The NASL S1 finals: On production, caster choices, and how epic games trump all complaints

I set aside a couple of hours this weekend in lieu of washing my car, organizing shelves, not seeing Kevin Smith’s latest movie etc. to watch the Championship (the entire event was confusingly named “Grand Finals”) weekend of the North American Star League Season 1. Looking intently on the success of the league since the announcement that announced the announcement of Clash of The Titans, I was ready to look past all of the criticism that was shown by the TL, Reddit, and /v/ communities and was prepared to be blown away by the sheer awesomeness that was ESPORTS in America.

That first day almost made me lose hope.

Production - Too many Michael J. Fox jokes to handle

There is one word that the crew working the event should learn, and it’s “preparation.” There is an unbelievable amount of preparation that goes on with these types of events to make them look, sound, and let the audience feel like they’re either a) experiencing the action as if they were in the room or b) convinced to be a returning customer; preferably both of the above. Granted, you may not be prepared for every situation, but you can circumvent some with some quick wit and a copy of Photoshop lying around.

[caption id=”attachment_17” align=”aligncenter” width=”518” caption=”This would have been a lot better than what you ended up showing.”][/caption]

That was only the tip of the iceberg. Throughout the entire event, it was evident that the camera setup wasn’t too well thought out. The casters’ desk used the same camera as the wide shot of the stage, and I don’t think using the same type lens would work for the close up. Movements (on tripod) were pretty jittery at times, and although I wouldn’t expect high-end Arri Alexa camera systems, I’d hope it would be better than this.

And then there were the sound issues.

Holy mother of christ who let this happen? Even if I wasn’t there I’d sure as hell know that the projector issue would be completely isolated from an entire soundboard gone awry with bad leveling, mediocre gain, and pops everywhere. This was definitely the worst offender of any of the problems, and was what probably caused all of the outrage that fateful Friday afternoon when everyone was expecting good ol’ SC2 matches. Ever heard of a soundcheck?

I was about to give up on it, but knew how the first two weeks of the group play were bumpy and how they got things up to speed quickly, and was expecting them to quickly avert these crises going on during the rest of the weekend. Luckily, I’d say they did a good job with Days 2 and 3 of production. I’m probably not gonna go into nit-picky mode about the intro videos, graphics and such, but still there was work to be done. A quick suggestion: Hire a separate production crew just for the live events you’re going to have. To me that would be more of an image improvement than anything else.

 Casters - All complaints are exaggerated

As above, the event was pretty enjoyable as far as casting went. We saw the Tastosis everyone knew and loved, with such memorable lines as “The Drones are coming out to make a citizens’ arrest” and the funny reactions during the musical performance. No doubt about it, their presence lightened the mood of the spectators watching at home as I was thinking less and less of the issues that preceded them. I think they even casted more matches than they were supposed to on the second day, which would seem to be damage control but nonetheless enjoyable for all.

Gretorp + iNcontroL really showed their true colors throughout this event. Or should I say, they finally had color at all! I didn’t watch too many of the group play matches throughout the season but from what I remember it wasn’t full of too much enthusiasm that the casters spoke during every game. This really showed when I wasn’t particularly impressed with the casting of BoxeR vs IdrA with Gretorp and Xeris (lol) as they seemed quite… bored. [caption id=”attachment_20” align=”aligncenter” width=”436” caption=”“Whoa dude, did those tanks just wipe out the whole ground army?”“Yeah, I guess that’s kinda neat.””][/caption]

Day[9], a rumored guest caster from the start was particularly in the spotlight, not only doing introductions on stage (a role which all of the casters took turns doing) but his round-robin with Gretorp and iNcontroL. With a mainly analytical pro player sitting next to him, I think we saw a bit of Sean’s lighter side, doing mostly play-by-play and bringing out the tasteful jokes, and he flowed pretty well with his casting partners.

So definitely no complaining here. To those who think it was a bad idea that Gretorp + iNcontroL casted the finals, that’s something I really can’t argue about too much as there’s reasons to be on both sides of the fence.

Players & Matches: a.k.a. the saviors of the event

Even if I were to add up all of the criticisms of the NASL compared to other American attempts at getting StarCraft II out to the masses, one thing still stood for them: the players. 50 of the best players from all over the world - names like IdrA, July, KiWiKaKi, Moon, White-ra and SlayerS_BoxeR graced the first season with some spectacular games, and it was no exception for the Grand Finals event. Here’s a few of the players that had a journey that would definitely not be forgotten:

**DarkForce - **After having a not so notable run in the group stages, he narrowly slipped into the top 16. Formerly slated to face Strelok, his first match was against open bracket runner-up aLive, who simply loved early pressure. His initial attempts to try and counter cost him in worker count, but he managed to hold through with solid macro and good unit compositions. Next came an even tougher match up against Sen. First game’s early pressure cost him a bunch, but game 2 swung it back into his favor, only to be thwarted by a +1 roach counter in game 3. Spectators were definitely attracted to his cheerful reaction after winning game 2 in addition to his upbeat post-game interview.

[caption id=”attachment_24” align=”aligncenter” width=”242” caption=”This guy’s manner could light up the darkest of caves”][/caption]

**MinChul - **It would be crazy to not call this guy a fan favorite, since his tournament history (2 GSL Code-S titles and 2011 DHS Invitational winner) tells his story itself. He swept his series’ against BoxeR and SeleCT, crediting them to the wonderful Stargate and announcing to the world that “Phoenix are imba”. This led to what would’ve been a spectacular finals match against Sen. He kept on with his tried and true Stargate play against Sen’s baneling bombs, but it was a back-and-forth game 5 on Metalopolis with plenty of HTs and Stalkers to counter the ling hydra infestor army of Sen to narrowly take that close series 3-2. The finals… you’ll have to watch that yourself.

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I couldn’t possibly grade this event with all of the factors involved, but in my book - it definitely gets a thumbs up. Those were pretty much the best finals to any tournament I’ve seen so far this year, pretty damn close to Dreamhack Summer’s games.

Come to think of it, that’s one thing that the NASL got the GSL beat on.