t blame you. This thing is just way too long, but whatever. I felt I just wanted to get everything out all at once. To end the blog, I’m just going to make some shout outs.

To my team, for everything we’ve done, and everything we are going to do within the next year. Sorry about Meadowlands guys, but we’ve got a whole year ahead of us to figure everything out.

To all our good friends at MLG events and everyone that went to dinner with us. Also a shout out to my good friend Paul (the creepy one with his hand on my back, haha) and Doug (the one in the far back with the gray MLG sweatshirt next to Karma) for the ride up. It’s always good having a great time at these events, and a major reason for them being so fun are the people you hang out with.

My first announcement is that Carbon now has a new coach: Rick0nidas! I’m sure 99% of the people reading this have never even heard of him, so I’ll enlighten you. Rick0nidas or Ricky is Gandhi’s older brother. Ricky has been following and supporting Gandhi in his halo for over 5 years now and was a pretty solid player himself back in his old Halo: CE days. Basically, he has been around Halo for a long time and knows what he is talking about. Currently, Karma has been living with Ricky and living in an apartment in Richmond. One of the major advantages we have now is that Ricky watches EVERY scrim we play. He knows how our team works and always comes up with ideas on how we can improve. There are times after matches where he gets on Karma’s tag and we talk strategy for an hour or two, looking back at the scrims for the nights and thinking of new things we can do. He has never been to a tournament but we are extremely excited to have someone this close to the team coach us.

With that said, I would like to wish xXx the best of luck coaching Str8 Rippin. I’ve known xXx personally for around 4 years now, but only really got to know him for the last two. He is a great guy and we had a ton of fun at these tournaments. The decision to separate was a mutual decision and xXx found a great home in Str8 Rippin. Good luck in ’08 Joe.

Disclaimer: My opinions do not reflect those of MLG or those of my teammates. There is a strong possibility that my teammates will agree with me, but I am writing this independently. Also, if you disagree with anything, make sure to comment at the end with a REASON. I think most people forget that on forums, it is okay to disagree with people. The problem comes when you turn that disagreement into an insult or personal attack. If you disagree, tell me (and everyone else reading the comments) why you don't agree and please give a reason. It's cool and all to see a ton of comments that are one sentence, but it really doesn't help me or anyone if you go "Shockwave you are stupid you don't know what you are talking about." So with that out of the way, I'm gonna just get started.

As stated in previous blogs, I am going to try and write at least a blog a week about a competitive setting. Whether it be something as simple as the damage percentage or as trivial as a simple strategy for a map, I will try to do everything I can. When it comes to maps and / or gametypes, I will be giving them a rating. This rating will be out of 10, but it really has no set rubric. The rating is basically how I feel about it. I think this can be really helpful for a majority of people. One important piece of this idea is that I need responses from YOU. I read all of the comments I get on blogs and I plan on using those comments to direct my next blog. After you respond to the current blog, tell me something you would like me to blog about. Onto the topic at hand, Guardian!

Guardian

Overall, Guardian is an interesting map. So far there has been two different types of games I’ve played on Guardian. You have the either all out charge game where the spawns seem messed up and everyone is running across top middle, or you have the camping game where you either take up the yellow / blue side or sniper / green side. There has rarely been a game I’ve played that hasn’t followed one of these extreme tempos. I began my Halo 3 career absolutely hating Halo 3. To me, the most glaring weakness of the map was the spawns. It seems that no matter what, someone from the other team can always manage to spawn exactly where they need to mess anything you’ve done up. Has your team been set up on gold / blue for the last few minutes with the ball? No worries, someone will spawn bottom blue eventually when you make a misstep in top blue and don’t cover the spawn. This was usually the most frustrating part about this map, along with the overall size of the map. I felt that if guardian’s top middle was larger and each place was more spread out from each other, the map would be a lot better. Granted, it would be much harder to run top middle and get to wherever you are going, but I think right now people are able to make it to top sniper from top blue in a matter of a second or two. I think overall, Guardian has grown on me and has turned into at least an enjoyable map (…sometimes). I’m going to break it down into gametype.

Slayer
Slayer on Guardian is one of my favorite gametypes, and I like it much better than its counterpart of oddball. One major flaw that I want to get of my chest is that I think the beginning spawns favor those spawning bottom blue. I agree that the spawns right now are probably the fairest spawns, but it is upsetting to know that when we spawn at bottom blue, we get the camo / sniper / control about 50% of the time and when we spawn gold we get everything about 10% of the time. The reason I think it is so easy when you spawn bottom blue is because of how quick that team is able to port up to top sniper and throw grenades. People spawning on elbow have a disadvantage to these guys flying up the portal nading the only area in which they can come from. At the same time, the team spawning bottom gold has another player running top gold for camo and another running top blue. Because of these guys, the sniper team is unable to run top middle to try and shoot the people porting up. Those top middle people always get rocked by the other two guys. Then, as soon as the bottom blue team gets control of top sniper, they just turn around and snipe anyone that ports up for camo, allowing their last teammate to pick it up uncontested. The strategy I just mentioned is one our team has used before. We sometimes switch it up depending if we feel like it, but that strategy is just something I’ve noticed happening against almost every single team we’ve played.

Now if you are the sniper spawning team, how are you supposed to stop this? You can keep two people on elbow possibly, and shoot the players that port up, but chances are the game is going to have lag and both of those players will survive, no matter how many people you have shooting originally. The last guy can go sniper and hope to get a grenade off before those guys land and kill them if they are injured. Great, but does it work? Hardly. Our team has been experimenting with all possibilities from elbow and has yet to find a consistent way in order to even take control of the area we spawn at! Something about that just doesn’t add up right, especially if the purpose of these set beginning spawns is to make the beginning the most fair possible. I don’t necessarily mind the spawns right now, but I would love to take another look at this after the first tournament. It is very possible that what I’ve seen is just XBL bullcrap so I will reserve total judgment until after Meadowlands and I get to view first hand exactly what the major problem is.

Besides the beginning fight, I really don’t have too many problems with Guardian. My original take on the map was that I absolutely hate it and everything about it, but lately I’ve started to learn much more about the map. Once I started realizing the spawn patterns and charges people made, I was able to finally counter them. One major thing I hated about Guardian was just the speed a player could get to the other side of the map. You could have complete control, but somehow a player will still manage to jump from blue to top sniper without dying because those places are just too close. My only other complaint about the map is something MLG can do nothing about but it is the overall size of the map. I feel that it is almost too small for Halo 3. It needs to be spread out a little more; we need a little more space. The 110% speed has problems here because of this, as players can get away so fast and charge so quickly. This is probably the only map where the pros and cons of 110% speed end up equaling each other. Overall though, this map has the same type of strategy Lockout ended up having, with teams making pushes at exact timings and sneaking around. I love the feel of this map now for slayer gametypes.
Rating: 8.0

Oddball
So, I feel that this is slayer’s evil counterpart on this map. The beginning spawns are much less important in this gametype because of the shift in focus now onto the objective as opposed to kills. Let’s just say, I don’t really like this gametype. Although I do find that it is a competitive gametype, I think this will become one of the most random gametypes on the circuit. So far, any good team can beat any good team in Guardian oddball. Our team scrimmaged FB for practice one night, and we were clearly the weaker team overall, but managed to pull out a huge Guardian oddball victory. We lost Guardian slayer by 25 or 30, but won the oddball game by over 100 points. Something doesn’t add up. I think the spawns of this gametype influence the game too much. In slayer, they definitely have some influence, but in oddball they can completely change the game. For some reason, I think there are 25 spawns at gold / blue and only 15 around sniper / green, but teams spawn green about 60% – 75% of the time, with the occasional bottom blue spawn. But the problem is that bottom blue spawn is so much more potent in oddball, because that guy can completely ruin a set up and gain complete control for the other team. And as soon as the other team gets control of that blue area, guess where you are spawning. Green. And guess what? They know it, so you are double screwed. I guess you could argue that a good team should be able to trap you spawning in green, but at the same time, EVERYONE knows it. It is not like good teams invented this spawn trap or can do it consistently, it just happens, even if the team doesn’t mean to. I am aware that both teams will have the same exact problems, but there are many times where teams seem to spawn better overall during the game. And in my experience, those teams win much more often. If your team somehow manages to get away from the green spawn trap, you’ll probably win. Most of the time, you don’t really know why you didn’t spawn green, you are just grateful to the Halo gods.

Even with this major flaw, I still do like this gametype. It is enjoyable to play because while slayer can be very campy, oddball has a rapid tempo. Teams need to think very fast on the fly and sometimes the set ups with the oddball are pretty crazy. I think that the smaller map flaw comes out to play a lot in oddball too, which is another reason I’m not particularly happy with it. Players charging top middle have too much cover over too small a distance and usually always make it to their destination. Usually it isn’t even about teamwork or timed precision; it is instead just straight spawning and charging. I guess teams will just have to learn how to deal with this, but I just find it a nuisance. Overall, I feel that this gametype is an acceptable MLG gametype, BUT I would want to switch this gametype with the first possible KOTH / Oddball gametype that comes out to play better. If one of these new maps, Ghost Town or “Moonlight Sonata” play well with oddball or KOTH, I think Guardian should be the first to be replaced (Or maybe Pit KOTH, hmm… a blog for another time perhaps).
Rating: 5.0

So yea, that is my reaction to Guardian. I posed a few issues that hopefully can be resolved, such as the beginning spawning, but I do think Guardian has flaws that only Bungie would be able to fix, such as the smaller map size. Add that to the fact top middle is the most frustrating thing to throw grenades on and the massive amounts of cover, maybe I’ll just start camping top middle. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading, and make sure if you do read it to respond and mention another topic you would like to see me blog about. Thanks.

