Doug with 6 gs.

So many good memories in MLG. I have had such a great time over the years. I have got to spend time with some truly awesome people. It has been a life changing experience for me. I got to travel out of state 4 times for the sole purpose of playing a video game. Granted it did distract me from high school much more than I should have let it. However, I wouldn't trade it away for anything. It was such a great competitive release for me. Plus I got to meet people from so many different parts of the country and hang with them for some of the most insane weekends of my life. So many stories from events that I will always remember.

However, like all great things, it must come to an end. As much as I would like to, I can't play Halo forever. I am now in college and about to be 19 years old. I am at a point in my life where I need to focus and do well. I recently declared myself as a Mathematics Education major. I am planning on becoming a teacher so that I can coach football. It is something I have always had a passion for.

The hardest thing about saying goodbye to it is the people I will no longer be hearing as much from. I have been so lucky to meet all of you guys. It is almost bringing me to tears. I would really love to sit hear and mention all the people I am gonna miss but either I would be hear typing for the next week or I would forget someone. I hope one day I come across some of you outside of MLG or maybe even if I drop by at an event one summer. If you want to keep at least some contact with me, the best way would be to add me on Facebook(facebook.com/doug6nop). If you are a friend of mine and I don't get the chance to see you again, consider this a goodbye. I wish you the best in your life.

Goodbye Everyone. <3

Sorry for not having a big time blog since Columbus but I just haven't had an event I really wanted to talk about much. Sorry this will be one of those real short blogs.

-Dallas aftermath/Pre-Anaheim-
At one point the the roster I was going to have going into this event was going to be me, MaZe, Syzygy, and Boroty. Bunch of locals with a good teamshot. Things didn't work out, right before the event I managed to get on a team, We Put Out, me Edrix(Eddie), kableCANTdance(Kevin), and Unkempt(Bobby). Those who do not know, I didn't have an xbox until about a week before the event since my house got robbed. We got basically no practice online. So basically we went into the event with no goals, just going to have a good time and maybe things might work out.

-MLG Anaheim Wednesday/Thursday-
I took a flight from Nashville to Charlotte, then Charlotte to Los Angeles Airport, meet up with Eddie about 2 hours after I landed at the airport. We then got a ride with his girlfriends cousin to the hotel where we meet up with Bobby and Kevin. The rest of the night we chilled and ordered some pizza, pretty decent night. Thursday we LANed another team in our hotel, and got smacked around a little bit, things that would be easy to fix though, such as being able to hear each other since we all had headphones and weren't using them during pre-LANs we knew we would during the tournament. Had a good time hanging out the rest of the evening.

-MLG Anaheim Friday-
I woke up early to get there for early check-in, we get signed in and find out that our team name "We Put Out" was not consider appropriate so we change our team name to "Ima let you finish" at the venue. However we were going to be wearing shirts that said "We Put Out," so we just made that basically just a statement of fact that has nothing to do with our team name. We got smacked around in warm-ups a bit but I had never won a warm up match at this point in my career so I wasn't worried, in fact, I was happy we actually got me my first warm-up match victory. We go back to the hotel to change into the shirts and talk about some more things we need to know for the tournament. I ended up getting super hyped up listening to some music and such. I get all hyped up just for us to end up with a first round bye. Then playing in the last heat of WBR2, so I had to wait hours since the last time I played to actually play. Then on top of that we had an Astro issue that made it so I couldn't hear the game or my teammates, so I just kept trying to flank all series, so we lose the first game by like 3 kills then get ran on the flag game. So LBR2 we also get a bye and I go into the evening with that stuck in my head. Not a good day.

-MLG Anaheim Saturday-
We have to play a team called Sleep Deprived at 10 AM the next morning but they were a no-show, which I found humorous to be honest. So we get a forfeit for LBR3. So we go into LBR4, and the first game we manage to win our worst gametype TS Pit. Then we lost the Narrows CTF game but that was one of our weaker gametypes, now time for our strongest gametype and my strongest gametype as an individual player. Things didn't go well, I played the worst Construct game I ever have in my life. I was so disappointed in my performance that I just walked out of the venue and didn't come back that night, probably the worst tournament of my life, limited practice may have played a role but I just didn't play my game the way I normally do.
[IMG]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc170/lplaymakerl/Weputout.jpg[/IMG]
Left to Right Me, Unkempt, Edrix, and kablesCANTnotTweet(kableCANTdance)

-No longer gonna give shout-outs, because somebody gets left out and gets butthurt and I am getting way too many friends to be able to remember all of you, Congrats to those that did well, and better luck to those who are capable of doing better.-

Sorry not gonna make an epic Dallas blog because it wouldn't be appropriate to put on this website, for those of you who were there you know what I am talking about. I did coach SUPERIOR(BoNe ChiLLLa, zGhetto, HEIRARCH, sickdegenerate)to LBR7, and I am back to playing. See you kiddies at Anaheim.

