July 4th, 2008: WE'RE IN THE WORLD FINAL!

Before I get into the meat of this blog, I'd like to say Happy Independence Day to all my American friends here and abroad. Our country is 232 today (she doesn't look a day over 175!), and thought times have been tough financially and politically, we still prevail, so to speak.

Now, the last time I did a "what has rebound been doing in LA" blog, we had made playoffs (sort of) with our victory over Los Angeles. Then I did a little special blog about LA winning on Sunday, so let's start from this past Monday.

We arrive at the CGS Offices as the second match of three to be played there. We were surprised when we found out Master lost to Offbeat Ninja, but were too concerned about our match with Chicago to show much reaction to Dallas's win, even though it mean Carolina would be praying to anything and everything that we would beat Chicago. The match was really close, and when it basically came down to Counter-Strike: Source, OptX needed 9 rounds to clinch it. Not only did we do that, but we did end up winning the match proper 10-8, so we were really (for real!) in the playoffs as the #3 seed, and Carolina sneaked in the back door as the #4 seed thanks to tiebreakers.

Tuesday was quite intense, as everyone did everything they could to be ready for Dallas on Wednesday. It would be the fourth time we faced them, and the third time in maybe 2 or 3 weeks, so we knew each others capabilities fairly well. Tuseday night was a 4-hour practice of scrimming entire franchises. We played Berlin and Birmingham to work out a lot of the kinks in our play. We felt ready. We WERE ready. To Wednesday we go, and our playoff match with Dallas. Kat touched on it, and I will again here: Normally there's laughing and joking and lots of activity, but on Wednesday, it was the quietest ride to the Barker Hangar we had ever had. We knew what was at stake. CGS had introduced the idea of the Wild Card for the World Final, so even a loss to Dallas wouldn't be the end of the world, but we all agreed it would have been easier to just beat Dallas and get to the World Final proper that way.

The usual practicing and tech rehearsal aside, the atmosphere was much different. Everyone was quieter, there were more camera crews for pre and post-game interviews. On a lighter note, the OptX.css 70's feature got shown on DirecTV, much to the enjoyment of all. First match was DoA Male, and Chris really did a great job against Master, beating him 5-4 after being down 4-2. stermy^ followed up with a great match too, and Sack and Mix did well to keep Venom from getting really back into it when Muffinman won Forza on TV (finally). We were still in pretty good shape at that point, because Vanessa was gonna play and we could stand toe-to-toe with Dallas's squad. I of course didn't get to watch the DoAF match until after the match was over, but after a couple of rounds, Phoenix really buckled down to beat Vanessa again (imagine the shock from the community!) 5-3, so we're a point down going into the last half of Source, and we need 6 rounds to win it, and we very nearly got to overtime, but Josh was able to find Garett hiding, and with nearly no round time left, got the kill, and the win, and the World Finals berth, and the match versus Carolina, all in one go. If you go back and watch the video, you can see the "we just got punched in the gut" look on everyone's faces. In many ways it was worse than how 3DNY got dominated by Core, because we all played really well and still lost. As Jason Lake would say, "Can't catch a f***ing break."

So we had to bounce back quickly because the Wild Card Qualifiers were taking place the very next day. We NEEDED to win both games, and our first opponent was 3DNY, and for the first time since I've been here, what I said to myself about beating 3DNY came true: As long as you can match up very well against their DoA pair, and keep it close in Forza and CSS, you can win. And that we did, thanks in large part to OptX.css (despite a 10-8 loss) as well as Miximup, who brought home the win for us. We were all on a big high, and it showed a bit when we played London. Vanessa took down Strobe to start, and OptX won Forza by another 5-2 score. In FIFA, it went to penalty kicks (again!) and ChrisyB came out on top with a good stop early on, so Mint got a point back. I had said that Mint was good on dust2 to Kat, but I didn't expect a strong and nasty 7-2 first half. We were down 10-5, and really manned up to get those last three rounds for another 10-8 score. Paddaman played NinjaCW, as JaX stopped by the offices, and when Padda went up 4-1, everyone in the room was like "oh wow, no way..."

But Ninja came back, got the three rounds we needed, and another two besides, and epicly beat Padda 5-4, catapulting OptX into the World Finals. I did a leap in the air, and I think I pulled something...ow. The last 18-24 hours or so have been nice and lazy, as we were able to bask in the fact that we were World Final bound. I was especially happy, because it meant that I didn't have to go back home to New York. Don't get me wrong, I love NYC and the Bronx and my family, but it's not everyday you get to spend a month covering video games and interacting with pro gamers. And now I even get MORE time. Zomg yay.

Well, I'll be tying to keep content on the site as much as possible. It's going to be a bit of time before the Optx have to suit up again, so expect some different and new things, as well as the old mainstays, like this blog, and all the photos I can take without getting yelled at! Happy fragging!

Previous Blogs!

June 30th, 2008 - We've all got a little Jason Lake in us. (Special Edition)
June 27th, 2008 - We're in the Playoffs!
June 21th, 2008 - I'm Bored!
June 19th, 2008 - Live Televised Edition
June 15th, 2008 - Man, what a Weekend!
June 10th, 2008 - I suck at Guitar Hero.
June 9th, 2008 - Rebound meets Jason Lake, plus Team Staff Adventures!
June 8th, 2008 - Mario Kart with Fatal1ty!