Carbon

So anyway, I'm sure everyone is of course wondering about our team. I'll start from the beginning. So basically, Halo 3 came out about a month before the National Championship for Halo 2 in Vegas. In order to make the most out of my time for the Championships, I did not even play Halo 3 until afterwards. A bunch of people on my floor had gotten Halo 3 at midnight, and I refused to walk into any of their rooms if Halo 3 was on. I'd say that Halo 3 definitely took up some of our team's time though before this tournament. I'm sure FB, Str8, 5k, and the other top teams were having problems with getting on to practice Halo 2 with Halo 3 now out. Our team was pretty good about it, I tried to instill my overall thought process into everyone and it worked for the most part. I think Gandhi, Ghost, and Karma all played at least a little bit of Halo 3, but definitely spent more of their time on Halo 2 which was the important part. We get 2nd in the finals, which was good enough for us. We had really started slacking towards the end of the year, placing 4th twice in a row after our victory in Dallas. I've blogged about Chicago before, whatever. Orlando we came out really strong but it felt like we lost every game we played in the last 10 seconds. Also in Orlando, we met up with FB for the 3rd / 4th place game. NLR had the tournament of their lives and played extremely well. I wish we would have had another shot at NLR for the 3rd place spot, but we lost to them in the WB so they deserved their placing. Following up these two disappointments with a 2nd place at nationals was very satisfying. We managed to beat Str8 6-4 in the series but got blown out by FB. I think that tournament can easily be said as the most dominating performance by one team since DC '05 (by ... you guessed, the old version of FB). It is kind of ironic but I guess almost a perfect ending for FB. Start off as clearly the best and end as clearly the best. They hit a little road bump in the middle of their journey (WHOO, my team and I will take credit for this one) but you definitely got to give them their due respect. So congrats guys.

Now onto Halo 3. I don't know exactly how many of you really understand how tiring it gets to go for a full year of practicing for tournaments. I mean, even after a single tournament it usually takes days for anyone to play the game again. Usually it just burns everyone out, so I hope you can imagine how burnt out all of us would be after a National Championship and an entire season. It was time for a break. My break consisted of me definitely hanging out with friends. Because there was no set practice schedule, the theme was basically play on your own time and try to learn the game. I only really played with my friends under my secret accounts. So anyway, MLG announced the way in which they were going to seed the Halo 3 tournament based off of a gamebattles ladder and an online tournament. They also released their first version of the gametypes. This was about the time I started playing the game in customs and learning how the MLG rules work. I started to get into the game a lot more and play a decent amount. I went through each version update and kept playing a decent amount of customs, usually averaging around 5 or 6 hours of custom games a week.

So around the time I went home for Christmas break, MLG announced when they were having their gamebattles ladder start in mid January. Well, Christmas break isn't a time for Halo, it's a time for hanging out with all the friends you haven't seen in a few months and enjoying yourself before going back to school in January. I really didn't play too much customs, but I kept up with playing Halo 3 for around 10-12 hours a week, usually with my friends at their houses and under their accounts. This is around the time Karma started gaming like a maniac. I got back to school at like January 14th or so, and realized how close the ladder was. The ONLY time we had played together as a team were the scrims against Str8 Rippin (we got dominated, it was pretty embarrassing). Karma convinced me to start playing a lot and I will actually start really liking this game. I already kind of liked the game, but didn't really have a strong feeling for it like I did for Halo: CE and Halo 2 (in the beginning). Either way, Karma would call me every time he was getting on and would ask me to play. I definitely realized the importance of practicing so I started getting on every time Karma called me. Let’s just say, I definitely have started to enjoy this game. There was on major problem though, and that was getting Ghost and Gandhi to get on. We managed to go around two weeks without playing a single game on the ladder. Finally, we got things rolling. Gandhi and Ghost started getting on about every other day and we started averaging about 4 or 5 matches a night (when we got on) and started to move up in the ranks. We had some pretty bad losses on our way to a 46-6 record or something. We didn't really play too many good teams, but in the matches against good teams we were probably even. We lost to Str8 and whatever team is Shook One's team, but managed to beat Urban Rebels and Omnislayer. I can't really remember everyone we played, we may have played a few other real good teams but I just don't remember.

We ended up with the 20th seed on the ladder. Obviously, this is a disappointment because we were expecting at least a top 10 seed. But you get back what you put into it. We had a late start and even when we were playing, we didn't really go full speed. So it hit the critical time. Now is the time for the online tournament, and we have a pretty good bracket. After this next round, it’s going to get a lot harder. If we win Thursday, the people we play (as long as the higher seed wins) breaks down like this: uTi, Team Classic (or FB), Str8 Rippin, tD (or Bad Co.). So obviously, this is going to be tough. The biggest problem with our team so far has been the lack of teamwork and practice. Me and Karma have been playing insane amounts (at least I feel like it) but Ghost and Gandhi are having troubles getting on consistently. That WAS the case, but not now. Even though Ghost doesn't get on by himself, Gandhi has seemed to start playing a lot. Karma and I convinced Gandhi to get on more, and just thinking of how good he is going to be is scary. Imagine his prime Halo 2 sniper but now in Halo 3. The thought scares me. Just yesterday he got 12/13 of his kills in a game with a sniper rifle on Pit, and hit 9 headshots in a 13 - 5 performance. Yea, just imagine if he starts playing a lot and learns better sniper spots. Ghost still needs to get on more, but we have some time before the tournament and I have faith he'll get motivated soon. We've been practicing a decent amount in the last week and we still have a lot to improve on. Most importantly, we still haven't gone over ANY strategies, we are just playing on straight teamwork right now. This is a good thing, because we are developing well as a team. We got a match this Thursday which could be a tough match, and then we have a tough road ahead but it’s not going to be impossible. I want to win, but at the same time, a loss could be strong motivation for our team. Sometimes losing is better than winning in some situations. We'll see how it goes, I'm sure you will all know everything that happens.

For me personally, right now my main issue is still getting completely adjusted to the 360 controller. Right now, I sometimes have a tough time with the joysticks as they sometimes feel very lose and then randomly will feel tight. I think I might try and install S controller sticks from the old Xbox controllers in my 360 controller. I have a friend that is really good with that stuff so we'll see if that might work better. Because of this, my BR is definitely not where it needs to be. I've changed my sensitivity to 5 instead of playing at 3, and so far I'm loving it, but my BR needs to improve. That is probably going to be my focus for the next two months before the tournament. My sniper is getting pretty good, especially with this 5 sensitivity, I've gotten some wild snipes. Right now, my favorite gametypes would have to be all the gametypes on Pit, Construct KOTH, and Narrows CTF. Remember, pros are just like the normal players when it comes to flaws in their game. I am going to have to work really hard to get my BR shot up to exactly where I want it. Practice is everything, no matter who you are

Gametype Reactions

Like I said in my last blog, I will be blogging about my opinions on the current MLG settings and gametypes. This was my reaction to the initial release of the v4 gametypes (with stockpile).

Foundry Maps Over Narrows / Isolation My first real problem with these new v4 settings has to be the addition of two foundry maps and four foundry gametypes to the set gametype list. I’ll break down each map.

Onslaught
Onslaught is definitely the better of the two Foundry maps. Even though I like the idea of Stockpile, Onslaught’s game play is much more competitive and fun. Onslaught CTF seems like a quality gametype and really has had no major problems. For the most part, it is possible for the better team to control the game and run flags successfully while spawn trapping and controlling the map. The only major problem is sometimes the spawns become out of control. I think the most annoying part of this map is the possible spawn DIRECTLY behind you. If you don’t run the flag bottom middle, there is a 50/50 chance that the enemy will spawn behind you on whatever side you are at. The usual result is your death and a returned flag. It becomes pretty frustrating, especially when you are controlling the map. I think for the most part though, when teams start playing this gametype enough, spawns will become more familiar and this will not be a problem as long as teams are able to position themselves correctly. I think one thing I would like to see on this map is either another mauler or a different placement for the mauler. I would love to see it come into play a little bit more than it is, as sometimes I’ll play an entire game of Onslaught flag without ever even seeing the mauler used. If the mauler isn’t the ideal weapon MLG wants in their gametype, maybe the addition of plasma rifles will work. The plasma rifle is a pretty powerful up close weapon and would add more variety to the map. Who knows, maybe the plasma pistol would add more to the map, but I think there should be something else. It just seems that something is missing in the map. It might just be that ugly color of Foundry. Anyway, Onslaught CTF is overall a good gametype and I wouldn’t mind seeing it at the live competition, as it seems to work well enough.

Onslaught TS is an entirely other matter. I am not really a fan of this gametype because it reminds me of Warlock TS except MORE random. I have not played this gametype that much though, so I will post an updated opinion later when I get a chance to play it more. Right now though, I don’t know which TS I like better, Isolation or Onslaught.

Overall, Onslaught seems like a quality map and can really be a good addition to MLG. I think it is possible to make it better though, possibly by adding plasma rifles or by changing the cover on the bottom floor a little. It seems right now that it is pretty easy to get away, but I do think it is good. I just think another type of cover system in the bottom middle might work better.

