As I walked into the venue, I realized I had no idea what to expect.

At the far back was a brick wall with a Red Bull banner draped across it. At the right was a booth, cameras and monitors with loads of short videos running across them and folks making those videos. On the left was a long table with a black cloth adorning it, chairs on one side and lots of space on the other.

A red carpet rolled up to the back wall, which split left and right at the bricks, both leading into a dark room with low hums of red and blue light. They mixed into a comfortable purple at points and gave a relaxing, chilled-out vibe. Once you stepped through either door, there was bar spanning the entirety of the wall opposite the banner, with a bright blue backlight and several bartenders ready to take your order - your choice of spirit mixed with the sponsor’s drink or either one separate. Nearby, there were three or four small tables to stand near and rest a drink on. There were also a few stairs to walk down to reach the main seating in the arena – just a bunch of padded fold-out chairs.

At the front, where the light was the most vibrant, sat two chairs with a large divider between them. In front of each chair was a computer monitor – the rest of the setup wasn’t visible.

That’s where everyone’s attention would be drawn. Those two computers. Split off into three sections, left, middle and right, with space for walking in between the three, the crowd would cheer when the players made their way past the bar area and walked towards their stations.

There, they would compete for glory and, more importantly, prize money.

This was Red Bull Battlegrounds Detroit – the first, and only, StarCraft II tournament to be held in the Midwest.

And I was there. Sharing it with people I loved.

Detroit was a fun city. I’d been there a few times before, once just to hang out with a friend who lived there and the other time to be the best man at his wedding. I’d gone gambling at Greektown and Motor City Casino, caught a Lions and Tigers game in the same night and found myself ordering food at a Wendy’s that was literally as well guarded as a bank was.

But I’d never been there for something like this. Heck, I’d never been to something like this at all.

StarCraft II was once one of the biggest esports on the planet, just think competitive video games, like any other sport, really. If you don’t play basketball but enjoy watching it, that’s the same concept as watching StarCraft and either not playing it or not playing it well. I fell into the latter. Despite a deep love for the game, I just wasn’t any good.

But some people were. And what they were able to do on the keyboard was magical. A real-time strategy game, StarCraft asks its players to manage an economy with workers to gather resources to fund an army to crush their opponents while they do the same thing. It’s a game of mistakes, especially when top players are capable of over 400 meaningful actions per minute on a keyboard. And if that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is.

It’s a very viewer friendly game, with some mods introduced by its grassroots community to reduce clutter and improve the information displayed at times, approved by developer Blizzard, making the game easy for newcomers to generally understand. Two armies clash and the one that looks like it won the engagement probably did. And if you’re still in the dark, there’s commentators calling the action as well. While the nuance of the game would be lost on the casual observer, hardcore fans can appreciate each decision made by top players.

I’d made the trip down to my brother’s house, about an hour or two away, and together with he and his son, we traveled back north to the show. The two of them were both big into StarCraft, something I wasn’t aware of until I casually tweeted that I was super into a tournament that was going on. My brother noticed it and from then on, that was a topic of discussion he and I could share. He’s older than me, almost by a decade, and relating to him was difficult. By time I was old enough to give a darn about him, he’d flown the nest to start his future.

In his early 20s, he had his first kid – my nephew who was going to the show with us. At that time, I was just turning into a teenager. Despite growing up with older two brothers, I never grew up with them. There aren’t too many memories of us really doing anything together when I was younger. Most of those were formed after they’d already left.

Having a common interest to share was something I cherished and wasn’t going to let go of easily. I asked if he’d seen there was a tournament coming to Detroit, which wasn’t far away for either of us, and if he wanted to go. Much to my surprise, he said he was going to ask me the same thing. Both he and I were going to go anyway, it turned out, and we each knew the other would probably want to go too. Easy enough to ask and decide.

The drive was dull, but Detroit was as lovely as ever. Despite being hot and humid, the city was easy to navigate and downtown was relaxing to walk around in. There’s lots of awful things said about Detroit, and while there’s loads of truth in much of it, that’s just as true for big city, really. For cities like this, you’ve got to know where to go and when to go. When I first went to Detroit, I stayed on Five Mile Road. You’ve heard of Eight Mile, right? Made famous by that movie? Well that was just three miles away.