-Meadowlands aftermath/Pre-Columbus-

After Meadows, I had a discussion with my teammates(TestDahFy, sickdegenerate, and Graditude) about whether or not we would be teaming for Columbus, since we came up one round short of our goal we decided to part ways. So I began searching for a new team and I get a lot of offers due to my success at Meadowlands as a player. I begin to narrow it down and the pick up MaZe once again but this time he promised me that it would be him giving his all. Eventually we then picked up Slippin, but things never worked out whenever Michelle needed her 360 back and Microsoft was messing up my repair on my RROD, so I was not able to play really at all pre-Columbus. I decided I was gonna coach. So after a few teams backfired I eventually ended up as the coach to Tenacity (Gun Smok3d, Skullkid, Havok, and Hangmann).

I also had the end of my Senior year and my graduation occur during this time so life was pretty crazy. In fact I wasn’t even gonna go to Columbus for a little while until Rowan offer ed me a spot to coach cV which later ended up not holding through, that along with graduation money was enough to allow me to be at Columbus in the first place. I was then talking to Mudvayne about coaching his team for Columbus (Elumnite, Fear, and Severince), and he told me he was down just to message Elumnite. Problem being he didn’t tell Elumnite that he would be getting a message from me. So Elumnite just deleted it like wtf random? I end up talking to Gunsmok3d on AIM then and get picked up as the coach for TENACITY (Hangman, Gunsmok3d, Skullkid, and Havok). On the long drive there I was texting a few people to pass the time (I wasn’t driving, I was in the backseat so don’t worry about safety here), during the 6-7 hour drive, one of which was Rowan. He told me that Severince was looking for a coach, however I wasn’t going to be shady and leave TENACITY the day before the event. Later on I see Elumnite and Mudvayne what happened and they explain the situation that I just told you. We end up making a deal, if they are still in when TENACITY gets eliminated I would coach them.

-Friday-

I get no LAN coaching practice with my team before the event except one or two warm up matches since I was doin g other things during warm ups. I really don’t even remember WBR1, in fact I had to go online to see that we 2-0ed the team we played. WBR2 however, I will forever remember, we had gone over some new strats and such for the gametypes in this round (which you should never do without at least doing once before) and things backfired when a player who was supposed to be on top screen was on bottom screen and couldn’t figure out what was going on. So they had early map control on Construct TS, which resulted in an early 12-3 lead for them. First overshield comes up and we get it, Gunsmok3d goes up closed purple just to get sniped out of the lift and that same shot hits the overshielded player coming in behind him, they get killed and so do the other 2 player on the team for a quick 4 dead. Eventually the game comes to an end and they win 50-46 or something like that, we look at the stats and my friend St Niick pulls off a 18-6 performance. Next game is Pit Flag and we get down early 2-0, we manage to get 2 caps and comeback but it’s not enough they win 3-2. Just so everyone knows Nick is a player capable of competing at a top 16 level with the right team. So I have to do losers on Friday night something I have never done as a player, and I don’t believe Havok had ever been in losers in open bracket period. We get through with an easy 2-0 and go to get some sleep, despite looking a LAN we couldn’t find one since nobody on our team brought a monitor.

-Saturday-

On Saturday we manage to beat my friend RU1Ns team 2-0, and another team in LBR4 2-0 without too much trouble, finally we get beaten in LBR5 by Smashdown, who would have done a lot better but they really did have a poor bracket to work with.