Stockpile
I think this is the worst of the two foundry maps. Even though it is a good design and superbly made, the game play is lacking completely. When it comes down to it, the Halo 3 spawn system just doesn’t work on this map. I don’t think it is KC’s fault, but rather just the system Bungie implemented. Every time I have played this map, the spawns have been whack. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve spawned behind people on the bases. Obviously, if I’m doing it a lot to people, it is probably happening a lot to me. Team Slayer on this map is just a joke because of the spawns. I really think that if the spawn system was different, this map would be a success. Add that to the fact that the Oddball can be thrown out of the map / to places that cannot be reached in about 30 different spots, and this map becomes something that just won’t work at the tournaments. I think when it comes down to it, this is a very well designed map that unfortunately cannot be played properly because of Bungie’s spawn system. I would be much happier playing anything on Isolation or Narrows over anything on this map.

Solution #
I think in the best interest of MLG and the players, MLG should be more willing to use the Bungie created maps. This time period of the game can be compared to DC in ’05. Those who remember, the gametypes in DC were very creative. But the most important part was that those gametypes changed constantly. MLG will be using Halo 3 for years to come and we do not have to be rushing into anything. Bungie has announced a map pack that will be out at the end of February or beginning of March that will hold maps. Who knows, maybe “Moonlight Sonata” will be a very playable map. They have also announced another map pack afterwards that should contain their “Arena” map. Remember, Warlock and Sanctuary didn’t even come until St. Louis (the 5th tournament of the year). Right now, Narrows and Isolation aren’t SO bad that we have to use Foundry maps. I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but unfortunately Foundry seems like a failure. Even though KC’s maps are very precise, overall there just isn’t enough in Foundry to make a perfect map for competitive play. For some reason, the spawns just always seemed messed up, no matter which Foundry map you play. Out of the four gametypes in Narrows and Isolation, I think Isolation KOTH and Narrows TS are the two best gametypes. I personally like Narrows CTF a lot, but Isolation KOTH seems to work better for the 11 gametypes. My solution would be at least for the time being, replace the two Stockpile gametypes with Narrows TS and Isolation KOTH.

Problems
This would make it so there are 5 TS, 4 KOTH / Oddball, and 2 CTF gametypes. MLG has traditionally used 2 CTFs, 2 TSs, and 1 Oddball / KOTH gametype per round. Instead of 2 CTF gametypes, we could use 2 KOTH / Oddball gametypes instead. This causes a problem because most people feel that CTF takes more skill than KOTH / Oddball games. Unfortunately, there really aren’t any good CTF maps. If MLG would like to see their old method be used, Narrows CTF would probably have to come back. In addition, there needs to be another CTF. This creates a problem because this would have to be a heavily forged gametype in one of the maps.

Solution #2
So, we need a different CTF gametype. Well, good thing we have forge. KC has created a CTF gametype on Construct that I think many people have played. Maybe this gametype could undergo extensive testing as opposed to the more casual games I’ve seen played on it. Hopefully with feedback, Construct CTF could become a real gametype. If that doesn’t seem ideal, then we could try to do Isolation CTF. I know this will probably not be received well, but I think if made correctly, Isolation CTF could be one of the best gametypes. KC has told me he created an Isolation CTF gametype that he believes worked really well but personally I have never played it. When I used to play Isolation CTF with flags in the normal spot, I actually had a lot of fun and thought it was competitive. I think that if we move the flags either above the base or behind the base, there definitely is potential for some really good games. Overall, I think that Solution #1 is probably the way we should go right now, but I would really love to see KC put out some of his test maps / gametypes to the public again and really try and get a reaction. Sometimes I feel that most play on KC’s maps is too casual to really get good results. Maybe now with more awareness, we’ll be more willing to test these out.

This solution would create 4 CTF gametypes (Pit, Onslaught, Narrows, Isolation), 2 KOTH gametypes (we would have to decide between Guardian Oddball, Pit KOTH, Construct KOTH), and 5 TS gametypes (Pit, Onslaught, Guardian, Construct, Narrows / Isolation / Whatever else). This would mean that MLG can go back to its normal formula for rounds. Personally, I would love to see more CTF gametypes and I really think Isolation would work, but at the current point in time, the most important thing is for MLG to reinstate Narrows and Isolation as maps instead of Stockpile.


So yea, that was my initial response to the original v4 gametypes. Overall, I think that most people agreed that Stockpile was not ready for competitive play, so it was obvious that MLG was going to put Narrows back in. Anyway, for the future, I think I am going to try and write up any problems I have with gametypes / maps and give possible solutions. For this to be the most fair and competitive season, we need the best possible gametypes, so I think it is a good idea to always give this kind of feedback. Now, on to other issues.

The 2008 MLG Pro Circuit

The 2008 Pro Circuit Information has been released and it looks to be an exciting season. For those of you who have not memorized the cities and dates, here they are:

Meadowlands - April 11-13
San Diego - June 13-15
Orlando - July 11-13
Toronto - August 22-24
Dallas - October 3-5 (Playoffs)
TBD - TBD (Championships)

This is extremely exciting. Each of these places has really been some of my favorite places to travel to for tournaments, so I am definitely happy. Meadowlands is always fun and is close, plus it’s a classic. It is basically a tradition for MLG to have at least one tournament around NYC (I mean c'mon, it is the biggest city in the US and everyone loves to go to NYC). Even though it's not in the city, it is always close enough for you to go if you want to. Then comes San Diego. I've only been there once and it was on a family vacation but it was BY FAR the nicest city I have ever gone to. It is probably in my top 5 places to go in the country. I absolutely LOVE this city. Plus, the Mexican food is going to be fantastic. I think my dad will probably come with me on this one, because we both fell in love with this city and he is a Mexican food fanatic. I don't think he'll miss the opportunity to go to a warm place like San Diego with great Mexican food (haha). Then comes Orlando, which is probably my favorite tournament spot. Orlando has been one of my favorite places to go for tournaments and usually produces some of my best performances. In 2005, my team (IGS) managed to dominate Str8 Rippin in probably the biggest rivalry at the time. Then in 2006, we finally managed to beat FB and that win in Orlando catapulted us into being the 2006 National Champions. In 2007, it really just wasn't our city. We played extremely well but just not good enough. With just a little bit more practice, we may have been able to get a top 2 finish, but that is our fault. Plus, Orlando is great post-tournament. It is going to be summer time so I know my team will be staying extra days to visit all of the great theme parks and places near Orlando and enjoy the summertime. The next tournament is in Toronto, a city which I really never got the opportunity to see. Since I was in school during the first MLG Canada, I wasn't able to really stay after the tournament and enjoy myself. Plus, I was 18. I'm sure being 19 is definitely going to change my mind about this place (haha). I love seeing a Canadian tournament on the tour because I think Canada is a really fun place to go. Unfortunately, it is expensive and you need a passport, but if you really want to go then the least you can do is make the effort to get a passport and maybe work some extra hours for the plane ticket.

Dallas is the playoffs, and I've always been a big fan of Texas. It really doesn't matter which city in Texas we go to, but they are always fun tournaments. It is always good to stay another day too and enjoy the city. Then, the National Championship location and date has not been decided yet, but I'm willing to bet another Las Vegas final. I'm such a fan of Las Vegas it is ridiculous, and I just love the idea. Vegas, the place that you dream for the stars, there really is no other city that fits a National Championship as perfectly as Vegas does. One major change is that I am glad there is no Chicago tournament. I guess if the tournament was actually in Chicago, then maybe I would enjoy it a bit more. But the fact is, 2/3 of my lowest placing (4th) has come in a Chicago event and I have never played well. Plus, I hate that freakin' hotel. When MLG was not going to Chicago, it was probably the best news I heard all day. So obviously, based on the cities, I am extremely excited for this new season.

The New MLG

As I'm sure most of you have heard, MLG is now sponsored by Dr. Pepper. I think this will definitely benefit the league. Dr. Pepper is a huge corporation and will definitely put more money towards making MLG bigger and better. Plus, I got tired of being tempted to drink Red Bull. Even though I loved the Red Bull sponsor, I definitely like Dr. Pepper products a lot more. The introduction of this Dr. Pepper Ultimate House or whatever it is called is also pretty awesome. I'm imagining this very large, two story building with just massive amounts of crazy electronics, celebrities, hot girls, and free drinks. I might be overhyping it... a little... but I still think it is going to be incredible. It definitely is a huge step in the right direction.

And now MLG is on ESPN. THIS is what I've always dreamed of. I think when this whole thing started, the ultimate goal in my mind was for it to eventually be on ESPN and considered a sport. Now, MLG has its own section on the ESPN site and has had articles that are featured on the front page. They are also now doing interviews with MLG pros that are being featured in the sports nation section of ESPN. I did an interview recently where I answered questions that were submitted. The amazing thing was that some of my friends from back home that don't check mlgpro.com knew that I was doing this because they saw it on ESPN. Personally, I think that is amazing. For MLG to be getting as much recognition as it has is really a tribute to how far the company has come. For those of you who have not yet read my interview, this is it:

Buzzmaster: Chris is here!

Andrew Richmond, VA: How long did it take you to get Carbon to really work together as a team and use strategies effectively?

SportsNation Shockwave: We came together right off the bat. The key with a successful team is often instand chemistry, and that is what happened to us. We came together and started beating top-ranked online teams right away. So first you need to see if you have that chemistry and then you can start working on strategy.

