To Hold You Over

This has been a long time coming, sorry we haven't kept up with the events!

Here is my MLG Meadowlands 2009 experience:

MLG Meadowlands Recap

Team Reflex - Amplified
Cast:
L0rd4b0ve- Sam (1)
Hurricane- Sean
Hunter- Ian
Vertual- Nick
KBC- Kevin
Jaba- John
KmHax- Keegan
Duke- Sam (2)
Dialpex - Diego
Amateur Hour- AnnoyedCustomer, Legion, and their other two.

Intro
Wow, the first event of 2009. It was a blast, even though we lost in LBR1. We had a lot of fun playing all weekend and just hanging out as a team. After the event is another story. But overall Meadowlands was great, the only thing I didn't like was Instinct placing 2nd. They deserve 1st place.

I also want to say that I'm sorry that this took so long to put together, but ultimately it felt good to write about it and I hope you enjoy!

Thursday - Delay, Delay, Cancel
Thursday pretty much sucked. My flight was scheduled for 6:05pm arriving in LGA @ 7:30pm. Before I even got out of school it got delayed to a 7:25pm departure. So when I finally made my way to the airport, I still had a decent wait at the gate for boarding to start. Then we were delayed again, this time until 8:30pm. Finally boarding started at 8. Once the plane was boarded we taxied to our runway after another little wait, then got stopped out there for 45 minutes because of thunderstorms at Laguardia. Then we were told LGA had a ground-stop so we were not going to get out that night. Once we finally got back to the gate, I had to scramble to get to an open, not crowded ticket counter so I could get on the 6 a.m. flight on Friday morning and wouldn't miss anything. I was able to get the flight at 6 for an arrival time at LGA at 7 a.m., thank god.
We had originally planned to LAN against our friends from Podtac, Team Shattered, and the team Amateur Hour, who we'd met up with online and planned to LAN with that night, replacing the bucket kids on Shattered. But since I was delayed along with Vertual and some of the Amateur Hour crew we couldn't get a LAN going on Thursday after all. The only good thing about the day was that I got to go to sleep in my own bed and gather some last minute things that I would have forgot.

Friday - LAN LAN LAN
I arrived around 7am on Friday. With L0rd4b0ve (Sam (1)) as my chauffeur from the airport, props to him and his mother. When we arrived at the hotel and met everyone we just sat around talking and playing for a while before we headed outside on the chilly, rainy Friday morning. We left to go wait in the line at around 9:45. Since it was raining out and windy as hell, we waited underneath the Embassy Suites drop-off overhang. At around 10:15 people migrated over to the parking garage of the Expo Center and then the line started to form toward the ramp. Once on the ramp we waited another 20 minutes to get inside (they were only letting sets of 10 at a time).
Once Reflex got inside we immediately went to the table and signed in, got our wristbands, and then L0rd4b0ve and I went over to get our media passes. We had a little trouble because their database was having trouble updating that morning so I had to call over Amy J. aka Ms. Media to bail me out at yet another event, thank you Amy. Once we got that squared away and got our passes we headed back to our hotel to LAN it up.
First we had a team over, Amateur Hour, who we were talking to for a while before the event and they actually were not to far in front of us in line, so that was cool. Once they arrived with their have of the equipment we played a series and got beat 2-1 in some very close games, oh well. They had also invited another team so we cycled out to let them play and during that game I recorded my only video of the weekend :(.
After they finished everyone headed over to the venue which opened at 1 p.m., so we got to wait in a line again out in the rain some more. Once inside Hunter and myself immediately went to the newly added MLG Store in the venue. When we made it through the crowded line and made our custom Meadowlands shirts ordered we left to go find the rest of our team.
After we were done checking out the venue, for the first time for most of the guys, we headed back to our hotel once again to LAN Shattered this time.