That’s not the best place to be. Not the most fun place. Downtown though? Where the money is? That’s a fine place to enjoy yourself in.

I led the way, walking in front of my brother and nephew as if I knew where I was going. While I’d been here a few times, it’s not like I was an expert. Still, I figured I knew the path after our rideshare got us the majority of the way there. Sure enough, the way everyone else was going turned out to be the way to go.

Plastered to the front of the venue’s door was a white sheet of paper with a notice printed on it. Upon entering, we consented to being recorded and put on video. A major tournament in the StarCraft scene, this was being broadcast online with thousands of viewers tuning in to see some top competition. Once you opened that door and walked in, a guy checked to make sure you had your wristband. It was this threaded bracelet that bore the Red Bull logo and was proof of your purchase to enter.

It was a three-day tournament, with each day starting in the early morning, like around 10 or 11 a.m., and most days would last almost eight hours, maybe nine or 10. That’s a lot StarCraft to watch and enjoy, but it’s also an exhausting amount of nothing to do.

Sitting in a dark room with only low hums of red and blue light on your sides in padded foldout chairs watching top players play StarCraft for hours on end sounds like a wonderful time if you’re into that. And since we were, it was. But at the end of the day, the three of us were actually wanting nothing more than to retreat back to our hotel room and sleep.

But, you know, you’ve got to eat. And you’ve got to of course talk about all the cool strategies and everything you saw.

Seeing a top player bust out a goofy strategy that boiled down to just massing one particular unit that is usually only built once or twice and winning had us in stitches that he even tried it at all and, amazed that it worked. And then living landmines hidden beneath unsuspecting armies and then detonating in a delectable explosion had us howling with cheer even after the games were done.

My nephew was the same age I was when he was born, just now a teenager. He’d never really beaten me in a game of StarCraft, but he’d gotten close. Of the three playable races in the game, he went with the gilded aliens with fantastical technology called the Protoss. Though slow and expensive to build, once his army walked the battlefield, it was probably game over for his opponent. It rewarded a safe and deliberate style of play, with a focus on early defense and late-game destruction with overwhelming power.

The race I chose, the insectoid swarm known as the Zerg, were full of cheap and brittle units, easy and inexpensive to make and quick to attack, though just as quickly removed from the battlefield if you weren’t paying attention or your control wasn’t on point. It was up to me to make sure the Protoss couldn’t amass its army and up to the Protoss to hold off my aggression.

My brother played the other race, the Terran, a humanoid army made up of prisoners who could either languish in a cell or die on the battlefield for the glory of mankind. It was the thinking man’s race, one that rewarded reading its opponent by scouting and predicting what they would do. It also had multiple ways to approach each matchup. Every game against a Terran was a new experience, and there’s a reason why a Terran vs. Terran matchup was considered a chess game instead of a StarCraft one.

We’d gathered together before several times at my brother’s house to watch online tournaments and cheer with the live crowd, challenging each other to games of StarCraft during downtime. But getting to see players play the races of our choosing at a top level in person was a special experience. It took a common interest we all enjoyed and turned it to the maximum. There wasn’t any shame in showing your love for a video game that made you happy, especially if everyone else in the arena felt the same. Especially if it was family.

My favorite player was attending the tournament. It might sound weird to an outside observer for someone to have a favorite StarCraft player, but if people can revere Michael Jordan and buy his shoes because he was good at basketball, then I can fawn over a South Korean player named Jaedong.

Known as The Tyrant because of his dominant play in StarCraft 1, Jaedong, a Zerg player, was aggressive, but thoughtful in how he approached his opponents. He’d poke and prod with cheap units on one front and when his opponent took the bait, run an entirely unscouted battalion of other units into the flank, resulting in major damage. But he wasn’t predictable. Sometimes he’d use no aggression and sit back and play defense, something that race wasn’t known for but something he could make work. I could never, not in a million years, accurately describe how Jaedong worked his magic so well.

In the world of StarCraft 1, he was one of the few top players on the planet that was so utterly dominant he received an honorific, bonjwa. Bone-juh-wah. It meant you were really, really good at the game.