CJ Ely: Bethany, Oklahoma: How many hours a day do you practice?

SportsNation Shockwave: As a team, normally 2-3 hours every two days. I usually play two to three hours with the team. But we went two hours a day as a team to get ready for the circut. Closer to tournament time we up the time to four to five hours a day.

Justin Ar-Rasheed: How hard is it adjusting to Halo 3

SportsNation Shockwave: Well I do not find it too difficult. I the most important thing is to look at it as a totally new game. I have switched games alot in my career, so I am used to adapting to games. So you have to go in with the mentality that this is something completely different and that will help you adjust.

Brian Joyner, NC: How do you feel about the 08 season, and what teams do you think stand out?

SportsNation Shockwave: I am really excited about 08. MLG just announced the schedule, and I am very excited to get to alot of these cities and I am very excited to see who will be good. But there are so many great teams, and you do not want to go into the tournaments underestimating any teams. And there are going to be a lot of new teams that are probably going to make some noise, which we have never seen. So it will be a very difficult to get used to these new teams.

Colin (Hartford, CT):: What approach do you take to improve your gameplay, and how would you advise up and comers to improve their play?

SportsNation Shockwave: When I work on game play it is usually one aspect at a time. One of my weaker points was my sniper skills, and I really worked on that with Halo 3, but I got worse with the rifle as a result. So I try to work one at a time. I work with one weapon from week to week. So I will do one week where I just use grenades, and see how they work and land, and every aspect of their use. To up and comers, I think the key is just playing and focus on one thing you really want to get good at, and try new things and see what works and what does not work. Analyze your game; go back and look at your games and see what works and go from there.

jonathan, new york: are u guys going to make roster changes if it doesnt work out for the first 2 tournaments

SportsNation Shockwave: I do not want to promote any changes or rumors. But if we are not playing well we may have to make some business decisions. I mean I do not want to start any rumors, and I do not see any changes being made, but it is a possibility. You can never count those things out, if we are not performing the way we want to perform.

Kyle, NY: How did you come up with having the gamertag "Shockwave"?

SportsNation Shockwave: It was a while ago in '04. If I rememeber right there was a Counterstrike team named Shockwave back in the day and I needed a new name, and I remembered that name because I really liked it for Halo. So I kind of just took it and started using it.

Nathan (Ankeny, Iowa): I have allot of trouble with keeping teams together and meeting new ppl for a team. do u have any advice on geting a team with ppl dont realy know?

SportsNation Shockwave: Well of course it is hard, because you do not really know these people. My suggestion would be find people in the MLG forums in the yellow pages and team finder pages. A lot of those people in there are very dedicated and looking for dedicated teammates. I think if you went there you will be able to find a lot of dedicated people. Also go to events, because it will allow you to meet more people.

Corey Richmond, VA: What would you say is the best way to approach developing strategies for maps with a team?

SportsNation Shockwave: Get the team together and wotk on strategies on a map. Bounce ideas off each other and show people what you want to do on the map. That is my best suggestion. It may take a few hours to get it right, but solidify a startegy by suggesting and debating approaches to the map.

SportsNation Shockwave: Thanks to all the fans and to MLG for everything they have done for me the last few years! I appreciate all the support I receive from everyone at Va. Tech and back home !


So, as you probably noticed, there are a lot of typos in this. This is straight off of the ESPN site and the interview was live, so I think that is why there are typos. The guy just typed up this as fast as he could while I was speaking. One major thing about this interview was that he definitely didn't put everything I said down. Of course, I spoke a lot and he really just wanted the meat of my answers so he shortened them up, but overall I think it went well. I mean it is on ESPN and I'm definitely happy about that. The Buzzmaster was also a real cool guy, so the interview was a lot of fun.


The Ending

SO, this is the end of my novel of a blog. I hope you read it, and if you are just reading this last part, then I would hope that when you get time you can read the rest of the blog. I just have a few quick things to say. First of all, I hope all of you are as excited as I am about this season. It should really be awesome. Try to make as many events as you can, I guarantee you that you will have the time of your life.

The next thing is that I want to keep making blogs hopefully every single week, and I want to do it on the gametypes / maps. But I don't always have the motivation to write about certain things, so I would like responses to this blog to include a gametype you would like for me to blog about. I think that would be really good and a fun way to incorporate you guys. I love to write this kind of stuff, so if you guys tell me what I should write about, I'd love to give you guys my opinions. So if you do respond to this blog, make sure you put in the gametype you would want to see me blog about.

LAST THING! If you guys would like to do me a favor, I want you to all send a message to my friend (gamertag: CTroendly) that says "Sucks you suck". This is an ongoing joke between a bunch of us and he gets really mad very easily when it comes to Halo 3 so this will be hilarious. Either send a text or voice message, but either way I appreciate it. Hope you guys enjoyed this blog, and good luck in '08.

I'll first start by talking about my last week before I had to head back to college. Last Thursday, DMAQ decided to have a LAN at his house in New Jersey and since nothing was really going on in my area anymore, I wanted to go. My friend Paul and I decided to make the drive to Jersey to meet up with DMAQ, Ghost, Karma, Cpt Anarchy, Joe, Pistol, and Quinn for some Halo 3 LAN action. I really hadn't been playing too much Halo 3 at all, especially with the MLG settings, and was somewhat unprepared. For the most part at DMAQs, the teams were me, Cpt Anarchy, Pistol, and Paul (Shooka Dance) / DMAQ vs. Ghost, Joe, Quinn, and Karma / DMAQ. The LAN was really fun and the teams were pretty evenly balanced. Even from a night of LANing, we figured out what maps certain people were good on and how different people played. Quick few notes from the LAN:
I love Narrows, I don't know why, but whatever

Cpt Anarchy pretty much out BRs Ghost every time by jumping on the 4th or 5th shot
Karma always goes on top of your snipe on The Pit with a sniper, ALWAYS
Guardian sucks
Isolation really sucks
Me and Cpt Anarchy dominate Fy_Iceworld 2v2
Quinn takes the snipe on Construct and always snipes on Gold 2
No scopes with the sniper are way too easy
Pistol sucks at this game too (haha, just kidding)

So basically, it was a really fun time and was mostly just a relaxing type of LAN. It was good to get into the game. I had been contemplating whether it was worth it for me to play this game because frankly, I didn't enjoy Halo 3 on XBL. After playing LAN, I have a whole new perspective on Halo 3 and how much fun / competitive the game is. I would seriously rate it pretty close to Halo 1 on the entertaining scale (on LAN). Competitively however, I don't think it is there yet but I do believe that Halo 3 will surpass Halo 2. Anyway, I'll get into all of my competitive thoughts later.

The next morning, me and Paul got up and drove back home, where I took a shower and then immediately got back on a train and headed for NYC. I got into NYC around 8 o'clock and took a cab to the MLG Office. At the office, the LAN consisted of the exact same players (minus Paul and DMAQ) but included Puckett, Killa KC, Calc, and Nexy. Calc and Puckett didn't play Friday night, but KC and Nexy would step in for anyone that needed a break. Friday night was when we got down and really started playing the game competitively. We had a fun time of course, but this session was much more intense than DMAQ's LAN because we were playing for a reason. KC had a few minor changes to past versions and a few new ideas that we tested. I'll get into those gametypes later and my assessment of them but for the most part, it was a good time and we accomplished a lot. We ended up leaving the office really late and slept the night at a nearby hotel. The next morning we went into the office it was just the same people, minus Nexy, Calc, and KC. Saturday morning had a little different feel, but we continued to test the gametypes / maps some more and we felt the same way about them. Eventually, people got bored of Halo 3 and started to play Halo 1. Puckett, Karma, Ghost, and Pistol decided to play Halo 1 and me and Cpt Anarchy played against Quinn and Joe for about 2 or 3 hours of fy_iceworld. The game is so much fun because you can change up how you play every round. So anyway, we all left the office around 4 and I went home while everyone else went to Ghosts house to hang out.

So anyway, I've given a decent amount of thought to a lot of the gametypes and I am going to start writing blogs about certain gametypes, maps, or aspects of the game in which I will comment on. As of right now, Isolation is out. No one likes playing it and I don't believe we will see it show up at tournaments unless a better setting / forging can be made. There is an added hill on Construct at the bottom of open ramp and I really like the additional hill. I think Guardian hill will become a gametype, it was a lot of fun when we played it.

Update for Carbon: We are still together but we are having issues getting started on gamebattles because Ghost can't figure out how to sign into gamebattles (talk about a quality college education, haha just kidding Eric). But anyway, once Ghost becomes eligable we will start playing matches. We haven't really played together, I think besides the scrim against Str8 we've played around 6 or 7 games as a team. On top of that, we haven't really been playing much Halo 3 in general so hopefully this gamebattles ladder will whip us into shape. Overall, our team has the feeling that we don't really care about this ladder at all as long as we make it into the top 128. Once we make it into the online tournament, we will be taking it a lot more serious. Hopefully we will place into the top 16 of that online tournament, but I guess I'll have more updates about the team before that tournament even starts so there is no reason to think about it now. You have to take it one step at a time. Thanks for reading, and I'll be updating very soon with blogs about competitive settings in this game.

