MLG Columbus by Amp

First off check out this post over at TASPN.
Then read on...

Halo Amplified Podcast at MLG Columbus.

I thought that since I just gave you the Meadowlands recap I'd also give you my Columbus experience since there haven't been any podcasts about it.
I do realize that there are some holes in the write-up but I thought I should get it to you anyway.

Here you go:
MLG Columbus 2009

Cast
Amplified - Me
Hurricane - Sean
Bos - Jon
Rekling - Russell
Rukus - Billy
Digital - Mike
Basket Babe - Amanda
KBC - Kevin
Jaba - John
Snowman - Mike
Churned Rock - Will
Kooshy - Cody
Plasma - Mark
Duke - Sam

Intro
I want to the event on Team Reflex once again, but this time with a new roster. Besides Reflex's core, myself and Hurricane, we had two other good players, Bos and Rekling. We played a lot better in the open bracket in Columbus, making it to the rounds on Saturday.
At a fan point of view, it was a great event. But at the same time, as an Instinct fan, it was a disappointment.

I also want to apologize for the choppiness of the article, I couldn't quite remember/write out some of event. I will add more as I see fit and update you guys via the blog.

Thursday
As a senior in high school I don't have to take final exams as long as I have a C avg and less than X amount of absenses in the class, and in the end I only had to take one exam, a required state course. I was lucky enough to change the date an time I took it, since I originally had to take it Friday morning. So I took it Thursday afternoon and flew out as soon as the exam ended at 4 pm.
My flight was at 6 pm and once we got to the gate the agents there told us that the plane we were taking had mechanical problems so the flight was cancelled. My luck right? Second time I compete at an event, my travel to the event screws up. We did manage (my mom and I) get our flight changes. The flight we got arrives at 11:30 pm instead of 9:45 pm. Once we arrived in Charlotte (our connection) we found out that our original connection to Cbus was delayed even later so in the end we got lucky.
Roughly 20 minute travel time to the hotel. When we finally arrived and were checking in to the Crowne Plaza, across from the Convention Center, I found Rekling in the Lobby as he was trying to call the team on the hotel's phone. As I recognized the numbers he read them out to the desk attendant, I asked him if he happened to be Russell and then introduced myself to him, surprising both of us (just as a note, this is probably the only good experience I had with him). After we got settled in and dropped of our stuff, we went to join Bos and Billy, who were LANing over at the Drudy hotel. A very nice lady, who was reporting on the event directed us over to the Drudy.
Once we got there we met some cool guys from KY, etc. And LANed for a while. I played decently on and off. Then finally Billy called me up and made Bos and Rekling come back to the Crowne to sleep. Once I finished that up I went back to my room and slept it up. Sean status - No show at his 1 am arrival.

Friday - Re-re-re-flex
Friday played out really well for Team Reflex. It started for me at about 8:30 am.
-----Breakfast, etc...-----
We got down to the venue at around 12 pm. Once there I immediately noticed some sweet Old Spice/Instinct badges/programs being handed out. So I immediately snagged 4 of them from a guy handing them out, that was walking into the venue. Once I got through the line, and signed in a media I had to wait until the venue opened at 1:30 pm. While waiting in line, I met up with Amanda when I saw here talking to some people in line ahead of me. Once the security guards started to tease us with the opening, the whole line and everyone around swarmed the door creating a mob of people in front of the door. After I squeezed my way up closer to the front of the mob and got in on my media pass, I immediately shot over to the MLG store and solidified my spot in line there with my 5th place spot.
The whole process of purchasing took forever for everyone in front of me for some reason. Once I got to the register I bought my Instinct hat, Russell's Instinct hat and my OHI-OWN shirt with my gamertag on the back. Then I signed up for the Dr Pepper texting sweepstakes and headed back out to the team waiting outside the venue. We then waited for about 45 minutes for Sean to show up so we could check in. But before that we got to say hi to Sundance and Puckett as they came out of the venue. Russell had some funny, short conversations with them. They both end up saying "nice hat" to him as they go by, and he told Sundance his was nice too (Yankees), and Sundance's response was "maybe we can make a trade later." Overall it was funny, but it also showed me that Russell was going to be a handful to "drag" around at the event. Then the Foxy Richochet team came back out looking for a warmup LAN after losing to a team in the venue. So I sent them over to Mike's room ahead of us. And finally once Sean got there we check-in and I got him checked-in as media too.
Once we walked inside and checked out the venue, we headed back up to Mike's room and watched the end of the Clean by Nature and Foxy Ricochet LAN games. Afterwards we LANed CbN and played the three Winners Bracket series, WBR1, R2, and R3. Overall Reflex came out 7-2 over CbN, just shattering the false confidence they had from absolutely destroying us in the online scrims before the event and drove our confidence through the roof. We finally headed down to the venue to wait for our names being called to play in WBR1. We met up with the former members of Shattered from Meadowlands, Kevin, John and Sam, and with new additions to the posse, Mike, Will, Koosh and Plasma. We gathered together to listen to the welcome to the event.
After that we got called for the first Heat of WBR1, paired up against Blacklisted. We lost the first game Guardian TS be a slim margin, but moved on to Game 2, Narrows CTF. Reflex owns this gametype. After they got the first cap they were talking trash, but we immediately took advantage of it can countered. Which sparked some of my trash talk, after I got bombarded with trash talk throughout both games. My first comment was "what, is that a cap?!?" After a heated string of events we cap another flag bringing the score to 2-1, Reflex. In the last few seconds of regulation I was counting down the time when they grab our flag stalling the game's end, my quoted line was "5, 4, 3, tw-FUCK". We finally close that game out easily and move on the Game 3, Pit TS. Our start of this game was sloppy to say the least. After a horrible start we just couldn't make a comeback and got dominated the rest of the game. Morale was down, especially because Jaba, Snowman and my Mom watched that match, so we headed back up to Digital's room to LAN CbN again. Again we completely dominate them, 4-0.
When we got back to the venue and Shibby started calling out stations, the whole first heat of LBR1 got a bye, including us. Even the team that beat us in Meadowlands and was a no show to Foxy Ricochet's WBR1 match, which was BS.
Later in the night we got paired up against Birthright in LBR2 and easily 2-0 them in Narrows TS and Pit CTF. It was a great feeling to progress to Saturday rounds in the Open Bracket. Once we finished dropping of some of our gear we got horrible directions from Sam but we eventually made it over to the Hampton Inn to LAN with all the Shattered and other Podtacular guys. I got to meet some new guys, including the ones from the welcome, Kooshy, Plasmaqrenades, SnowmanHunter, and Then instead of having a team room, since Hyatt screwed up our rooms, Bos and Russell stayed in Sean and his dad's room for the night.

