Forming a DRB Tournament Team

[Tehax]

Gents,

One of my goals this year is to begin playing in organized tournaments for DotA2. While I will probably wait until the game is out of beta to get 'serious' about it, it can't hurt to get my feet wet as soon as possible.

As some of you know, almost every big tournament is done on an invite-basis and none of us are on the VIP list. However, there are some legit qualifier-only tournaments out there that I... that we... can get in on the action for.

Specifically, there is a Dota2Replays Brawl coming up this month, and you can read about it here. In short, they are having 4x qualifiers each with room for 16 teams every Sunday around noon (CST) starting the 15th of this month. Once all 64 teams have finished the qualifiers, the top 4 will go on to play for a grand prize of ~$4k. The important thing here, is that it's open to everyone, and thus we can represent [IHG] there.

I know that there's a Competitive Teams section of [IHG], but rather than try and commit to a formal team right up front, I'd like to put together a 'temporary' team just for this tourney. We're literally talking about one Sunday afternoon of gaming (unless we win our bracket of 16 players and then will head to the finals in February).

The goal isn't necessarily to come in 1st place, but rather to get some exposure to the competitive scene and possibly get our name out there a bit as a recruitment effort.

At any rate, I will be contacting a few of you guys either via PM or through Steam to try and get something set up pretty quick as we'll need to register when the doors open on Friday of this week.

If you guys have questions, let me know. Also if any of you have some insight as to how [IHG] plans to handle tournament play in the future, I'd love to hear it. If what I'm proposing conflicts with any of the those plans, then we can drop the [IHG] tags and just enter as a stand-alone team.

Word to your moms.
-hax

[amaziiNG]

i would like to be part of your team

[Tehax]

Awesome, I'll shoot you the details once sign-ups open tomorrow.

We currently have our 5-man roster filled out, but it would be good to have a few guys on the list that can fill in for someone should they not end up being available on tournament day.

We're currently planning to run with:

[IHG] Gofu
[IHG] Fate
[IHG] AwfulWaffle
[IHG] Vexxes
[IHG] Tehax

Adding amaziiNG to the list as a stand-in, and it's probably a good idea to pull in at least one more for that same role.

Once we know our qualifier date, we'll try setting up a few scheduled in-house scrims nights with whoever wants to help us practice.

Should be fun... if not, at least we learned something.

-hax

[Overdos3]

Keep us informed on how it goes, dont want to miss a thing. And GL to you! IHG ftw!

[leoj]

didnt even ask me i'm hurt

[sleisel]

GOOD LUCK

[Tehax]

Jan 5, 2012 7:07:26 GMT -8 Overdos3 said:

Keep us informed on how it goes, dont want to miss a thing.

I'm not sure how replays are stored for private games... does anyone know? I may just have to Fraps record the games real-time. Another option would be to stream our games live. In any case, we'll keep everyone posted.

Jan 5, 2012 7:26:25 GMT -8 leoj said:

didnt even ask me i'm hurt

Don't be. I still haven't played many (or any) games with most of the IHG fellas. I just nabbed a few guys that I had some good experiences with.

If you're really interested in something like this, there's a little less formal open tournament hosted next weekend (SlaughterFest 2012). We could look at throwing something together.

-hax

[Tehax]

Gents,

A few changes have been made to the tournament structure as of yesterday.

First, they are opening up the tourney to more teams, and adding a pre-qualifer match for everyone on the day before the actual qualifer matches. In other words, we'll have to play 2 games on Saturday before our (up to) 4 games on Sunday.

Second, it looks like we can actually have up to 8 people on our roster for the tourney. If you are available and want to get signed up as a stand-in for us, then let me know and I'll get you on the roster.

On Monday, I will be singing us up for Qualifer Round #2. This means that our games will be as follows:

Saturday, January 21st @ 2pm EST (11am PST) - 2 Games
Sunday, January 22nd @ 2pm EST (11am PST) - 4 Games (or until our first loss)

Let me know if you guys have any questions.