The last few months have just been a roller coaster ride for my team, especially me personally. This was my last summer before going to college at Virginia Tech, so I made sure to have as much as possible. Starting in the beginning of the summer (after Meadowlands), I made sure to have a LAN at my house before Dallas. It ended up being a week long LAN with RoC (Joe, D Fury, Dysphoria, Ownation) and Legendz (Vash, Defy, Cpt Anarchy, Fonzi). We had a week of LANing before Dallas which was the only practice anyone on my team got. We went to Dallas, and long story short, we played amazing. We won Dallas, much easier than we had ever won any tournament. We just seemed to destroy everyone. It really felt odd, it really didn't even feel like a tournament win. After the tournament, there was actually an emptiness inside of us, as opposed to the satisfying feeling usually felt after a tournament win. Something was missing, something we still haven't figured out to this day.

After Dallas, I decided to continue with my amazing summer again. Once more, I never even thought about getting online to practice. Ghost decided he was going to have a LAN with Legendz at his house a week before the tournament, so I figured we'd just do exactly what we did in Dallas and not practice until the LAN where everything would come natural. I played a total of 8 individual games of halo before the LAN. It was a huge mistake in retrospect, as I was not nearly as well practiced as I usual am. In fact, I was so underpracticed, along with the rest of my team, we had an enormous amount of team problems at the LAN. One major factor with us however, came during the LAN at Ghost's. MLG called us during our LAN and told us that we weren't allowed to use the Astro Gaming headphones anymore until they become available to the public. Unfortunately for us, we had gotten really used to them in the last two months so making the change back to no headphones was hard. Because of the Astro Gaming Headphones, we never had to buy any other regular headphones, like the Sennheiser 555's, so when we found out they were banned, we didn't have any headphones to practice / play with. The banning of the Astro Gaming Headphones really annoyed us a lot more deeply than we admitted. Thinking about the ban, I completely understand the reason MLG would do it because in order to keep the playing field fair and competitive, they had to be banned. My only issue was the fact that no one had a problem with them for the last year, but as soon as we beat FB with them in Dallas they become the center of attention. I'm not saying MLG favors FB, or anyone in particular, it was just a little upsetting at time.

By the third day of the LAN, we seemed to have our stuff together once more. We were finally playing as a team, and I believe we were actually better than we were in Dallas. I guess though, the old curse of the LAN came upon us because I think we just got too used to Legendz. We started gearing our team towards the defeat of Legendz as opposed to being able to be versatile. Instead of having another team to balance out the playing style, we just started playing with one mindset. The LAN was insanely fun, it is a good thing that everyone on those teams are friends and we could have such a good time, but unfortunately the next weekend was a disaster for both teams.

On Monday after the LAN, I was back at home and preparing to go to Virginia Tech. I went shopping all day, I was pumped, I was going out to see all my friends before leaving, and just generally having a good time. Tuesday, me and my family made the 8 hour treck from Philadelphia to Blacksburg, which is in the southern corner of Virginia. We went through the campus, I got extremely excited, and ended up going back to the hotel for the next day which was move-in day. I woke up the next day and moved in at 8, got all my stuff into the room and kind of just let things be. My roomate was coming the next day and I wanted to wait for him to decide what to do with the room. Since I actually know Ghost's twin who goes to VT, I met up with him here on Wednesday night and went out with him. He showed me a good time, so good that thinking about having to go to Chicago on my first weekend of college sounded terrible. Next day, my roomate came and we moved in and set the room up which now looks sick. I hung out with a few people that night, had fun, but went to bed decently early because I had to leave early Friday morning. It was the first time in my life where I actually didn't want to go to a tournament. Even with the thoughts of Dallas in my mind, going to Chicago seemed like the worst idea ever, I didn't want to leave college. I woke up in the morning, took an hour and a half bus to Roanoke Airport, where I caught a flgiht to Charlotte, which then got me to Chicago.

I walked into the Chicago venue just as the Shadowrun competition was starting. I didn't even know I was playing in it until 3 days prior when xXx told me his teammate dropped out. I hadn't played since the exhibition in Dallas, so I was definitely out of practice. Our team ended up taking 7th / 8th that night. Even though I might not have really thought about it and how I definitely didn't care about the game, I think the low placement had a subconscious effect on me, getting me a little down on myself. There was really no reason for it, but I think it happened anyway. So Saturday morning, I woke up early to play a consolation match which we lost and finished at 8th place. Oh well, I still had Halo 2 4v4 to make me feel good. We were playing and warming up, playing pretty well. As soon as the real warmups later in the day came though, we were having a tough time with teams. We hardly were able to beat Legendz, and then we were having a tough time in WB1. WB2 came around against Believe the Hype. We beat them only 5-4 in CTF Warlock and the game could have honestly gone either way. The next game, Sanctuary TS, we were down 35-22 or something around those lines. I was having a terrible game, but I managed to go on a running riot and we barely won. The third game was a lot better for us, but still it wasn't nearly as good as we would have liked it. We went into the Str8 series with serious doubts, or at least I did. The str8 series started out with a Middy CTF that was a crazy game. No one seemed to have any control, everything was just chaotic and there was never a set pace in the game. We lost the game 5-4, a game that probably could have gone either way but we just didn't get clutch with our last flag run. It seems that the trend with our team is that if we lose a heartbreaker, we just couldn't get back into it. Str8 just murdered us the next two games, neither of them that close. We put up a decent fight, but we just never even had the lead.

With everything going on in my life at that point, including not even wanting to be there, I had a really tough mental dilemna. It was the first time I seriously contemplated quitting Halo. I wasn't planning on quitting just because we lost to Str8, our team has lost multiple times in WB3 and we know how to come through the losers bracket. I'm talking about quitting for the sake of my social life and just my enjoyment. I just wasn't enjoying myself. Others could definitely tell there was something wrong with me at the tournament too. Sunday came, and we all started to get pumped up and make one of those legendary Carbon runs through the losers bracket. We really just weren't playing well. Granted, we were a ton better than the previous day, but we just still weren't our normal selves. We came out really strong against The Agency in Warlock CTF, but again, with the trend, we ended up losing our huge lead and choking hard, Agency just tore us to pieces for the second half of the game. It was unfortunate, and as much as we are good when we are down, there really was no coming back. After the series, people told me that our facial expressions gave away the loss so plainly, right after game 1. So we got 3-0'd and ended up in 4th place. 4th ties my worst tournament placing, which coincidentaly came in Chicago in '05. Right after the tournament ended, I caught a plane ride home Sunday night to DC, where my parents picked me up and drove me back to Virginia Tech (5 and a half hours), so I could make my classes that morning. Chicago was just basically a weekend I have blocked out of my mind because of my attitude and performance. Nothing good came out of the weekend, a lot of people actually wondered what was wrong with me. I was actually asked by a few people whether or not I was going to quit halo, that is how obvious the fact I didn't want to be there was. It was unfortunate that it had to happen and I feel bad for my team, because there was nothing they could have done. I'm apologizing now to anyone I was a jerk to, I really just wasn't in my normal state of mind.

So, here we are, a week after the tournament. Of course, there was no way I was going to get on Halo for a while after Chicago because I didn't even want to think about it. I went to my first week of classes, had a great time, Halo never even crossed my mind. Yesterday (Monday), our team got on for the first time since Chicago to begin practicing. We played the newly formed Legendz on Pistol's host and got wrecked. We then afterwards played Talent's new team (don't know their name) and lost two straight games. It was probably the most demoralizing night of Halo I've ever had, and coupled with the weekend of Chicago, I got off for the night. Immediately after, Gandhi IM'd me and started to talk to me. I had this on my mind for a while, so I told him the truth, my possible intentions of leaving the team and either quitting Halo for good or joining a new team for a fresh start. I was really to the point of no return, I was almost 100% sure of my decision. I just didn't want to have Chicago happen again, I would have rather joined another team than watch a team of infinite potential play like crap consistantly. Our team hasn't even played well aside from Dallas, we've just been generally mediocre compared to ourselves last year. Gandhi and me talked for at least 2 hours, about everything from playing styles to performances in past tournaments, to even potential teammates if I left. I guess I've forgot how good of friends I really am with Scott, because he told me he had no intention of leaving me and if I went, he would want to follow. I guess that comment right there touched something in me and really made me rethink my decision to leave the team. In the last month or so, I've really forgot how good of friends I really am with everyone on my team. I've been really good friends with Scott (Gandhi) for around 4 years, Karma 2 years, and even though Ghost was a recent addition, I've gotten along with him extremely well. His house is basically my 2nd home I've been over there so much. I decided that I will be sticking with Carbon for the rest of the season, 100%.

I've decided that the time of just assuming natural skill will carry me so far is over. I have committed myself to getting better at this game to the pont where I'm going to be on everyday, even if it isn't to practice with my team. I've already told my teammates that I expect the same dedication out of them, and if they can't do it, then they should leave. The fact that all of them are going to stay on the team tells me that our team has a new mindset. Although the situation has been terrible and a 4th place finish was the cost, this moment was really the most important and helpful moment for my team all season. We all are dedicated to getting better. The old Carbon is done now, I've basically seen to that with this whole fiasco. I have a feeling though the new Carbon that rises from the ashes of the old one will be much more exciting and exceptional in future tournaments. Good Luck to all teams in Orlando and Vegas, because if we become the team I think and truly believe we will become, you will all need it.

The 2nd MLG Event on their '07 Tour was in Meadowlands, a place where I personally do not have the best memories. Meadowlands was the season opener in the '06 season, where my team got pummeled by Str8 RIppin 6-0 in an embarassing fashion. Unfortunately, this trend continued 2 weekends ago in the '07 event where my team got dominated by Final Boss.