Saturday - Severance and Aric aka "Mr Mainstage"
We woke up and met up at about 9 am on Saturday and ate breakfast at the convention center's food court. We then headed over to the venue to play a few warm up games on the stations before we played at 10 am. The warmups didn't play in our favor. So in the end we were 0-3 for warmup games, including the gametypes we had to play at 10. Those games kinda snuffed us out.
For LBR3 we got paired up against Rapid Pulse, the 62nd ranked team, which means they earned that spot, it wasn't randomized. The first gametype was Pit TS. We came out strong at the beginning but ended up losing control relatively quickly, but we kept up the pressure until the end where we choked and lost by at least 5 kills. The next gametype was Narrows CTF, which we all knew we were good at. About 30 seconds into the game they had almost complete control and we never concentrated enough on getting it back and maintaining it. We unexpectedly got 3-0'd in our best gametype. I was pretty upset about that game, but overall I wasn't too frustrated that we got 2-0'd by the 62nd ranked team.

After our competition schedule ended and Russell and I went over to mainstage. He was yelling a cheering with a small group of people, making a fool out of himself. Once we finally got seats, which we on the right set of bleachers from the center, second row, on the aisle, we met some people around us, including Vehemency and his friend, sorry I never got names. We talked a while about the teams and games, but once Russell started yelling out again he got on everyone's nerves really fast. He was pretty much being a dick, plain and simple, which didn't help my view of him, which he had already tarnished.
*Carbon vs Classic?

I heard a callout from Puckett from the mic. That Instinct was going to scrim FB in the Dr Pepper booth. I immediately headed over there to try to get them to sign my hat. All they ended up doing was playing FFA because Instinct had a match on mainstage soon. I ended up sneaking up behind them and asking Walshy when he wasn't playing to sign my hat. He did, and as he tried to hand it back I asked to get the whole team and he said sure. When everyone was done Roy ended up handing to me and we had an exchange of "hello"s. Always cool to see/talk to Roy.

In fact, later on while I was waiting for mainstage again, this time farther up in the line, I heard the someone, possibly Shibby, on the microphone saying that Instinct was doing autographs at the Feature Station, which had been turned into a Instinct/Old Spice station. I, again, immediately headed over there to get in the excruciatingly long line. I luckily found one of the Foxy Ricochet guys waiting about 15 people back. I decided to strike up a conversation with him and plant myself in line with him. As I had hoped, the Old Spice girls started handing out red Old Spice string bags, which I saw at Meadows and really wanted to get my hands on. I ended up getting it signed by the team including coach xXx in nice silver sharpie. As soon as I got out of that line I ran back over to the mainstage line and shimmied my way back up front. I also found Jon in the mess of people and since I made it up farther ahead, I offered to get him in when I got picked to go in.
So here is where mainstage on Saturday started getting pretty awesome. It all had started when I started waiting in line to get on mainstage. The rest of the line and I watched the AMP North of 49 vs _______. A large group of them started cheering, jokingly, for DarkScorpian, which turned out to be a sort of fan cheer. I'm pretty sure at one point they also were hatin' on Gregor. But ultimately DarkScorpian was the most memorable. Later on they even started cheering for Sundance who came over to tell them to keep it up. They even asked him to let them all in, which was obviously ignored. Being a fan and trying to get on mainstage is a highly competitive task in itself.