But when he made the transition to StarCraft II, his skills had trouble making the move with him. He wasn’t nearly as dominant as he was, but he still took some wins and it was only a matter of time before he finally broke through that glass ceiling and became the greatest StarCraft II player ever, right?

And he was at this tournament. And he was going to win! And I was going to meet him!

At least, that was the hope.

You were given a pair of thundersticks for free when you entered the venue. They were these long tubes that you inflated with your mouth, kind of like a float for a swimming pool. One was red, and of course the other was blue. When you inflated them and wanged them together, they made a very loud sound that, despite that, wasn’t very uncomfortable to hear. And when an entire crowd of StarCraft nuts are banging their thundersticks together for a major play, you felt like you were part of the moment. Because you were. You were the crowd that made the online audience get more into the game - our cheering enhanced the experience for everyone, even those not there.

In between games, pro players, that is to say people who made a living playing StarCraft at a high level through sponsorships or prize money or both, conducted signings at that table near the entrance. The PA would announce that a certain team was doing signings or that some players were now available at the front and that if you were interested, you’d better get moving.

I had purchased a mousepad for myself a while ago that featured two major characters in StarCraft battling it out, a cutscene from the game illustrated into a still image. I’d had that pretty big actually mousepad rolled up as tightly as it would go into my pocket and flopped it out onto the table in front of all sorts of pro players, asking them if they could sign it. My nephew purchased a Red Bull mousepad at the event and had players sign his.

My brother, though, chose to not seek the autographs and instead focused on keeping our seats safe – which became harder to do as the event wore on. The hype grew and more and more people were hearing of the tournament. It only made sense that as the contest progressed, more people would be interested in showing up to see the top of the top fight it out. And, you know, 10 hours of sitting down and watching StarCraft in person isn’t exactly easy to do. Hanging out for the top 8? Way easier.

Since he said for us to go on and that he’d rather watch the seats, it was up to me to keep my nephew safe and make sure he was having a good time. Not only that, it felt like I needed to have a good time for my brother’s sake too, since he was alone in that dark room trying to keep a pair of seats free. I felt a tinge of guilt, but knew what I had to do.

I stopped to get pictures from anyone who looked like they had a spare moment. Professional players who were in the venue and just chilling were fair game, I thought, as were any commentators and community figures. If you were at the table, you were literally asking for it.

-Hey, you’re Nathanias, right? My nephew is a big fan of yours. Me too! Can we get a picture?

Just a commentator and not a pro player himself, Nathanias was a cool guy. Shorter in person than you’d think, but nice and accommodating. Each personality at the event was that way, really. Everyone had time to take a picture with my nephew. Some took some with me too. But one stood above the rest. One day, during the tournament, the PA announced that Jaedong was at the table.

My nephew and I shared a look and met with widened eyes. My brother looked over at us and shared the same look, but in an intentionally silly way to get us laughing. While he was my favorite player and not theirs, it was still something to remark at – Jaedong was a legend of the game.

It was easy enough to approach him, but I felt my voice kind of quiver when I introduced myself. Told him my name and offered my hand out to him. He shook it and bent down to sign my mousepad. I handed my phone to my nephew and tried to smile while not showing any signs of freaking out that Jaedong was standing right next to me.

The night before the event began, we stopped at a store and purchased markers so the players would have something to sign with in case the venue didn’t have any markers, as unlikely as that seemed, or ran out of markers or didn’t have good colors – far more likely.

My mousepad, having its primary colors be black and dark blue, I went with a bright silver marker pen. In some areas, an event-supplied pink showed up nicely too on it. My nephew, his main color being red, got to use black mostly. It went well for the both of us.

When not taking in StarCraft, we took in the city. There were loads of places nearby to eat at. One was a place that basically said if you want meat on a sandwich, this is your place. And I mean, meat. If you could legally kill and eat this animal, and wanted it served on a sandwich, this place was your bliss. I don’t know the name, but I know that if you ate there more than once in your life, your odds of dying probably skyrocketed.

It was a sandwich with like four different kinds of meat, so I guess chicken, turkey, ham and beef? All slammed together between two pieces of bread. Sourdough, I think. The increased rate of mortality was worth it though. It was a taste experience like nothing I’d ever even thought could exist. Had these curly fries too. It sounds like I’m describing an Arby’s, doesn’t it? No way. That places wishes it was this place.