-hax

[tragedy]

Those days work for me, I can play if needed

[gofu]

Jan 5, 2012 8:01:00 GMT -8 Tehax said:

Jan 5, 2012 7:07:26 GMT -8 Overdos3 said:

Keep us informed on how it goes, dont want to miss a thing.

I'm not sure how replays are stored for private games... does anyone know? I may just have to Fraps record the games real-time. Another option would be to stream our games live. In any case, we'll keep everyone posted.

I think you can just record a Demo (which might be first person recording) using the record command in console, and it shouldn't really lag you.

[Tehax]

I've used the demo record via console before for TF2 (see an example of a lower-res upload here).

The demo record actually lets me move around the map in TF2 and view from any vantage point (as you can see in the last half of my video). I'm assuming it will let me do the same thing in DotA2. I'll give it a shot.

-hax

[Tehax]

Gentlemen, it's official. We made the cut for the tournament. You can read up on the brackets here.

Our roster was approved as such:

Team Name: [IHG]InHouseGaming
Team Roster:
[IHG] Fate
[IHG] Gofu
[IHG] AwfulWaffle
[IHG] Vexxes
[IHG] Tehax
Backups:
[IHG] Tragedy
[IHG] amaziiNG
Preferred Playing Server: USEast

Tournament times are as follows:
Saturday - 1:45 PM EST (10:45 AM PST)
Pre-Qualifier Round - We will need to win our two games to be able to compete on Sunday. We may play up to 4 games though, and the more we win... the better our bracket placement for Sunday. First game will be against
Sunday - 1:45 PM EST (10:45 AM PST)[/color]
Qualifier Round- If we make it this far, we'll be getting our ass kicked facing off against some professional level teams... including mouseports and Dignitas. If we manage to do well in all 3 games, we'll be up for a shot at the $6k prize pool come February.

***Don't be late or we'll be disqualified, and if you can't be available to play for potentially 4 full hours, then make sure you work something out with amaziiNG or Tragedy so they can take your place.***

Huzzah mofos.

-hax

[gofu]

Oh good, if we win our first match we will only have to play It's Gosu. That should be a good stomp.

[Kowz]

GL guys!

[Tehax]

Jan 20, 2012 14:55:53 GMT -8 gofu said:

Oh good, if we win our first match we will only have to play It's Gosu. That should be a good stomp.

Yeah I saw that... but they're mostly a SC2 group right? So maybe the stomp will be in our favor? Maybe?

Jan 21, 2012 4:38:53 GMT -8 Kowz said:

GL guys!

Thanks man. Odds are against us for sure. Assuming all teams were perfectly equal in skill... odds of us making it into tomorrows tournament are 1 in 4. Let's just hope we're not "equal in skill" ;D

-hax

[gimped]

It's gosu is EZ style, they have players such as bulba, universe, 1437, broodstar and power.net

[Tehax]

...and that's gg.

"Horizon" ended up being some pretty legit players from DotaCash, led by TidesofTime. We went with a pretty traditional comp, and were a bit confused when they ran:

Witch Doctor, Chen, Rhasta, Lich and Huskar.

Come to find out... Shallow Grave + Holy Persuasion means you literally can't kill anyone on their team. Couple that with a Rhasta/Chen push combo and the game was over before it even started.

At any rate, big thanks to Gofu/Fate/Vex/Waffle for letting me tag along. I was able to see the side of competitive DotA that I never saw... the IRC chats with referees and captains, reviewing rules and organizing games. That was my main goal in this and so for that, I say 'thanks'.

I've still got a loooong way to go with this game, so I appreciate the patience you guys extend my way.

Peace easy.

-hax

[lavingiasa]

Good luck!

[Tehax]

Jan 22, 2012 20:45:47 GMT -8 lavingiasa said:

Good luck!