Saturday - Instinct, Instinct, Walshy! and Believe. The. Hype.
Even though we lost on Friday and weren't scheduled to play on Saturday it was still fun. Spectating in itself is an amazing experience if you know what to do at the venue. Saturday was a really relaxed day for all of us, mainly because of our loss. Other than our awesome mainstage experience I have to talk about the Podtacular LAN up in Dialpex's room in the Embassy Suites. All I can say is that it was a pretty awesome time. It kinda fixed my relations with KmHax. Since he'd always been cocky online I never thought anything good of him, but after meeting him on Friday and playing on his team in the LAN, along with Tarheels and _____, I really got to liking him. I even end up offering him a spot, which I'll talk about later. So in the 4 pick-up team LAN up in Podtac central, we placed 3rd I think, oh well, I had some fun with those games.
Now on to mainstage. The only games I really remember are those on ESPN Saturday night, but before that I want to shout-out to, first off, all the awesome Status Quo fans chanting etc.. even though they weren't playing! Second which I will highlight later all of the insane Instinct and BtH fans! I have to say though Saturday were probably my favorite games of the tournament. First off, Str8 Rippin vs Believe the Hype. Believe the Hype had a phenomenal, see what I did there?, performance on Saturday night, beating Str8 Rippin after Str8 was up 2-0 in the series
The next match was Instinct vs Final Boss and Walshy had some serious trash talk prepared for this match. First off in the interview by Julie A. with Walshy he mentions he hadn't lost to FB in over 4 years, which is true, and I liked it. But what comes next is even better. Part one of the major hits he made was saing his relationship with Mackeo and Victory X was that he raised them as his "practice noobs" up in Michigan, which I thought was great. Next up he started comparing MLG with Full House, saying he was Uncle Jesse and of course, the Ogre twins were the Olsen twins. Harsh words from the oldest pro on the circuit. To defend his team Victory X had some good words, but nothing to drastic besides, "we'll see who does better in this match," pretty much criticizing Walshy's skill.
All care about is that Instinct easily 3-1'd Final Boss moving on in the tournament. The only notable thing to mention about FB this tournament is they beat out Str8 Rippin in the Losers Bracket semi-finals knocking them out, which I will also mention in the Sunday section.
That night we had a rag-tag LAN in our hotel room with like 15 people. We didn't have enough TVs we had to 4-player split-screen the hotel's 37" TV, bad idea. Other than that it went okay. I slept there for the night and then it was Sunday.

Sunday - TD TD TD :(
Sunday was a long day, but still a lot of fun. Sunday was also definitely Triggers Down's day. After a big loss to Believe the Hype on Saturday they rebounded amazingly against all of the competition.
I want to start with...
The match of Final Boss against Triggers Down in the Losers Bracket Finals. Final Boss had gotten knocked to the Losers Bracket by Instinct, and TD by BtH. TD had just finished beating BtH in their second match up. FB beat TD pretty badly in the first and second games. The third game was going well for TD, Construct KOTH. TD was up 50-0 when the power in the whole venue went out. Everyone was a little freaked out at first but in the end it was funny. IT turns out that there was a brush fire outside across the street away that was burning in the "meadowlands" and hit a transformer. My family on Ellis Island, seeing the Statue of Liberty that day, saw the smoke. Sundance came on the microphone after everything settled reassuring that we weren't in danger and we'd be back online in a bit. What I found funny though is while the power was coming back, Gandhi yells down to Mackeo asking "anything else for ya Mackeo!?" Only to be answered by laughs. Even with this stroke of good luck for FB, they go on and lose the series to TD, 2-3. Putting TD in the Championship Finals with Instinct.
The Instinct match started out awesome again thanks to Walshy. He didn't trash talk as much, but he did take over the interview, holding the microphone his way and explaining to the crowd what chants to use. Neighbor was the only one not to get one, because "he'll be raping anyway." But the other three got "Uncle Walshy," "Roy's our boy," and "Lunchbox rocks." A lot of those chants were used during the match. The other thing he said was that: Roy would just be out bring people, Neighbor sniping, and Lunchbox would just be beating down the ground because they were winning. They did win Game 2, in awesome fashion, but that was it. I blame the curse.
I seem to have a curse on me, if you will. Every event I attend Triggers Down wins the event. MLG Orlando 2008, MLG Dallas 2008 and MLG Meadowlands 2009. The only one I hoped they'd lose was Meadowlands this year because Instinct deserves a solid win.
After everything was all over, Sean and I were the only ones left, that we knew, in the Meadowlands. So we decided to go see a movie, Fast and Furious. My Dad took us over to the theater and we saw the movie. It was okay, I guess. And then that night we parted ways until C'bus.

Monday
This is where the family vacation kicked in for me we went into the city and walked around visiting sites such as the Empire State Building, which didn't have any visibility. So we bough the tickets and headed back to New Jersey. Once we got back we stayed in the room for a while before heading down to the Sports Bar restaurant attached to the Courtyard called Bazookas. We went for a reason. The NCAA Mens Basketball Championship game was on, North Carolina (UNC-Chapel Hill) vs Michigan State. Seeing that I'm, not originally but, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I felt it was good I watched the game and saw them win. Just adding to a great weekend.

Tuesday
The visibility was better today so I got to go up top of the Empire State Building. It was pretty sweet besides being a little chilly and a lot breezy. After that we headed straight to the airport and flew home.
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Post ML
Nick drop/quit (I know youre not supposed to... I kinda blame nick for attitude online and at the event and how he almost DQ'd us)
Ian drop
Keegan offer
Sureshot
Pinky
Rukus
Marker

Pre Columbus
Bos
Rekling

I know its got some holes but at least its something!

Enjoy!
~Amp

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