WCG Norway 2004 in Starcraft was a very spectacular event. It was a great success in the first place, since Norway was never previously respresented in WCG. This preliminary, however, was except from spectacular also very, very exceptional...It all started out with a group meeting once all the 23 participants had arrived. We talked through the rules, saving replays at all times (regardless of your anger) and much more. We had a couple of communication problems and a few good laughs because of the language difficulties, until we all switched to English.
The group play went smoothly and four groups of eight soon turned into a 16-player double elimination playoffs. All the bigger names advanced to the playoffs, and they were all sitting next to each other. Due to the high number of in-real-life observers, passing through the norweigan section was like coming through this huge wall-in trying to close you out!
The 16-player tournament took its time, thanks to the best out of three in the winner brackets, and a few very long Terran versus Terran matches.
iD.Rapide lost his first winner-bracket match and then fought his way through the loser brackets, all the way until the loser bracket semi-final, where he eventually had to give up to :+:StinGeR:+:.And after this, it all went twisted.
As we had reached this far in the tournament, time was about 06.00 in the morning. So as not to miss their flight,
Slayer and StinGeR had to leave at 08.00. When Eriador[pG] successfully had beaten Slayer, two-one, time was running away... Slayer was about to play his friend StinGeR in a best-out-of-three (loser brackets final) but it ended up in a Marine/SCV rush which StinGeR won. We now realized we had only fourty minutes left to play and GosuGamers Crew, as the tournament host, suggested to pause the preliminaries. Slayer's quick, almost automatic, response was "But that sucks!". He wanted to finish the tournament that morning and gave the win to his friend, without a rematch or any bigger doubt. 
Said and done, StinGeR was in the final versus Eriador. 30 minutes to go and StinGeR and Eriador suggested to play in a best-out-of-three series, where Eriador was in lead with one-nil since he came from winner brackets. Since we were out of time and it was the players' suggestion, we accepted this tournament style and the final started.Eriador as upper left Protoss and StinGeR as down right Zerg at Martian Cross, the game - and the final - was finished quite quickly. Eriador managed to keep StinGeR away from rushing, and soon took control ofthe game. Despite mighty drones defending himself, StinGeR could not hold out against the 12 attacking zealots. Before the match, he did not seem to care at all but once the final was over, StinGeR gave his keyboard a loud bang and rose up quickly, grabbing his bag. He then turned back to some sort of normal state and smiled and thanked Eriador for the game, giving a loud cheerful "GG".
And voila, in fourty minutes Eriador suprisingly won his ticket to San Francisco. Eriador went through this tournament winning 13 of his 14 games!
| WCG Norway 2004 Starcraft |
| 1) Eriador[pG] |
:+:StinGeR:+:3)
=[aBs]=Slayer"It feels very, very good, and somewhat surprising. right now I'm extremely content, I went here with no goals or ambitions other than to have a good time, and I ended up winning while following my pure random principle. Now I will practice tons before the real big event in san fransisco so I can hopefully make an impact there as well.
I guess I have to admit that I was somewhat lucky with my matchups and such through the tourney, but being a random player I kinda depend on that, or at least I depend on not having bad luck. Like, avoiding pvt gorky island. :)"
What will your chances be at WCG Grand Final?
"oh, I don't know really. I do feel I have an advantage in live tourneys simply because I honestly don't become nervous. I was *slightly* nervous before the third winners bracket final game between me and slayer, but still not nervous enough to make me misclick or anything.
I did not practice for this event, I believe I can be at a significantly higher level if I do.
If I'm lucky with my matchups, I believe I can go very far. and likewise, if I have bad luck, I might end up losing in the group stage. but I'm feeling somewhat blessed :)"
Links
BracketMaker.com - Brackets for WCG Norway 2004