Thursday night, my team showed up at Ghostayame's house. He lives only half an hour away from the Convention Center so it was a good place to stay and not have to pay for anything. We actually just had some fun while at his house, playing some random hardcore and chilling. We were all feeling pretty good about ourselves, as we had practiced a decent amount before this tournament and felt confident going into the tournament. We wake up Friday morning, await RoC Joe's arrival, and take off as soon as he comes. We got to the hotel in about half an hour, making good time and having a fun car ride on the way there. When we arrived at the AmeriSuite at around noon, we were told we couldn't check in until around 3, so we just dropped our bags off behind the main desk and got a ticket so we could get them later. We first checked out the venue, and then walked around and got lunch. Friday afternoon was going to be the Heavyweight matches, 2v2's between top players on different teams. The scheduled matchups were Karma and Ghostayame vs. Tsquared and Foulacy, Luncbox and Roy vs. Mackeo and Victory, and Me and Gandhi vs. the OGRES. I think there might have been more matches scheduled, but those are the ones I remember. Me and Gandhi vs. the OGRES was supposed to be the feature match, a best of 3 series on Lockout, Midship, and Warlock. Unfortunately, OGRE2 was feeling sick and did not feel like playing, so we decided to call the match off (hopefully we will do it at Dallas). Instead, Ghost and Karma played Foulacy and T2 as the feature match and managed to pull off a pretty good win.

The open FFA started that day, and most of the time, I try in the beginning rounds of FFA and just get extremely bored and stop trying, pretty much knocking myself out. This time however, I had a reason to focus and do well in the FFA. Because my brother (Darkfury) absolutely crushed me in the Charlotte FFA, making pro while I got out in the 2nd round, my entire goal was to place higher than him. Also, Omega was the reason I was knocked out in Charlotte in the 2nd round, my lowest FFA placing ever, so I was hoping sooner or later we would meet up and I would be the reason for his early exit. I got my second wish earlier. In the 3rd round of FFA, Omega happened to sit across from me and I realized that I had my chance of revenge. Well, eat it Omega. I managed to get 2nd place in the FFA and watch Omega get knocked out in 6th or 7th place. Yea, it felt good. Anyway, my first goal in the FFA still wasn't done yet though, as every round I checked to see if my brother was still in the FFA. Of course he was, which was annoying because I didn't know how much farther I could go (I didn't play a single FFA before Meadowlands). I actually managed to get all the way up to the double elimination bracket, where I missed out of the top 4 by only 1 or 2 kills in 5th place, so I got knocked into the losers. Luckily, I got matched up with my brother who also was knocked into the losers bracket. It was pretty funny, we sat next to each other and joked around a little bit. What was even funnier was the fact that I was talking trash to my brother just for the sake of doing it, the ref had no idea we were brothers and was telling me to settle down or he'd give me a foul. I managed to pull off the most amazing comeback in the closing seconds of the game. My brother was already in 2nd place, so I knew he was going to advance but I couldn't let him beat me, so with 10 seconds to go and myself in 6th place, I spawned, BXR'd my brother, and managed to get a one shot kill from Red 2 to Blue 2 to finish 4th. The best part, Elamite was in 5th and was the one shooting at the guy I killed, which would have put him into 4th place. So I got lucky, and managed to advance into the final round of the losers bracket where top 4 would move into pro. This was possibly the worst thing that has happened to me in a tournament before. Me, my brother, and a kid named UnknownGod (who was just absolutely destroying FFAs all day) were all sitting on the far end. Since we usually had warmup games before the actual FFA started while we waited for everyone to join, all 3 of us believed that it was a warmup. We were not the only ones that believed the FFA that was starting up was a warmup, as Eli and Hali both on the other end thought so too. The FFA starts, and believing it is a warmup, we don't try at all. If you could watch screens on VoD, you would see that me and my brother are jumping on each other's heads for no reason at all, while UnknownGod is zooming in at a wall Car 3 and stupid things like that. With about 5 minutes remaining, I remember calling the ref over and asking him when we were going to end the warmup and start the real FFA. Apparently, we were playing the real FFA and me, unknowngod, and my brother had been screwing around for 10 minutes and were a ridiculous amount of kills behind. Somehow, I managed to actually get back up and battle for 4th place, but I was just way too far behind to keep any sort of hold. All 3 of us got knocked out and didn't make pro FFA, but the most important thing out of all of this was, I BEAT D FURY! HA! I placed 5th in that game, while he placed 7th. So eat it Matt.

Saturday wasn't that important of a day for us. We managed to get through and make it all the way past WB3 and into Sunday, which in our minds was an accomplishment due to our usual Saturday performances vs. Sunday performances. We lost two games, one to FBI Ninja Turtles in Midship Ball and the other to FBI Icon in Lockout Ball. We also couldn't manage to secure the full 3 bomb plants against our first round team, not a good indicator.

Sunday started off with us playing Perfect Storm, who upset FBI The Agency in WB3. We began the series really confident, but PS managed to give us a run for our money. We beat them in the last game, 50-40 in Lockout TS, but the series was really just too close for comfort. We weren't sure whether PS was playing amazing, or we were playing poorly, but in retrospect PS played an incredible tournament. So here it was, the WB Finals against FB, something we had been waiting for since Charlotte. We start the first game in Midship CTF and come out destroying, beating them 5-2 and winning pretty easily, which is saying a lot because we got toyed with in Charlotte in that same gametype. We were feeling confident going into the second game, BC TS because after all, we are extremely good at that map. Apparently however, we aren't nearly as good or practiced as FB. We didn't get the greatest spawns off the beginning, but that doesn't excuse getting manhandled 50-15. The game was just a complete disaster from start to finish. They completely controlled the map to the next degree, something we haven't seen any team do to us in a very long time and we just didn't know how to react. We kept all running out and dying, me especially. I think I went 4-18 in the game, probably the second worst game in my life during a tournament. The next game was Lockout Ball, which we managed to end up winning. I can't really remember this game too well, but I remember we beat them by a minute and it was a fairly good game for us. We were up 2-1, a situation where we had been before and we thought we could definitely pul it off. We were playing Middy Bomb, a gametype we thought to be our worst but I figured, if we catch on fire we could really put on a show. Type Z had beaten them on Saturday in this gametype, so possibly they weren't nearly as good on this gametype as everyone thought. Well, we didn't catch on fire. Instead we got planted on 3 times, and fast. We really didn't even know what happened, we just got murdered by a very ready and anticipating FB team. Next gametype was Warlock TS, which we thought we might have a chance but ended up getting beaten on. It wasn't a murder like the other gametypes, but it was a beating.

This series really sparked something in me. My teammates played extremely well this series I felt, but I personally was holding us back. I played a real bad series, possibly the worst I've ever played. I actually told everyone I need time alone, went over to the food place, bought a few granola bars and just sat down, by myself, just reflecting and trying to get myself back up. I could tell my team wasn't very happy with me, and I could also tell that I just didn't come up huge when they expected me to, which really is extremely disappointing. I knew that if we were to beat FB this tournament, I would have to come back to playing like I normally do. Well, after being emo for about 10 minutes, I walked back over and just kind of hung out until we learned who we had to face in the LB Finals. It ended up being Perfect Storm, and before the series, I got myself really pumped up. I was like a new person, creating a new and improved shockwave. I came out in the PS series destroying. I was just feeling it. Midship Bomb, the first game, I went 39-24 or something like that, even in a losing effort. Following that game, I went 19-10-8 in the Midship Slayer game. This series really just gave me a new confidence and I just kept getting pumped up. The last game, BC TS I managed to go 19-5 to complete my domination of the LB Finals, something that I personally really needed to get out of this slump I had been in earlier in the day and on Saturday.

We met back up with FB in the finals, only to just get beaten down once again. I don't really remember too many of these games, besides Midship Ball where I continued my dominance going Most / Least with most ball time, but in the end it was a futile effort. They absolutely destroyed us Warlock Flag, something I was just not expecting. The weirdest thing though, even though we got destroyed, I learned an entirely new thing. I think that FB has really gained a lot of experience from these LANs, but I think one main reason we have struggled is just their anticipation and how well they have been prepared just for us. They also seem to know what we are doing. I guess that is an unfortunate side effect of staying together longer as a team. FB has watched us play and now can counter things we are doing, while we just haven't seen enough of them with StrongSide to really anticipate any of their moves. Luckily, I think they showed a ton of stuff in Meadowlands that will definitely help us out for Dallas.

So, After that ridiculous long blog about just the happenings of the events, its time for the real important stuff. This tournament was a real eye-opener for our team. We realized that we just don't have the motivation that we did in the end of the '06 season to win and stay on top. Unfortunately, I think it took way too long for us to realize this and now after losing two events, we are on the same page. When looking at these past tournaments, Carbon '07 has not been like Carbon '06. It seems that everyone on our team is playing differently and we just aren't fitting in with each other as well as we did last year. Karma has not been his old self, as told by his two worst FFA performances in his life (Charlotte and Meadowlands). Even though Ghost had played a ton before Meadowlands, he had a rough tournament himself and just doens't seem to be as motivated as before. Gandhi hasn't practiced much at all, and it really has been showing (he has started to game like crazy though, so I know he's trying to get back to Super Gandhi). For myself, I have really lacked the motivation as well. For some reason, we have just been complacent getting 2nd. Even though we've said that we want to get first, and trust me, we all want to win, we just haven't put in enough time and dedicated ourselves enough to the game in order to top FB. For us to even have a chance, our work ethic needs to change. Individually, we are not the all-star players we have been in the past and we need to work back into becoming our normal, ridiculously individual skilled players that come together to form a team.