Saturday night after the venue closed we headed over to the Hampton again to LAN with the Podtac guys. It was a lot shorter this time but again it was pretty fun. It was also the last time we saw them since they left midday on Sunday.

Sunday - Str8 breaks the curse and Instinct chokes
To start the day, I skipped a real breakfast because I wanted to head over to get in line for mainstage. I woke up at 10 a little later than I planned (two hours later). When I got in line I weaseled my way up to the front of the line. Eventually it got to some pro matches and the security guard that handles mainstage at all the events, told everyone to sit down because it was going to be a while.

What really sucked about Sunday is, while I was sitting on mainstage, I heard the call out for Instinct vs Classic on the feature station. Then during a lull in matches on mainstage the crowd around me and I heard loud cheers after three of the games over at the feature station and finally we got the news via someone's friend, about Instinct's 1-3 loss to Classic. It sucked to see them lose, getting 5th place, and it also sucked to get beat out by SnowmanHunter, who'll I'll talk about more later.

I also got a lot of texts during the day from Sean wanting me to go up to his room and LAN with him Jon and Russ

I was sitting on mainstage at about 5 pm during the TD/FB series in the LB Finals, and I get this text from the Dr Pepper number 737737 (PEPPER) saying "Congrats! U r the grand prize winner." I was like, WTF? I read it over like three times, and again was like WTF. I quickly checked the text I got when I entered the sweepstakes on Friday and saw I got a bunch of prizes including a seat on mainstage for the Championship match, which was next. Since it only gave me ten minutes to claim it, I just got up and left through the staff area under the mainstage tower. I went over to the Dr Pepper booth and asked the first DP girl I found, for Scott, like it said in the message. She asked if I the number she had written down was my cell phone number, and it was. She then congratulated me and brought me to the front of the booth and we waited for Scott there. He came out to the booth and congratulated me again and told me I was actually the second person to win, the first didn't show up for his thirty minute deadline.

After we finished eating we went back to Sean's room (stopped at desk) and played some 1v1 LAN for a bit, which I'll spotlight in a little extra section after this article. While waiting I went back to the Crowne to drop off some of my gear so I wasn't carrying it for the movie. When I got back we played some 2v2's (Jon and I vs Sean and Russ), until 10:10 pm and left fearing we would be late for the movie. We got there in time for the 10:20 pm movie but had to wait in line for a large group of people buying tickets for a different movie. Russ and I skipped out on concessions while Jon and Sean got some popcorn, drinks and candy. They came into the movie about 5 minutes in and sat with me, while Russ sat in the bad-for-the-neck seats in front. Overall the movie "The Hangover" was hilarious, we all enjoyed it. After heading back to Sean's room, we continued to play some 2v2's and watching films until 3:30 am. I finally said my goodbyes, to Jon and Sean at least, and went back over to the Crowne to get some good sleep.

Monday
Mostly a travel day. I slept til around 11:30, a nice 8 hour sleep. After we got ready to go by noon, an old neighbor who had moved to C'bus picked us up and we went out to breakfast at Bob Evans. After that we went to see their house and visited, it wasn't really for me, more of an adult thing, but I got to check my email and the like while I was there so, whatever. Then around 4pm we left for the airport and then got home around 9pm. Overall Columbus was an awesome event and personally I thought it was better than Meadowlands.
---------------------
Post Columbus
Reflex is still alive. Sean and I will stick together along with two other guys we will pick up. We already have one guy who already lives in Texas over in Houston, Rampage. We also decided to pick up a guys we met in Columbus via the Podtacular guys, Kooshy. We have only been playing as a team for a very limited time but I feel we will do well with some solid practice. Sean and I also want to go with a guy who wanted to coach us ever since we met in Columbus and really had some fun, Snowman Hunter aka Lyckety Splytt aka Mike. Mike is a crazy dude, I really think his coaching would have brought both a fun and skilled aspect to our team game. See you all in Dallas!

Pre Dallas
...Insert updates here...
We changed our line up once again, for the sake of Sean. We now have two guys who live in the greater Dallas area, who we met last year at MLG Dallas 2008, Jared and Reptar. Hopefully it will turn out great!
After a little turmoil caused by Sean leaving the team, and coming back after seeing how much the other team needed work on chemistry, we no longer have Jared and Reptar on the roster. First we had a little stint with Icy Wolf, who is no angry with us because we dropped him for a set of two that we instantly hit it off with and beat Salvation with only an hour of play together, going over no strats whatsoever [http://podtacular.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=25827&start=15 (Post 19, second to last on page 2)]. Bos and Lazy will hopefully be on the team for Dallas. Yes this is the same Bos from C'bus, so we have most of the most successful Reflex roster back. There are some financial troubles going on at the moment so if anything falls through we have Fractured as a potential teammate.