Another day, another blog post! Day 2 would be a little busier than the previous day. Zenith was scheduled to have our second session of boot-camp at the Valve offices followed by an official media session with the Valve publicity/media team.

Naturally, our day started with breakfast. At 7am. To compensate us for the ungodly waking hour, the hotel graciously served us some of the best bacon xFreedom ever tasted. There seemed to be a little more urgency in the air today. Teams finished up their breakfasts promptly and filed over to the lobby (for those boot-camping in the morning session).

All of us were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were assigned a private room for boot-camp. A nice change from yesterday when we had to share the room with EG and Orange. It was a lot more conducive for us because Zenith was the only team out of the 18 that brought mobile speakers (Razer Ferox) to be used during official games and training.

Lunch time at Valve! xFreedom’s favourite time of the day.

Secret strat training time! Tammy and myself had to guard the door (transparent glass walls and door, doh!) to fend away EG’s Fear and Maelk as well as Na`Vi’s Dendi and XBoct.

We were joined by Andrew, a Valve employee in charge of creating effects for DotA 2. So, let us know if there are any effects that you think should be changed in the comments section below. One of the beta testers (bQ) came along as well to say hi to the team.

Matches played today: a bo5 with Orange, bo1 with DK. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to scrim against Darer because we ran out of time.

We were quickly herded back to the Hyatt for a team photoshoot and a series of video interviews. The temperature was very mild today (no jacket required!!) and it was turning out to be a glorious day.

Shall we have some sneaks of the photoshoot?

Sometime during the shoot, news filtered down of MUFC not being able to attend and being officially replaced by either mousesports or World Elite. They would play a bo5 at 5pm PST to determine who would participate. Of course, the guys eagerly ran out of the hotel after the photoshoot to grab some pizza takeout and then crammed into a room to watch the games on the stream. Hooking up the Razer Blade to the huge TV in the room makes for a great viewing experience!

We won’t be able to release any more pictures of the shoot. Do keep a lookout for the photos of all the teams to be released though, it was very professionally and creatively done. What we can release is a video of Zenith horsing around during the photoshoot and making Valve employees smile, cringe and facepalm simultaneously.

Hope you liked this one. More to come as the action officially begins tomorrow! Zenith will be kicking off the entire tournament against LGD at 9am PST. Tune in to Tobi’s stream to support us. Zenith fighting!