So I go to text Elumnite to tell him I can coach them when I look and see them lose to the team Severince coincidently. So after they cool down and finally get to play full screen in LBR6. Talk to each of them a little bit and see that they are gonna want me to be a calm downed coach just focusing on times and letting them handle most of the call outs and pushs. The team that we are playing we are already up 2-0 on from WBR2. They take Narrows TS, then after an adjustment of the tvs and playstyles, it becomes the Severince show with him going 21-6 in game 5 on Narrows CTF for a 3-0 win. Also his Overkill in game 4 was sick and it should’ve been a Killtact but it’s Halo 3 so hitting people in the skull with a snipe doesn’t always mean a kill. One thing I noticed was after the none-killtact he just calls the kid out and I said nice overkill wh ich was the only thing that caused anyone to notice on the team. That was pretty cool how the focus remained in the game and he moved forward from that point on. LBR7 was a bad round altogether, the first thing I hear is Prototype called to our station, and I remember that name from Meadowlands as they were the team to knock me out at Meadows. I tell the team to please give me some revenge. First game was Gaurdian TS, which was a 50-49 battle, we managed to lose the time of the camos during the game but due to good eyesight we were able to take them out. Eventually we started getting it again and managed to win that game. The next game was Narrows TS, and it was a 3-2 defeat so it comes down to a game 3. Pit TS, this game was dominated from the start, nothing could go right it seemed, finally we end up falling 50-36. The fatal error for this team was the fact they had no practice coming in, so they were basically just 4 really skilled individual players doing their own thing.

At that moment Mudvayne throws down the Astro’s that I am borrowing from someone who is borrowing from his friend so this not good. I manage to get the headphone back in the headset and it works fine but a scary moment. I decide it’s best for me to pack up my stuff and give these guys some space. Later on I walk into a bathroom to see Severince and Fear trying to put in some dark blue contacts from the zombie convention thing, lets just say it’s a good thing he has good vision because he couldn’t get those things to save his life.

So now I go back to the venue and just begin to chill with different people and the best part was the “Swag” group that I spent most of my evening with. It consisted of many people, I am not going to try to name them all because someone will get left out and I will feel bad then. We even played a game where we gave many people a chance to win some cash by trying to name 5 candy bars in 10 seconds. We got to do it to so many people, including many pros, an ape, and a vampire tranny. We also discovered Blue Fir3 can’t throw a football really well (<3) and that I can snag on MLG kids XD. LANed in Prototypes room for a little while, I was talking mad trash even though I was playing bad. Then we chilled in different places including the little zombie convention dance party, it was an interesting experience to say the least. We meet/saw some interesting people, took some pictures, including me in a fedora, which I will probably start wearing now because I liked how I looked in it.

-Sunday- Sunday was mainly a day of free play and chillin, played a decent amount that day. I also saw Elumnite for the first time since Saturday and he played a little bit signed in as Doug with 6gs, then I changed the name to Elumnite, then realized he plays default and got destroyed off my opening spawn. Later on I was playing with Elumnite and Strongside on free play which was pretty fun. I left after the finals and spent some time chillin with Advent while looking for the Holiday Inn to possibly stay there that night. Tanner is one cool dude in real life, I don’t care how much crap he has talked to you online, he is mad chill in real life.

Turns out I wouldn’t be staying the night there after all since my ride decided they wanted to leave that night. So we are driving and everything is going good, we hit a monster bump no biggie, however later on we start smelling this bad odor and hearing a terrible noise. We pull over and look at the tire which is crooked, we then look under and see a cracked back axle and realize that we can’t make it home. We are about 2 hours from home in Elizabethtown, KY at 2:30 in the morning……. We manage to get a ride home from MaZe, which I was so happy to see him I hugged him soon as he arrived at about 4. I end up falling asleep and because of the time change we arrive at about 5 in the morning, I sleep until 1 and begin to think about Dallas.



