Celestial Tournament LiveBlogging: It Begins!

Blues Brothers time. It's nearing 16GMT, I've got two monitors set up, idling in #gwp, the obs mode window is front and center in my client, I'm waiting for the first match to go live, I've got half a cup of tea, a bowl of chicken broth, it's light outside, I'm wearing corrective lenses, and I have no pants on...

Hit it.


15:55GMT: Not quite sure how I'm going to break this up just yet because, you know, there are going to be a lot of matches to get through this first round. I'm thinking that one post is going to go far too long if I try to do them all justice. And, I'll likely take a break between the first and second round but I'm not sure if I should subdivide further into individual matches or not.

15:56GMT: Crugin's begun his 300 shtick on #gwp.

THE DRUMS OF WAR HAVE BEGAN THEIR BEAT

Oh yeah, this is going to be awesome.

15:58GMT: Hitting up obs mode while I'm waiting. eF seems to be warming up with a build with three W/A, a B/A, a Weapon of Fury Rit (which is awesome, by the way), and an Ele/Rit runner with a two Monk backline. They're actually not doing so well in the early going against ladder#20 World Warz (They've got some kind of jump spike with a three Monk backline.) - three deaths to none by the 6 minute mark and a flag return. Interesting. Don't think this is what they're going to be running with, though, it would be really stupid to broadcast their tourney build minutes before their match but you never know.

15:59GMT: Found one of my dev friends on line as "Admin Whatever". Word is, like previous tournaments, there's going to be an invisible guest in each match to observe the goings on. Make that two devs online as referees. Looks like things are gearing up to start.


16:04GMT: Let's review the fight card here while I'm waiting.

Round One (16GMT):

1. #1 Esoteric Warriors vs #16 Supernova Jpn
2. #2 Idiot Savants vs #15 Zero Files Remaining
3. #3 Mostly Harmless vs #14 [one]
4. #4 Winners Remorse vs #13 Listen To
5. #5 Ominous Latin Name vs #12 Temporal Flux Reality
6. #6 Team Everfrost vs #11 Serious Sin
7. #7 Rus Corp vs #10 Time Is Running
8. #8 Battery Powered Best Friend vs #9 Bambis Dont Say

Round Two (19GMT):

• 9. Winner of Match 1 vs Winner of Match 8
• 10. Winner of Match 2 vs Winner of Match 7
• 11. Winner of Match 3 vs Winner of Match 6
  
• 12. Winner of Match 4 vs Winner of Match 5

Given my predictions, I'm most interested in seeing if my faith in [acid] is misplaced over not. And the 8/9 match-up should be pretty interesting. Then again, an early look at the favorites at the top of the bracket would be nice. Oh, okay, I want to see all of them. If they were on TV, I'd be flipping back and forth across the channels. Fortunately, they're on obs mode and I can watch and rewatch them at my leisure.

16:05GMT: Just had a thought - which team is challenging first here? The rules say it's the team listed first who issues the first challenge, as in the Swiss rounds, but if I'm reading that correctly it means the higher seeded team is going to be the initial challenger. I've made the point before but the team that challenges first has a strong advantage here, logically, shouldn't the higher seed be the one that's rewarded with the greater potential for "home" games?

16:11GMT: Obs mode shows World Warz are up to #19 now, so looks like they won their match against [eF]. Bad omen or just working the rust off?

16:14GMT: Word from #gwp is that [Vibe] just won their first game. Err 7 at the start which lead to a resign wipe.