The tournament of surprises

As you may well all know, I went to Warzone i-Cafe to observe the GE tournament for the Nationals which will happen on Sept. 15. Needless to say, going there was a major pain because I nearly got myself lost and walking under the scorching heat of the afternoon sun wasn't my idea of fun.

But then again, I digress.

Anyway, I arrived late, but thankfully, the match hasn't started yet. There were a total of 6 teams that joined, including 2 teams from CARNAGE, and one of each for Spartan, Ventorealle, Ad Infinitum and PinoyAllStars.

The matches, which were held in Liberty Colosseum, sported the players in pre-made accounts which featured characters in level 100 status. With a given budget of Vis, they spent their money on purchasing the necessary items such as bullets, potions and buffs.

To give you an idea on the battles that were, here's my recap of the preliminary matches that transpired:

First Match: Spartan v. CARNAGE 2

The members from Spartan Faction thought of circling the area to try to get first dibs on their opponent's home base. But the initial clash in the middle of the colosseum left most of them at the mercy of the CARNAGE team who awaited them, spamming skills wherever they went.

WINNER: CARNAGE 2

Second Match: Ventorealle v. CARNAGE 1

This was probably one of the swiftest victories for CARNAGE. Ventorealle did put up a resistance against their opponents, but had to concede after taking up a heavy beating.

WINNER: CARNAGE 1

Third Match: Ad Infinitum v. PinoyAllStars

The initial meet-up at the middle of the colosseum was rather exciting to watch. Neither teams wanted to go down so easily, despite the fact that most of their members had already fallen back. PinoyAllStars was quick to resurrect their fallen comrades, thereby providing them with the much-needed force to counter Ad Infinitum's offense.

WINNER: PinoyAllStars

Qualifying Round

The winning teams drew lots to determine the wildcard team and the other pair who will battle it out before taking on the wildcard. The winner for this round would then challenge the winner over at Gamefrog i-Cafe to determine the finalist who will go to the Nationals.

CARNAGE 1 v. PinoyAllStars

Contrary to CARNAGE 1's early victory was a stark contrast to this match. A lot of mishaps happened, starting with the team member's actions to take down the beacons before wiping out their enemies. GE PH Team Philippine rep Overseer who was part of this group was engaging enemies single-handedly, which ultimately led to most of the party's early demise. Ino, who was also within the ranks, was the only one left alive. The opposing team split their forces to stand guard over the fallen CARNAGE members, making sure that the sole survivor did not come back to resurrect his teammates. The other half made way for the CARNAGE beacon, which they successfully conquered.

WINNER: PinoyAllStars

CARNAGE 2 v. PinoyAllStars

CARNAGE Vice Faction Leader Infernalz led the second contingent of the team, going in for an aggressive strategy. Since this was a best of three match, everyone was in their high spirits when the matches took place. The first match saw to CARNAGE 2's victory, but the succeeding ones were won over by PinoyAllStars, who were quick to spam skills and take down their opponents.

WARZONE CHAMPS: PinoyAllStars

Final Match: PinoyAllStars v. Renaissance (Gamefrog)

This best of three match saw the skills of these factions who belonged to the non-PK servers of Pachelbel and Carracci respectively. PinoyAllStars was aggressive from the very beginning, winning the first match with ease. However on the 2nd one, Renaissance changes strategies by not going directly to the middle of the colosseum, but instead went straight to the enemy base. PinoyAllStars, however, was quick to counter their plans. A few Renaissance members appeared in the middle of the place, where PinoyAllStars waited. Skills rained all over, but the Pachelbel team was quick to resu their fallen, thereby suppressing the attacks.

OVERALL CHAMP: PinoyAllStars

Having watched all matches, I only have one thing to say, and that's to ALWAYS be careful in buying your stuff. Most of the errors were done at this early stage, with some players mistakenly buying rifle bullets instead of those for pistols, while others erroneously alloted mana potions to their hot keys instead of healing potions. Heck, I'm no expert in PVPs, but as they say, it always pays to double check on your plans and strategies before heading off.

Veya and I had a roll teasing the CARNAGE guys over this minor episode though. Hehe.

And because I was busy covering the matches, I was only able to take a few minutes peek at the Vergo event. Well, the peek was quite long for some of the summoned bosses to kill my girls with much ease. Harhar. If ever Harbin gets to read this, I apologize for unceremoniously disappearing at the height of the event.

Anyway, enough with formalities...let's get on with the pic spammage!

That's CARNAGE's Sprikitik's mop of unruly hair. He was probably one of the loudest bunch during the matches. And incidentally, his lineup composed of a Musketeer, but he didn't buy bullets for the pistols during the first match. Genius, I say! XD

No serious moments for Seighart of CARNAGE. XP

Spot teh CARNAGE peepz: Ino, Overseer, Seighart, Infernalz, AquinoYap, Spirikitik & IIZordicII

The Champs: PinoyAllStars

Family update + National tournament

Two angels and a bear

Many thanks to RCM Hrin once again! Alaena is now a proud owner of a nice pair of Divine Angel Wings!

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In other news, today marks the start of the National PvP Tournament. As we speak, the tournaments in Mindanao and in NCR have begun. But there are more tournament venues and schedules up next, so if you plan to join, there's still time!