Later on during our time there, we traveled to a Greek restaurant. I’d never been too adventurous when it came to food, so I probably went with something basic like a steak or pasta, but I tried something called baklava when my brother ordered one. Man, that’s literally just dough and honey stacked on top of each other in some cake form that was difficult to swallow in how rich it was. Each bite spiked your blood sugar and while it was hard to eat, the sweetness wouldn’t let you stop.

I always offered to pay, but my brother said he’d had it covered. He was in a better spot than me and was footing most of this trip himself. I felt bad. While I was only a newspaper reporter in a small town of around 10,000 people, I did OK for myself I thought. I figured that I could help in some places during the trip, even if there was no way I could do the whole thing. I knew not to kid myself, I knew what I could and couldn’t do, but I felt like I had to try. I at least had to offer, right? I mean, my nephew’s right there watching me eat on his dad’s expense.

I’d always compared myself to my brother, probably unfairly too. Doesn’t every little brother? I really had no one else to compare myself with. While I didn’t try to follow in his footsteps, I’d fail if I did that, I did take note of what he did at ages that I had reached, and later surpassed, and wondered if that was what I was supposed to do too.

Should I have already had a kid? Should I have been married? I was single, no kids. Didn’t own a house. Just recently bought my first car. Moved out later than he did. Was his way the way you’re supposed to do things? It seemed to be working for him. Like really well. The only thing I could say I’d done better, or well, at least did first, was graduate from a four-year university but that was only because he chose another path and went for his degree after that. He didn’t even need the dang thing to be a success and was working on his masters while we were on this trip.

Sometimes, it got a little much to think about. Still, I knew I could do my part by continuing to volunteer what little I could to help out as best that I could. Even if it wasn’t monetary, I could still offer to hold the seats while they got up to stretch. Or offer to bring them something back to drink when I got up to get something – sometimes do that without even offering it in the first place. A nice surprise to bring back to them. And if they didn’t drink it immediately, hey, it was there for later and it’s the thought that counts, right?

Take note of the strategies being employed and share the nuances that I noticed when we discussed games later during the day. Try to keep the itinerary in place and make good suggestions for where we could go and what we could do. Not only had I been to Detroit a few times before, I had a friend who lived nearby and could ask him for suggestions. He actually came and hung out with us one day.

When we went back to the hotel, we’d sit on the beds and look at our phones to see what had gone on during the day since we spent most of it doing StarCraft stuff. My nephew had brought some premade Magic the Gathering decks too and he offered me a choice of which color to play, blue or green.

It didn’t matter which deck I chose, he’d play the other and promised that each was of a similar power. No tricks. And he beat me every time.

I’d throw my cards down, feigning anger and disgust and glanced over to see my brother passed out, asleep on the bed across from us. My nephew and I shared the other bed, so as to not disturb him. He’d had a long day. It’s a drain to watch that much StarCraft.

On the last night of our stay in Detroit and after Polt, a South Korean Terran, defeated Taeja, another South Korean Terran, in the grand finals, we decided to eat in our hotel.

It was dimly lit in an ambient purple, a color we’d already had enough of, with tall windows that showcased the skyline of the surrounding buildings that made up Detroit proper. We chomped on hamburgers and talked about how great the tournament was.

The players we got to see and chat with. The pictures we took and the memories that we’ll be taking back. While my nephew and I were sharing what we did, my brother was just nodding and smiling that we were able to enjoy it so much. He said he liked watching the games. I think he might have felt out of place and didn’t want to say anything but, well, at least his brother and son got to act like kids in front of these players. It was up to him to make sure things went without a hitch. That we were fed and had a place to sleep. That we didn’t have to worry about the money part.

But when his younger brother, again, offered to pay for dinner, he might have looked relieved? I don’t know, but he finally relented. I might have just bothered him enough for him to give in. It was more expensive than I was expecting, but I was happy to foot the bill.

For the first time, and at the end of the trip, I felt like I got to show that I cared about this as much as he did. That I was just as invested in the safety and success of our miniature vacation as he was. The games were great, yeah, and after so many years of poking and prodding and trying to talk to one another in ways that showed we had similar interests, we’d finally found one. A common bond that brought us closer.

But that wasn’t what kept us together until then.