The Painful Truth 3v3

In lieu of a mixer, the 2024 Laser Storm Nationals began with a side event 3v3 competition (aptly named for the sponsor, Painful Truth Gaming) and I decided this would be a great opportunity to experience Laser Storm at Family Bowlaway Center, the host site located in Butler, PA.

Teams were determined in a draft-ish style, by literally rolling a 20 sided die to determine who would play with who. What are the chances I’d end up on a team with Logan (Selenago) and Eli (Venom) for this event? Here we are…Not Fast, Just Furious!

Other than at ‘geddon, I have not played Storm in quite awhile. I went inside to check out the arena.

The organizing group had arranged the barriers for the voted upon floor plan (or is it a ceiling plan since they actually hang from above?).

I checked for the energizers, knowing I’d be spending some time here.

And I figured I’d better take this opportunity to check out the base too (knowing the likelihood of my getting anywhere near it during the games!) :)

Ok, teams were made, let the games begin!

This event began with a round robin that didn’t quite go “round”, but did afford each of the ten teams a chance to face off against one of the others as something of a “warm-up” round before heading into the double elimination round. During our first of these matches Logan must have gotten a quirky pack. I am not one to typically say that, but that’s is the only possible way on earth I could ever have gotten a higher score than Logan in Laser Storm (even if it was only by 11 points), so I respectfully acknowledge that this was simply how the cookie crumbled for him (and our team).

In the second elimination game I can’t account for who was on what pack because we didn’t card in at that point. It made no difference, we were out of this one early, but for me it was my one opportunity to play before the more serious weekend competition got under way with the nationals players.

Congratulations to team RNG who took first place in this 3v3 event.

Thank you also to Chache for running this side event. I enjoyed getting to have this experience, but my main purpose for attending this weekend was something completely different, so when the 3v3 was over I headed over to the hotel and called it an early night in preparation for the following day (the official start of nationals) being an opportunity to set up a display to honor the game that brought all these exceptional players out to this tournament.