Café Name/ Venue	Address	Date
Crashproof	Rommel Bldg., Lower Bonifacio St., Baguio City (Pending new café address)	8-Sep
Kamote.com	Malolos, Bulacan	14-Sep
Gamefrog/ Warzone2020	Metrowalk, Pasig City/ Leon Guinto, Vito Cruz	8-Sep
Stargate Cyber Hub	Shopwise Sucat, Paranaque	7-Sep
K2 Phoenix	Ortigas Extension, Cainta, Rizal	14-Sep
Gol's Internet Café	Talamban (USC Talamban Campus), Cebu	8-Sep
Big bozz icafe	Pabayo, Hayes, Cagayan de Oro	7-Sep
Suki.com	Roxas Ave. Davao City	7-Sep

Take note that the winners for these areas will have their final face-off on September 15's Commercial Launch Party in One Esplanade! As for me, I'll be going to the Warzone i-Cafe to cover the event there. NineMoons, on the other hand, did say she was going to the Gamefrog i-Cafe to watch the happenings there.

And don't forget the Vergo Part 2 event! See ya!

this is what adrenaline rush is all about

Okay, so I haven't updated this blog for the longest time. XD I'm still trying to stick to the original plan of having this blog as the "journal" of the DeSanggria sisters, so it still takes quite some time for me to write their adventures in detail (complete with screencaps!).

All I can say is, the girls are moving at a slow pace. Blame it on the fact that I can't play here at work as often as I wanted. I'm trying to cope up with this by going to work early so I'd still have an hour or two to play before official work starts.

teamPH.jpg

Anyway, the reason for this sudden update in this blog is to recount the recent Granado Espada PvP Tournament Finals last June 16 at the Toycon event in Megamall. 16 best GE players (with 2 of the lot in Singapore to personally attend the Zouk Raid Party) represented the country in this first-ever tournament. I personally met the 14 players from NCR, Central Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, and I have to say that they were really quite something. Two of these players are my personal friends, namely the Stormgeist and Crowe family. To identify them from the massive crowd in the venue, they wore awesome GE Team Philippines jackets.

I was quite surprised to learn that during the semi-finals, Team Philippines had to compete with each other to get a spot in the finals. Like, WTF?! I shared the players' sentiments of disbelief on this. I even heard them conversing about strategies and all that other stuff, thinking that they were to play as one team against Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. Each team had only one chance to advance to the next round. The first ones to emerge victorious were Crowe and Stormgeist, oGTO and DeathAngel, Street and Arcleaumont and Tresspassing and wattz. Then from this batch, Street and Arcleaumont and Stormgeist and Crowe were pitted against each other with the former team finally winning the much coveted spot.*

Here are just some of my observations during the competition proper:

- The lag was just horrible. It took the system more than 3 seconds to respond to the players' commands. Most of the teams had to bear the brunt of this problem as they were knocked off the race. I personally saw the frustration of Stormgeist and Crowe as they just took the beating from Street and Arcleaumont without much struggle.

- The veteran stances and armors/costumes had us all drooling uncontrollably as we watched the players try these out

teamPH1.jpg

in a practice match. Since they only had the 5 classes plus Emilia the Sage to familiarize, seeing those maxed out stances at work was like waving chocolate under my nose. I want my girls to have those stances! Hopefully it wouldn't take me too long to have them attain the appropriate level. *crosses fingers*

- Seeing the pros at work made me realize that I'm basically a n00b when it comes to game controls. I really need to brush up on that.

I was also tasked to talk to the crowd in the GE segment of Toycon, so I wore my Elementalist Robe of Fire yet again. Funny that I didn't feel the butterflies when I went onstage...and that was a good thing I guess.

Meanwhile, after Street and Arcleaumont were proclaimed as the official team to battle against the other SEA GE gamers, we got the shock of our lives when we heard the news of Ino and Overseer's (the one team that when to Singapore) defeat in the tourney, leaving Street and Arcleaumont as the lone PH team.

And then afterward, we learned that the Singapore Team was also knocked off the race.

GEvan.jpg

You can just imagine the tension come the finals, and we saw that very same pressure reflected on the team. The tension was even heightened all the more when we all had to wait for Vietnam and Malaysia to arrive on the PvP room.

When the moment of truth finally arrived, we were all cheering for the lone PH team as they came face to face with the Vietnames team. But alas, they were defeated in the first and second round. The opposing team apparently had a lot of pots, and we had to contend with the lag on top of everything. I saw the frustration on Street and Arcleaumont as they tried to take a hit on the opponents, only to find their HPs replenished.

But what the heck, we finished at 3rd place, which was not too bad Team PH won special awards such as the MVP and Most Supporting Team Award. Arcleaumont corrected us with this, so that means Team PH didn't win a runner up spot, but that's ok. There's always next year's tourney and I'm definitely going to fight for better connections so the gamers won't experience the same horrible lag. I just feel that we'd have given the regional GE gamers a run for their money if not for that godforsaken technical problem. I'd have wanted a rematch, if you ask me.

I can still feel the adrenaline rush after the tournament was finished and I'm very thrilled to have witnessed the first PvP tourney. It was also nice to have met fellow GE gamer/blogger NineMoons and Mena. I hope we have more events like these, and perhaps a grand EB for all GE gamers. Hopefully by then, I'd have my Idge costume ready (it's kinda lame to be using the same costume thrice in a row already XD).

This is definitely one of the reasons why I love this game. I hope one day I can pit my own girls in a heated PvP match, but I still have to train and familiarize myself with the game's intricacies before I jump from one task to another. Nevertheless, this experience made me want to strive harder, and I definitely will.

Long live Granado Espada!

Mission accomplished

*source: NineMoons Family