CIT-U Esports Experience

BACKSTORY

I’ve been playing Counter Strike since elementary and up until now, I’m still playing the game nearly on a daily basis from its first version, CS 1.0 and up to the latest, CSGO(Counter Strike: Global Offensive). Back when CSGO was not yet released, I have only played the game against AI bots, local friends or with my brother. I tried using the laptop’s trackpad because I didn’t have my own mouse at that time, which was hard but I managed to play the game for more than 12-20 hrs a day against AI bots. Basically, I haven’t played against real people before so I’m still far to be called a great CS player.

I got bored of the game because I’m only against bots, what’s the thrill in that? But then I heard about the news that the latest Counter Strike, which is CSGO, will be released and I got excited but I forgot about it until I went to college(2015). That is when I bought the CSGO and played it.

I played it with confidence, thinking that I could beat other people so easily. But I was wrong. The game play, mechanics, and the skill level of my opponents are just too high for me. I couldn’t understand the game as to why I just can’t win it. After that, I practiced countless of hours. Researched and studied a lot about the game more than I do for my subjects. From there, I improved drastically and my teammates(usually random people and some fellow technologians) are sometimes amazed by the plays I make in our game. Currently I have played the game for approximately 1.5k hours(proof below) plus more from the other versions of CS.

For non-gamers, they would think that this length of hours is enough for a player to be called “pro” but to be honest, I am still far away from real professionals who have played more than 10,000 hours of game play and on different accounts.

PRESENT TIME

On August 14, 2017, the SSG announced that there would be a Technologian Majors for both CSGO and Dota 2(a two day tournament). I didn’t want to participate regardless of the fact that I wanted to test my skill as a player against my schoolmates but I was totally encouraged by my girlfriend to join the tournament.

Colors day arrived and I’m more excited about the game than ever. When I arrive at the meeting point, I still don’t know who are my three remaining teammates. They were introduced by Nyan_Nyan(captain of Sparkles!), the only teammate that I am familiar with. To my surprise, my teammates were the ones I thought would be the greatest threat to my team since I know they are great players with higher skill level than me. Their IGN(in game name)’s are Tabs, ✪ Phteven Philpurrr the Great ◢◤ and Sitkarp.

( From left to right accordingly; Sitkarp, ✪ Phteven Philpurrr the Great ◢◤, Tabs, Nyan_Nyan and Azluri(me))

The tournament had commenced and it was announced that we are going to play on game 3 against DyBre(photo below). While waiting for our game, we ate and practiced alot(scrimming as they call it) until it was nearly 2 pm, the time of our game.

The game started and I was feeling very confident with my team since I know each of them are very skilled, as to which I concluded to call our team as one of the power teams in the bracket. As the game officially started, we got crushed easily by DyBre with a score of 16-9(16 = win) and eliminated to the losers bracket. As we exit the for the loss, my team gathered and shared our thoughts. Some said they were nervous, some said it was fine and it was not a problem to lose. We realized that we had to communicate during the game which we did not do against DyBre. Since we lost the first match, we didn’t have a second game for that day and proceeded to practice once we all get home.

The next day came and we were to gather at 9:30 am at the meeting point. My girlfriend has supported me alot from a different cafe since viewers were not allowed inside the event. Our first game was against BLYADimir(no pics sad), which we have defeated with a bit of struggle. Before the second game, my team have realized that they were good at a certain map called “Cache” and decided to play at that map if we win the coin toss bet.

Our second game was against Z21 and yes we had won the toss coin and chose Cache as the map of choice, we then defeated Z21 by using different strategies against them.

Third game was against PEDRO GAMING, which was very funny before we officially started the game. But since we won the coin toss bet, we chose Cache again as our map. So we played against PEDRO GAMING(no pics sad) with confidence and won but had a hard time dealing with them as they can counter some of our strategies or out play us with their playful and unique individual skills.

Our next game was against SPIRITT, who were known to be one of the power house teams of the tournament(One being DyBre) since they have one player with the highest rank skill level than each of the players, this time it was best of three match since it was the finals of the losers bracket.

We lost against them on the first map called Cobblestone, to which they are formidable at. Then proceeded to next match on the map of our choice, obviously Cache and won against them through out smarting each of the opposing players, especially their high ranked player. Third and final map was called Inferno and finally viewers were allowed to enter so my girlfriend sat beside me and supported my team which gave me less worry and more focus to the game. It was because of one crucial round which brought me to a 1v3 situation that I had successfully won with struggle and after that, I got too relaxed and unfortunately, we lost the final match because I didn’t charge first for the team. I’m sorry guys!