On the topic of FB, they really have shown the world why they are on the number one team. They have beaten us fairly in the last two events, both not nearly as close as I would have liked. Luckily for us, we do have more videos to look at them and we are going to be having a better practice schedule before Dallas. StrongSide has become an amazing player, but I'm most impressed with Walshy. I personally though he was the most lacking player on FB, not because he's not amazing or skilled, but because he really never played up to full potential himself in most tournaments. I felt like he was always playing well, never great. Luckily for FB, he's finally stepped up and really played amazing at the Meadowlands.

Legit and Naded have become amazing players, and after watching them play I expect that no matter what team they are on, they will be able to compete at the highest level of gaming. Ramby and Extremist are very good as well, but I think if both of those players can step up and get on level with Legit and Naded, PS will be another team that has a chance of winning the tournament.

Str8 Rippin and Legendz both had very disappointing finishes. I didn't expect Legendz to do so poorly and have not been able to watch VoD or get an explanation out of them, but I do believe that we will see the same Legendz lineup return and dominate at Dallas. They are a team of highly skilled invdividual players that just need motivation, similar to our team. I think after placing 13th and 14th, they will start getting motivated and practicing non-stop.

5k and Agency really showed everyone that they deserved their placings at Charlotte by performing extremely well again at the Meadowlands. Many people thought it was a fluke, but they managed to prove almost everyone wrong and maintain their top seeds. Both of these teams will continue to evolve and will only get better.

Last thing, RoC will be a top 8 contendor at Dallas. Quote me on it, I think this team will only improve. My brother was telling me that on Sunday, him and Dsyphoria did not play nearly as well as they were on Saturday and deifinitely not up to full skill level. To me, these two young players are the key to the team's success. Ownation and Joe are extremely skilled players that can bring them all the way to top 16 and even top 12, but without Dysphoria or Darkfury playing well this team will have a tough time getting into top 8, but if these two come out to perform I think they will be extremely tough to beat.

Good luck to everyone in Dallas.

On President's Day Weekend, a bunch of players from around the East Coast and a few top players from the West Coast decided to fly into NYC in order to participate in an invite only LAN tournament at NYCLAN, located in Manhattan. Instead of LANning Halo 2, MLG's current game, we decided it would be more fun to take a step back and play Halo: CE for a weekend, a game almost each of us enjoys more than the sequel. The players attending this event were all good at Halo: CE, which made the LAN even more fun and memorable.

The People:
Me (shockwave)
Ghostayame
Karma
xXx
Cpt Anarchy
Pistol
Strangepurple
Puckett
Boo
Vash
Skills
Burns
Quake
Tweek
Jumper
Hoss
A few more randoms that I didn't know, but I think they were local to the area

The Weekend:

Right after I got home from school around 2:30, I hopped on a 3 o'clock train right out of my area and headed towards Ghostayame's house. I was supposed to meet up with him at his house in Northern / Central NJ and together we would take the train into the city. He was coming from Penn State and driving to his house with Jumper, Hoss, and a kid named Sayaman. Unfortunately, due to the snow, I-80 and I-78 were out of business so they had to take a huge detour to get to his house. Around 7, I arrived at Ghost's house. A little bit later, Pistol was dropped off. It was a pretty weird situation, as me and Pistol are basically with Ghost's mom for around 2 or 3 hours in their house while Eric is trying to get home, but it all went ok. Eric was still caught in traffic around 2, so we decided it was time for me and pistol to just leave and take the train to NYC by ourselves. We managed to get into Penn Station at around midnight, and then found the Long Island transit to take us all the way across Long Island to get to xXx's house, where everyone was meeting up. Ghost arrived at his own house around the same time we left to travel across Long Island, and at around 2:30 in the morning both parties arrived in Long Island where xXx's lives. Instead of going to sleep so we could get up the next morning and go to the LAN center, everyone played Halo: CE. I actually did go to sleep because I was drained from no sleep during the schoolweek, but everyone else gamed until it was almost light out.

I woke up at around 10, and everyone started stirring at around 11. Ghostayame decided to cook everyone grilled cheese on English muffins, I guess we now know what he does for his frat (:P). Unfortunately, xXx wasn't there because he was at the hospital with Boo, who had an asthma attack due to the cat hair on one of xXx's couches. When they both got back, we all piled up into the cars and took off for Manhattan. We ended up arriving at around 2:30 or 3, and decided to get lunch at this place called Brecker Street Pizza, which was amazing. Then, we finally entered this NYCLAN place, and basically took over. The place is set up in two rooms, where each room has 8 27 inch (possibly a 30+ inch) TVs and Xboxes and 360s all hooked up. Everything was connected on a router, so all of the games felt a little laggy, even though it was LAN. We started playing Halo: CE early in the morning and mostly ran 2v2s. They were real fun, as basically everyone was playing with everyone else, and since it was all good players no one had a problem with who won or lost. Personally, I got bored of Halo: CE in only a few hours, so luckily for me I was able to move to the other room and play some other games, such as guitar hero, SSBM, and some Halo 2. The guy who ran the LAN center and basically was letting us take over the front room asked the Carbon team to play against his own sponsored NYCLAN team in Halo 2, so we ended up playing Halo 2 for a few hours (which for me was a nice break from Halo: CE). Then, we all just went back to playing Halo: CE in the front room until about 3 in the morning.

That night, we ended up taking a cab to the Holiday Inn, which was only a few blocks away. We got there, and then kind of realized that we really had way too many people to stay in only one hotel room (me, xXx, pistol, ghost, boo, karma, cpt anarchy). We figured we would have two beds, but of course as everyone who goes to tournaments knows, you always get shafted with your rooms if you get there late. So we ended up having only a king size bed, but we rearranged the room and managed to fit everyone. It was absolutely hilarious, as xXx brought a blow up bed, we ended up having the room where the bed was in go from wall to wall, with the regular bed pushed to the far wall and the blow up bed extending to the other wall. We had a total of 7 people laying down in a line in a total of maybe 10 feet. No one really got that good of sleep, but it was better than nothing.

The next morning, we all agreed that we needed to play some 4v4s and not just 2v2s. When we got to the LAN center, we were met by Strangepurple who was just clowning around as usual, and we just started up the games right away. Eventually we got some Derelict FFAs and 4v4s running, but the host advantage got too overwhelming as the router made everything ridiculously laggy. I ended up playing some GoW a little bit later in the day with some local players to the LAN center, two of which were pretty good. I hadn't played since around 2-3 weeks after the game came out, so I was out of practice, but I still did well. I hate the game though, it gets really repetitive and boring, and most GoW players beleive it will be more shooting / lancer based on LAN, but everything still turns into shotgun fights like online. Plus, the lancer didn't even seem that much more powerful on LAN anyway, so whatever. It isn't my game, and I won't critisize the people playing it or how the game is played, because it definitely does take skill. Later that night, we all went out for pizza again but instead of getting pizza, me and Pistol got Chicken Parm sandwiches from Brecker Street Pizza, which were absolutely monstrous. Neither of us could finish it, so we both had to throw away at least a third. Most of the time, we just got snacks and drinks from the LAN center, which was pretty aweseome. The drinks that they had were incredible, I've never had better creme soda. I think I had at least 10 cans during the weekend of that stuff, it was that good. Then, around 3:30, we all ended up leaving again and then realized that we would have to sleep the same way, so me and Ghost asked Puckett if we could just stay in his apartment and he agreed because his roomates were out of town. We eneded up sleeping in a comfortable bed to ourselves, and had a good night's rest.

The next morning was depressing, as it meant the end of the LAN for me and ghost. We ended up taking a taxi to Penn Station and then buying Amtrak tickets to get to Philly, and then get to my house from there. Eric bought a train ticket out of Philly to go to State College (where Penn State is) at 5, so when we got to my house at 2:30 we didn't have much time to do anything which was disapointing. He ended up getting a ticket and leaving at 5, and I went back home and basically fell asleep to the next morning.

All in all, it was a pretty sweet weekend. Although it is fun to go back and play Halo: CE, I find it extremely boring at times. I think what really gets me is the fact that I'm not as good as I was at the time we all stopped playing the game. I went to the LAN center thinking I could perform like I did back in the day, but it was kind of depressing when people I know I was better than could dominate me (but at the same time, those same people are the ones that have played Halo: CE for the last 2 years when everyone quit). It was a great time though.

One last thing, Karma is now living on the East Coast. He has officially moved in to an apartment around Charlestown, VA with Gandhi's older brother, Ricky. Hopefully Karma can actually do something online (:P) and it wasn't just the West Coast connection. Oh, and the West Coast doesn't have a chance this year in the All-Star Competition. We just stole your best player ;).

The following are my reactions to all nominees and placings in the Pro Choice Awards 2006. The way the Pro Choice Awards worked was that everyone considered "Pro" at the end of the 2006 season were given a blank sheet to fill out their top nominations at each of these spots. Then, everyone sent their nominations in and MLG sent back another sheet, which contained the top 3 nominees in each category. Each player then selected the order for their categories and sent them back in, where MLG tallied the results. Now, onto the awards.