Shout out Time.
Rowan-You are about 60% of the reason I decided to go to Columbus when I thought I was coaching cV so thank you for that.
Gunsmok3d-Thank you Ryan for giving me a good team to coach not to mention being just an overall fun dude to be around, also for being sick with the snipe and asking me when next sniper was up at least 5 times a game XD
Skullkid-Zach, you are one of the sickest players I have ever watched play, too bad I had to carry you ; )
Havok-Gavin, you are one of the best players overall I have ever seen, every decision you made was the right one, and the way you stayed focused and didn’t let anything get in your head during the tournament was remarkable, it’s clear why you were a top pro back in Halo 2.
Hangman-I wish I woul d have got to chill with you more Matt but the only times we really talked was during the games, you have a lot of talent and can be a great player, just relax a little and have fun with it.
Elumnite-Dude, Marcus you have an insanely good BR and you are also smart about when to challenge and when to back out. Pretty chill guy as well, hopefully you find a good team for Dallas because you deserve it.
Mudvayne-I owe you big time for giving me a chance to coach you guys in the first place, you also are a great Halo player. I should also mention you are a pretty chill guy to just talk to in the first place.
Fear-I don’t think I saw you miss a BR shot the entire time I was watching you play, also made me laugh with your comments about my hair.
Severince-I can describe your Halo skill in one word, disgusting, I can describe you as a person in one word, chill.
Crucify-Also known as Jason Bourne, thanks for the room Steve and good job placing 19th, you guys earned it.
Monix-This dude is silly and I love it, like I said to Steve, nice job with the good placing.
Advent-I enjoy talking to this guy and, once again, nice job getting top 20.
Goofy-I knew soon as I walked in that he had to be sick because those guys would not have put up with having a little kid on their team unless he was sick, then I discovered his maturity is aged way beyond his years.
St Niiick-I love this red headed kid, you destroy kids, you deserve to be placing top 16. You need to start placing there already.
BaseballKid-This kid is insane and mad funny at 2v2 trash talk.
Perplexion-Had sooooooo much fun chillin with you Jordan.
Blue Fir3-One of the funniest kids I have every meet, also got taken advantage of by an unknown gendered vampire. This guy gives good back rubs.
Roxanne-Definitely had a good time hanging out with this girl. Even though she was playing better than me while splitscreening in Prototypes room. Also gives great backrubs.
Viip3-All I have to say is freakin team swag. And I bet he could give a good back rub.
IBoBI-You are the man, nuff said.
ix sh0ck xi-I will forgive you now for the nontechnical during Meadows for you being a pretty chill guy.
Zildjian-Had fun in your room with the fresh prince that’s for sure.
Rest of Prototype-You better not eliminate me at Dallas or I am gonna kill the ones you have had since Meadows because it’s getting annoying……XD
BoNe Chilla- Hector, you are my boy, nice job on getting bracket screwed lol, good luck at Dallas with that squad, teams that stick together do so much better than ones that change teams every week. Also want to add, this kid is so funny and so much fun in real life. Love you Hect <3

To all the people I didn’t mention, it’s 4 in the morning so my memory of Columbus is a bit skewed, but you know how much I love you I hope. See you all in Dallas.

So there is a lot to cover about this event so I think I should start with the offseason from last year.

-Offseason-

A lot happened over the offseason for me, after I realized I wasn't going to Dallas last season I got kinda lazy and stopped playing for a little while. I started to try to get back on in I believe October only to realize I had no disc that worked. Eventually through a job I picked up at American Eagle, I was able to save up enough in order to get a disc. Before that had happened I had gotten an offer to team with 3 of my local players. Josh(glaze), Luke(Luke), and Zach(MaZe). Zach was the only one that really still played out of the group but since I had LANed with them a lot in the past I knew they were a good option for the 09 season. Later into December and we are still not playing at all, Josh still hasn't gotten a new box after his red ringed so I eventually had to say that I was done. Team of Followers

Was a F/A for a little while with a empty friends list after being off for about 2-3 months. So I just keep playing playlist to improve some skill and get some new friends. Eventually I meet Tim(migamer), one of the coolest people I have ever meet online, long story short me and him team up. While we are looking for 2 I managed to have meet another Kevin(Ender) and now we have a to3. I was just getting ready to run games with them when my old buddy Zach(MaZe)invites me to a party. Soon as I get in there he says that he is looking for a team now. I say we will give him a shot, basically him and Hayden(The HayZ)were our best options. I had LANed with him in the past and he also had been around longer so I saw him as the safer pickup. That was the roster After Effects. We start to realize after a little while that some of the attitudes were not gonna mix, I was at Zach's one day just playing some games side by side with him and he tells me that night he is pretty much done with this team because we aren't winning. So we talk to Kevin and Tim and they agree, Tim goes back with his old team, Kevin goes back on the F/A market.

After Effects logo.

