G-1 League Day Four and Final Blog by ReiNNNN

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Ah. Apologies for being late today with my blog because I was caught up with the after-party which was in a cyber cafe, unfortunately (or  fortunately was it?). I'll talk more about this awesome cyber cafe at the end of the blog post. Today was pretty relax when it came to coverage because the G-1 schedule was very timely and the tournament had a lot of fun events in-between games.

Surprisingly, I woke up by myself at 8am this morning without my alarm clock (4 hours sleep) and I quickly scrambled to the venue, not forgetting to shower of course. After I got to the event place, the first game of the day had not started but I heard from the organizers that DK were 90 seconds away from receiving a default loss due to them being late. Very strict rules in place.

At the same time, dopeshow left his computer at the hotel so that we can finish uploading the bloody Akke interview that we started today at 3am. It took a grand total of 10 hours to upload the 1.3 GB interview but I guess that's understandable. Here's a funny story: We weren't actually uploading the rendered video to Youtube but to Skydrive instead so that our online volunteers could download it to their local machine and upload it to Youtube. We can't access Youtube here. #ChinaInternet

What I didn't realize was that I logged on to my Skydrive at the event and suddenly it popped inside my pea-sized brain, WHAT IF I JUST DISCONNECTED THE UPLOAD??? I ran frantically out of the JiangWan stadium to look for a taxi so that I could reach the hotel asap. Unfortunately, all the taxis were booked and I waited for quite a while until this random driver drove up to me and asked me where I was going. I was dumb enough to get in the car and his first question was literally, "How old are you by the way?". At that point I honestly thought I was going to get kidnapped or raped but thank god, he was just making small talks. In fact, he charged me less than what a standard taxi would charge normally. Making my way into the room and up to the running laptop, I was relieved to find that the upload was still going on. 
 

First pic I took after I went back to the venue. Crazy LGDfans!

 

In any case, I made my way back to the event hall and picked up lunch on the way. From there on, nothing much really happened other than me doing my job, taking pictures of the players and whatnot.

I have to congratulate Alliance for playing excellent Dota today and although I don't think they are as disciplined as LGD, their strats and drafts just smashed the eventual runner-up. As I mentioned in my blog yesterday, LGD were not exactly prepared to face the versatile playstyle of European Dota, one which Alliance showcased in full bloom today. Well not really in the first game. Xiao8 sort of threw the game before it even started by picking up the Broodmother. Really man? Against Keeper of the Light? 

In my conversation with a few of the G-1 staff members, it was interesting to see that most of them were actually rooting for Alliance because they felt that the Chinese teams had been too cocky for a long time now. A big lesson such as the G-1 League is probably needed to give them a good smack on the butt. G-1 League 2013 will now be remembered as the day the West fought back.
 

LGD pretty upset over their loss. Not sure if DD is upset or looking at phone. Thoughts?

 

Exciting stuff that happened today:

 

1. ROTK was REALLY angry at his team after dropping their first game against Orange. I mean he was on full screaming mode for a good ten minutes.

2. I believe iG did not even come to the event today. I saw Zhou but nobody else. (May be wrong)

3. Mushi is extremely grateful they got third because they don't think their form is all that great right now. Definitely not LGD and Alliance's standard

4. Cat and mouse chase trying to pour champagne on each other was pretty exciting. LGD won the real grand final, opening the champagne bottle.

5. Ky.Xy's birthday today. 1,000 people screaming happy birthday at you is pretty awesome. I'm pretty sure it's Akke's girlfriend birthday. Not him.

6. I scribbled "EU DOTA BEST DOTA" on the public signature wall in G-1 League. 

7. s4 received BIG CHEERS from the crowd when he was interviewed after Alliance won. Like Loda-like cheers.

8. We were promised to be brought to the best place for food by XiiTuzi but she brought us to a cyber cafe.

 

To explain more on #8, the cyber cafe Helen brought us to was AMAZING. It has not officially opened but they invited us to test out their new set-up. We had a great chat with the players from Team Liquid and Orange in the cyber cafe, plus you REALLY don't see a net cafe with player booths often. I took some pictures of the net cafe, just click on the spoiler box to check it out.

Razer room, one of the many customized rooms in Injoy cyber cafe

 

Player booth. Xiituzi being a busybody

Overview of InJoy Cyber Cafe