Best Battle Rifle - Karma, Defy, and OGRE2 were the players nominated for this award. I feel that these were good nominations, as I believe that I submitted the exact same 3 on my original ballot. I also believe I placed them in the same order, going Karma, Defy, and OGRE2. Reflecting back however, I'm really not sure as to if I would still have the same people in that award. I think if I were able to revote, I would place Ghostayame in that award for Defy. But anyway, congratulations to those 3 and they definitely deserved it.

Best Sniper - Gandhi, OGRE1, and OGRE2 were the players given the best sniper award. I beleive Gandhi was the clear favorite for this award and won it, as he should have. Other than that, I had one change in players on my original ballot. Instead of OGRE2, I had Killer N for top 3 snipers and had him 2nd overall. Either way, all 3 of these guys are terrific snipers and really deserve their award.

Best Glitch User - Walshy, Karma, and Gandhi were the top 3 for best glitch users. Personally, I was disapointed that I was not nominated for this category. I would hate to think about taking anything away from these 3 guys, but I felt that by the end of the season I was pretty much the only pro that double-shotted consistantly. On top of that, Gandhi plays host so "grenade reloading" isn't even a factor for him. But then again, we all know what happens when Gandhi BXR's you, so I accept the pro players decision on this one and believe that each of these guys definitely deserved this award.

Best Close Range - Walshy, Gandhi, and myself (Shockwave) were the 3 nominated players for this category. I'm glad to have been nominated for this award because this is probably my most improved on area of the game. Near the middle of the season I began to start clawing due to being beaten in too many up close battles, and to be nominated by my peers for this award was really rewarding. I'm glad to settle for 3rd place in this award, but I do not believe Gandhi is very happy to settle for 2nd place. I believe Gandhi is by far the best up close player in Halo 2, with absolutely no competition. Me and Gandhi were talking about who would win this award a while ago, and we both knew him and Walshy would be nominated, but we both agreed that past beliefs and other top players would give Walshy the nod. Congratulations to Walshy and Gandhi.

Best Power Weapon Controller - Tsquared, OGRE1, and Gandhi were given this award and all 3 definitely deserved it. My only problem is the placings within these top 3 players. I believe that OGRE1 and Gandhi should have both been placed higher than Tsquared, as they both have shown their abilities in the last few tournaments whereas Tsquared has become a nonfactor. Although Tsquared does have a mastery of the power weapons unmatched by almost everybody, Gandhi and OGRE1 have been more skilled with them lately. I honestly don't know who I would say is better between Gandhi and OGRE1, so I'll give them a join 1st place and Tsquared 3rd. 'Grats guys.

Best Strategist - Myself (Shockwave), Walshy, and Fonzi were given the award for the best strategic minds on the circuit. What I found was interesting was that this was directly correlated to the Best Objective Player category following it. It seems that the most strategic player on teams happens to be the objective player as well. I agree with the choice of the 3 players, and agree with the placings. Congrats Dave and Fonzi.

Best Pure Slayer - OGRE1, Gandhi, and OGRE2 were awarded this medal, and rightfully so. I nominated the exact same 3, in the exact same order. Although I believe Gandhi has shown more than OGRE1 for the last few tournaments, Gandhi isn't just a complete pure slayer, while OGRE1 is. OGRE2 gets the 3rd place in this award and is the only debatable pick. I wouldn't argue with anyone believing Killer N should be up there instead. I do believe that all three of these guys deserved their placings, so congratulations.

Best Objective Player - Myself (Shockwave), Walshy, and Fonzi were given this award, and like I stated earlier, it seems to directly correlate with the Most Strategic players. All 3 of us have been known for our objective play for a very long time and have excelled. Congrats guys.

Best Support Player - Saiyan, Karma, and Ghostayame were the top 3 candidates for this award and definitely deserved it. My only complaint is that I do not understand how Karma could not win 1st place. In my mind, there is no other support player at the same skill level as Karma. But I understand why these players would have been picked in the way that they were, so congrats guys.

8-Man FFAs - Karma, Legit, and StrongSide were the top 3 for this award, and I completely agree. This would probably be the hardest award to give out because of the consistant top 8 finishers. Fonzi is a great FFA player, and so Walshy and OGRE2. I put the same exact top 3 down however, as these guys just have shown how dominant they are in these 8-man FFAs. Congrats guys, you definitely deserved it.

Best 1v1 Player - Was there really any doubt who would win this award? Was there really any doubt as to who would come in 2nd? Karma and StrongSide have definitely proven themselves to be the top 2 1v1 players on the tour, and Karma has proven to be the best 1v1 player in Halo 2 ever. Walshy is a great 1v1 player himself, and has really shown his skills in most of the competitions, but usually ends up getting knocked out due to having to play Karma and StrongSide. Congrats guys, you definitely deserved this one.

Most Unpredictable Player - Saiyan, Myself (Shockwave), and Gandhi were the top 3 nominations here, and Saiyan took the award home. Out of anyone I've ever played, Saiyan probably gives me the most trouble due to his frantic and unpredictable play style. He is definitely the most unpredictable player. Other than that, I'm very grateful to see my name up there. I can't really tell how unpredictable I am seeing as I have never played against myself, but I'm glad to know that I'm hard to read. Gandhi was a pretty big surprise as well, but I guess when he's not Pink 3 or Top BR, he can be pretty unpredictable. Congrats Ryan on the 1st place, and good job Scott.

Most Clutch Player - Myself (Shockwave), OGRE2, and Ghostayame were the 3 players nominated for this award, and I would have to say, this is by far the most surprising top 3 for any award. I don't think anyone would have seen these rusults coming, no matter who you are. First of all, I didn't even nominate myself for this award back in the first ballot, instead I said Walshy, Ghost, and Gandhi. Then, once I realized I was in top clutch, there was absolutely no way I expected to win. It was pretty funny because when I originally saw my name on the ballot, Gandhi got pissed off and went on a rant about how clutch he was and how I'm never clutch. What is even funnier was that I completely agreed with him and as Ghost has posted, went "I'm not clutch at all!" I guess other people must be seeing things I don't, but I'm very happy and excited to take this award. Thanks a lot guys, and congrats to OGRE2 and Ghost, they definitely deserved it.

Breakout Player - Elamite, Scrubtwista, and Mimic were given this award and definitely deserved it. People have trouble realizing that breakout players shouldn't be already top 8 players. My personal opinion is that Elamite shouldn't be given this award because he is already a known, respected player that does not need to "breakout" while Mimic and Scrubtwista are less known. I believe that Scrubtwista, once he finds a good team, will become an extremely good player as long as he keeps up the hard work. Mimic, as long as he stays with SG and does not quit due to believing his performance is lacking (come on Mimic, you are good, stop blaming yourself for stuff), they both will make their marks on the 2007 season. When given my 3rd choice, I wanted to say Dug (Strangepurple), Pray4u, and D Fury but the requirement for a breakout player was a player that had "pro" status as the season ended, but watch out for these 3 players I mentioned. Congrats Kyle, Joey, and Leland for your award, you guys will definitely do good next year.

Best Coach - I don't think there was any debate as to who was going to win this award. xXx has become the face of professional coaching for Halo 2, and is easily the best coach on the circuit right now. The other 2 coaches, Photon and OGRE3, have both done great jobs though. My personal vote for the coaches was actually xXx, Elamite Warrior, and Detach, respectively. I believe that Elamite was a key reason to FBI's Vegas success and he really helped keep that team focused and motivated during the tournament. I also believe Detach really helped Str8 Rippin during Vegas as well, and both of these guys just seem like better coaches to me than Photon and OGRE3. OGRE3 has a wealth of knowledge in the game but I guess the side effect of coaching FB is that they don't really want to be coached, and they don't need to be coached, so I do not really believe OGRE3 helped them as much as he could have. But at the same time, I understand why Photon and OGRE3 would have gotten the award and I congratulate them on their hard work.

Best Overall Player - This is the big one, and the most important award of the entire Pro Choice Awards. OGRE2 came out on top as the overall best player on the circuit, and he definitely deserves it. He's always been a player to look up to, as he does almost everything needed of him for his team, and is extremely successful. I've hardly ever seen him have a bad game. I am very grateful for being awarded a 2nd place. Karma definitely deserves his 3rd place, if not he should occupy my space. I am glad to be thought of so highly in my peers minds, and I thank everyone who voted for me. Congratulations Tom and Ben.

I hope that I will be able to be nominated for the same awards or maybe more awards next year, but that means I will have to perform as well as I did this year or better. I want to thank everyone who voted in this, and I want to thank the community for its support. Congratulations to everyone who won an award, everyone that got one definitely deserved it.

It's finally here. Everyone, go to the top of the menu bar on the MLG site and click onto the Online Tournaments heading, which will take you into the newest and my personal favorite part of the MLG site. The first thing you will want to do is make sure you profile is correct, so read all of the instructions on the page and follow these directions step by step. This will all take you about a total of 10 minutes, but after these 10 minutes you will have either a team set up, or possibly already have entered one of the 3 online tournaments MLG is hosting within the next 2 weeks! Create or join a team, edit your information, get that MLG player logo and get ready to join in some of these leagues. Each league takes 20 credits to play, which can be purchased from the MLG Store. There are 3 tournaments available for people to choose from, including a Division 1 and 2 Division 2 tournaments. These online tournaments are only for Halo 2, and are the best way for people unable to come to events to play against top teams and have chances to prizes from Boost Mobile. Hopefully, MLG will be adding a Gears of War online tournament ladder in the near future, but right now take advantage of these Halo 2 tournaments and sign up now.