Some random thoughts on qcon, which I managed to see about 70% of.

Coverage

I was disappointed prior to the tournament when I heard ESL wouldn't be following on their invitational with a trip for 2GD to Texas. But QuadV did good.

It started badly the first day when the Gaylords internet crashed at the worst imaginable time. ESR screamed "GREAT COVERAGE LOLOL" but really it was out of their hand. Their end, the internet stream, help up nicely prior to the epic walter T4 match. They did well by requesting and succeeding in having play halted for the rest of the day until the problem could be fixed the following day.

For the rest of the event it ran smoothly for the most part.
A few technical glitches such as reversed pov/sound and the occasional buffering annoyance. Video quality was excellent and you could even comprehend Slasher's Darth-Vader voice. DJWheat's has a fun casting style and his good spirit shined through and mixed well with Slasher who had some interesting comments and interviews. I enjoyed having fatal1ty casting a game and he proved he still knows what the game is about.

On the down side you could easily see that Tosspot doesn't have an understanding of the game nor the community. His comments raged me a great deal.

Duel tournament

In the weeks before the tournament there was a great deal of disbelief and you arrogance towards the NA players and their supposed lack of skill. They proved them all wrong with a very strong showing. I think people underrestimated the importance of Practice, Practice, Practice (c) fatal1ty and the fact that this wasn't the traditional DM6 and ZTN tournament. The American approach to this tournament was more intelligent and professional than of many of the european players.

In a seven map tournament, with 3 completely new maps, with the correct preparation you can get a great advantage on your more skilled, more lazy opponents. You practice the new maps and make them your home maps. If you want to win, you don't go to a tournament like this with DM6 as your home map and pray to god you don't get T9 or Ca2 in the coin toss.
This is why DaHang and stermy did better than Av3k. Rapha won because he prepared for the tournament like a professional, put in the hours he needed and made sure he was good on ALL maps.

Cypher and Av3k may be more skilled than the rest of the field but they don't have that professional approach. I guess $14,000 isn't alot of money in Poland and Belarus. On that note someone needs to slap Av3k like the bitch he is. When he was being interviewed by Slasher he didn't look at him once, something on the computer screen was more interesting.

At the end of Q3 Fox would place consistently in the top 5 at these tournaments. But since he hasn't yet won a "major" he gets flamed for being overrated. That's ridicilous, but I don't think anyone expected him to place 7-8 in this tournament. Before the
tournament I said I thought spartie was overrated and how wrong was I. I still think fox is much better than spartie. I have no idea how he lost that match 2-0. I guess LAN's just bring out the best of spartie. He played amazing.

Walter could have won this tournament and that still wouldn't prove anything about years old cheating accusation. He did prove though that he is a decent player and as for his first LAN he did ok. But he can never compare his skill to tournament
veteran ZeRo4 again, plz.

DKT deserves a mention for a surprisingly good showing. Maybe not surprising for the American scene.

CTF Tournament

The ESR poll showed that 72% thought fnatic would win and EG only got 16%. The all-star lineup of fnatic got them unrealistic expectation from people that probably don't know much about CTF. EG winning shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. Fnatic had probably the best attacker (linkin) in the world but the rest of their team consisted mostly of players that were going to Quakecon for the 1on1 tournament. EG players had no duelling aspiration to get in the way of their CTF preperation.

I have never known stermy, fox or spartie to have played much CTF in their time. On top of this, Americans have played 4on4 CTF for 9 years. 4on4 CTF is very different from the european 5on5. To hone that transition to perfection takes more than a few dozens online clan matches.

Fnatic actually did surprisingly good and they were >< this close to beating EG in their match but lost both maps in a VERY painful way. But this was always EG's tourney to win.

/EOR