TI6 Reflections

Posted on August 15, 2016

Just got back from a brief excursion to the west coast, and boy was it amazing. Seattle weather was a nice change of pace from the humidity and heat of northern Virginia. It didn’t rain at all during the week of TI, and the city itself was clean too. Apart from the homelessness problem in Seattle, I had no issues with the city. Right when I arrived at Key Arena during Monday, I saw Arteezy and Aui_2000 walking out of the stadium, and my mind went blank. Meeting the personalities was an unreal experience; bumping into people like WinteR and GoDz in the hallways, or talking players like Dendi and PPD was incredible. There was a lot of standing in lines to meet the more popular personalities, but it was all worth it. The games were spectacular too – the Secret vs LGD match on the first day left my voice extremely hoarse after the very first day, and EHOME vs EG was another epic game that also resulted in my favored team letting me down. Despite relatively disappointing performances from the teams I supported, there was always a match up to be hyped about every day. In addition, the production value was seamless. Not a second of downtime, the weatherman Purge segments were great, the panelists were great, and the event was a very smooth experience.

My EX-rank luck came through this TI, granting me five treasures of the crimson witness as random drops throughout the week and a golden imbued trove carafe from my Mirana nendoroid. I managed to collect all the emoticharms excluding the monkey king one, with minor help from my friends. My Wings.shadow autograph gem skyrocketed in price after Wings won TI6. The only unfortunate event that happened during TI was that a bird pooped on me right as I walked out from lunch on Tuesday, but I don’t feel the need to go any further into that.

I’m quite sad that it’s all over now, but I’m excited to see how Valve brings it up another notch next year.