I ended up running games then with Che(Cheese, at the time cliche), and Ty(MrTwiggy). They end up picking up me and Josh(Exemplify)up. We played pretty well together, got into a few arguements here and there, Che then left us to join up with Sicktential, thus making us a to3. We started running games with a few different people. Our best option with out a doubt was Chris(LoCo). Kid is incredible, however he really didn't like Josh and I'm not sure why. So we dropping Josh and picking up Chris. Chris says he knows just the guy for us to pick up and sure enough guess who comes into the situation. Zach(MaZe)is back once again on a team with Doug. We play together for a few days however differences in the things we thought we needed to improve caused us to want to drop Ty since he was the furthest away from us. After we drop him, Zach ends up not wanting to play Halo anymore, then Chris keeps trying to convince him and finally Zach just doesn't get online for about a week due to some home circumstances. So the team broke up and no more needed to be said. New Headsets. Mixamp, and ballin shoes.

Hayden(The HayZ)was someone who I had run games with a lot on different teams but he keep getting edged out by other players, so finally I send him a text saying, want to be a to2? He says yes and we begin to shop around. I start to look through the people I have ran games with lately some and also post in the forums a bit. We end up getting Taylor(TestDahFy)out of the mess that is the MLG recruitment section. Also picked up Mark(Midknight7)through the kids we had just ran with. We made up NewAge. Long story short, a couple of close loses on the Gamebattles ladder caused us to lose the desire to play together. Once again I was a F/A.
Me with some friends at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, home of MLG Nashville 2005. I am on the right.

I ended up meeting up with Che(Cheese)in a random custom game after our old team broke up, we ended up playing together, browsing the F/A sections, I see he is F/A after him, Taylor(TestDahFy), Sicktential, and I believe Cronux's team split. He says we should team up, I agree and we move forward from there, later that day we are playing with Taylor and he says he needs a team and it's a month until the event so we say for sure man. So we end up running games with Chris(FragD)and it ends up working we us dominating everyone our first day together and not dropping a game, so we pick him up then. Eventually that kind of slowed down and we realized we didn't explore our options enough before picking him up. So we drop him and begin to run games with other players. Lets just say a thread with the names Dougggggg, TestDahFy, and Cheese got a lot of forum love. So we had a lot of options. We ended up running with Tyler(Temco)and he was by far our best option. So we pick him up and things are going pretty well. We are scriming a few days later and Tyler just snaps and says hes done teaming with us because of us being "stupid" players. So once again we are looking for one. Instead of going public with it we just ran with some good previous options until. We decided to run with Cuyler(sickdegenerate)who is an abosolute beast. Also happens to have 3 points. Eventually things don't work out, and I am getting tired of things not working out for me this offseason. Finally we find Adam(Gratitude)and we pick him up because he is a disgusting player and we have our roster set on the team pass. Vista was made up of Dougggggg, TestDahFy, Cheese, and Gratitude. Until.......
Old sig.

In a conversation I was having with Cuyler(sickdegenerate)on AIM he was basically saying that he needed a team for Meadows still. I was asking how he thought we would do, and he said not well with Che. Later I get a message from Taylor saying that him and Nick(Manic ZER0, our coach)were watching film and Che was hurting us really bad when trying to be super sneaky and be like neighbor. So I tell that to Cuyler and he says if we drop Che he will go with us 100%. I copy and paste the conversation into the conversation with Taylor, problem is we are talking about Columbus so he thinks thats what I'm talking about. So he says sure, basically then I tell Cuyler he is on the team, I remove Che from the team pass and send him a message on AIM. There is more about this situation other than him trying to be neighbor but I don't need to put it out there in the public for you all to see. So Adam(Gratitude), who has been asleep during this whole thing wakes up to 2 text messages. One from Che saying good luck with sick, the other saying why did you drop Cheese? We explain the situation and we become the final Vista roster. Dougggggg, TestDahFy, Gratitude, and sickdegenerate, with coach Manic ZER0.
New sig.

-Pre Meadows-

Right after all that team drama I end up going to a LAN 2 days later with the lineup being me, Mr Blainer, MaZe, SuphiX, Sinis7er, Truee Yodaa, St Niiick, and Dos Trogdor. As we begin to hook things up I realize I am missing my power cable, not the brick just the small end. So someone lets me borrow one. Then the unthinkable happens, red rings of death..... I am mad, luckily there is a 360 for me to use that night and later on the next day we get mine to work again. We continue to LAN over a 2 span. We get some good games in, I get home at about 5:30 and I crash. Next day I go to hook up my 360 and sure enough no small end of a power cable. So I look everywhere and can't find it. Finally Zach(MaZe)tells me I can use a moniter cable, sure enough it works just fine. Then the super unthinkable happens, it red rings again. Not fixable this time. So I have to get a box now, eventually I get ahold of Michelle(Michelle Iz Sik)and she allows me to borrow her 360 until Meadowlands.

-MLG Meadowlands Thrusday-

The flight was a nightmare, considering the fact I had to wake up at 4:45 in the morning to go. Then when I get at the Newark airport, Taylor's flight is delayed so I have to wait on him since I won't be able to check into the hotel. We get there about midday with nothing to do but chill and wait for Adam, Cuyler and Nick to arrive. Adam and Cuyler arrive later but our coach ended up being a noshow and we didn't get ahold of him until about 11:30. We ended up getting to try LANing together for the first time and at first we were struggling to work together but after that we got hot and won like 4-5 games in a row against a team I cannot remember at this point. Also got to meet some cool people, like Nexy and KC, and Killa KC basically is the reason I have a pass at this point. I ended up also meeting all this kids on my friends list that were mad chill and other people I just meet that were pretty cool. Too many names to mention, but Thursday was a great start to the event.

Vista in the elevator.

-MLG Meadowlands Friday-

Friday morning we went and LANed Good Vibes and completely destroyed them in their hotel room which felt good because they had destroyed us on Live. We beat them I think 9-2 in their room. So we went to the venue for warm-up and we get beat twice while having some trouble hooking up headsets. In round one we got matched against Dragon Rise, and we won game 1, TS Narrows, 50-37, and game 2, CTF Pit 1-0. This is when things got fun, we got matched against Power Weapons in Round 2. We have scrimed them online a lot and only beat them once. Well we are much better on LAN. We were down early in the first game like 8-4, but we got map control and started destroying them on their side of the map and then Gratitude began to say something that was not really a good thing to say. He started calling Barreta an "ugly bitch." To be honest we kinda wanted a technical so we could lose host. It didn’t end up happening because shock didn’t hear us well enough. We went on to win that game 50-35, then 3-0 them in CTF Narrows in about 2 and a half minutes.

-MLG Meadowlands Saturday and Sunday-

The previous night we found out we would have to play against Sovereign(Prolific, Legend JRG, InSayian, Snake Bite). They were the 6 seed in the open bracket but the highest seed in our section of the bracket. We had heard that talking smack to Snake Bite would yield results in the long run. First game was TS Construct, we started the game by getting a 4-0 lead and getting rocket/map control. We had a fair lead midway through the game when they got some map control. Towards the end of the game we were up 47-46 I believe, I traded kills then we get 2 more kills and die once while I am in death screen so we won 50-48. We got really hype because we knew then we would get to play our best gametype game 3. Next game was CTF Pit and we fell early with them going up 2-0. With about 2 and half minutes left we get a cap and eventually set up and start to get another, the problem is that we had to keep this flag alive or the game was over because at this point there was under 15 minutes left in the game. Our mindset had to change from slay and grab flag to just grab flag to avoid losing. We finally cap but then all of us are dead and they get the 3rd cap and the game is over. We then were ready for game 3, TS Narrows, our best gametype. We get a nice start and start killing them in their lobby early and often. We got a huge lead 22-9 at one point. We then just went into cruise control the rest of the game and finally won it 50-42 and we go crazy. As we go through the crowd we are getting high fives from people we don’t know and probably the best moment of the weekend.
Us playing against Sovereign in WBR3. From left to right, me, Cuyler, Taylor, Adam.

We go into Winners Round 4 confident but thinking ahead thinking that pro bracket would be easy, all we needed was to beat pT Envy and the winner of DEADicated and Gimme My Money. First game in Round 4 is our worst, TS Gaurdian. We lost by like 50-37 or something along those lines. From then on in the tournament we were mentally out of it as a team, we then lost in Losers Round 6 to Prototype. So in a tournament where we were just 4 games away from top 32 we just completely fell apart. That night I had a good time hanging our with friends and same for all of Sunday.
See you guys at Columbus.