Over a year ago Profanity, a 2old2play clan, went to MLG Dallas to play Halo 2 against the best in the gaming business. Profanity gave a valiant effort but came up short, being knocked out of competition in the second round. This year, Four Burst Kill (known as FbK) made an attempt at the pro circuit in Orlando Florida. Here is our story...
Our intent was to go to a Major League Gaming event and try our hand against the hardcore pro gamers. Along the way we had many challenges, barriers and rough waters. We practiced hard for a month, had a member leave for personal reasons and subsequently picked up a replacement. After six months of painful practices and the stress of trying to be a "pro team" we dismantled. We were burnt out. We needed a break. Pro gaming isn't for the weak at heart.
A month later we got the itch to try it again. It would have been a waste to let all our practice go unused so we got the team back together and pulled in a new fourth player. The clock started, we had three months to become professors of gaming. The four of us had to stay focused, accrue time and invest dedication to make it all happen. Each day we would practice our tactics and team shooting to build a perfectly fluid attack strategy. It was going fairly well up until one of our members had to take a month off and would have no access to Xbox LIVE.
With one member down we found ourselves being very unproductive. It all took a turn for the worse when our fourth member reported back. The next month when they returned another member decided it would be more worth his time to coach us than to participate directly in the event. This came as a shock to most of us and our chemistry began to fall apart. We had to find a new member and we had to do it quickly.
We finally found our fourth member and a solid team was born. The team members: Caesar, Neksone, Bee, Fire and eksessiv as our coach. It didn't take long before we all came to the realization we weren't as solid as we thought. We setup a scrimmage against a professional clan known as Xit Woundz (aka Xit). We decided it would be great to experience a pro game before we entered any tournaments. We were nervous as hell but we all knew it's not easy being a "pro" in the gaming field. There was only one way to go and it was up.
Battling a pro team was demoralizing to say the least. We gave it our best shot but we found ourselves hopeless in the challenge. Xit was nice enough to show us the faults in our strategy and the blunt explanation we received was exactly what we needed to get our game in gear. Focus, team shooting and working as one unit was going to be our key to success. Simply put, we were not playing well as a team.
Back to the drawing board, we would scrimmage every team we could find and work on our team shooting. One member, Bee, received some pro player lessons and it helped us tune our setups and get ready for the big leagues. This was the turning point which would bring us from nobodies to a real challenge in the game field.
Once again we went back to the clan Xit Woundz to challenge them with our new skills and practice. This time we put up a real battle and kept them on their toes. Sure, we still lost, but we proved to them and ourselves that practice makes perfect and learning to work as one seamless entity is the most important part of team gaming.
Our last day of practice was cancelled because we all had to pack for the event and get ready to board a plane. We got some last minute advice from a veteran and were told to prepare for a very noisy environment. The event was going to be loud and confusing and you must stay focused on the job or be lost in the fury and intensity of the entire experience.
Some of us were exited, optimistic or just living the experience. We didn't get to scrimmage Profanity before we left for the event so we couldn't gauge our current progress... we’d have to wait and see at the event.
We land at Orlando International airport around 10pm Thursday night with plans to meet a few popular halo 2 pro teams made famous at some of the previous events. Later, we took some pleasure in local entertainment, drinking and retired to our rooms.
In the morning we left for the event, hit up Denny's for breakfast and went through the tournament check-in process at the door. The entire team had not arrived, but only the captain needs to check-in so we got the process rolling and eagerly awaited all the members.
The event was just as noisy as we had heard but that didn’t rest our nerves. We approached some open stations and started warming up for some free-for-all (FFA). This gave us time to get used to the fact that we'd not hear a thing. It was too noisy to hear any game related action from the TV in front of us, you had to tune out the noise and play on instinct alone.
At 5pm, our team member Fire was on deck for his first round of free-for-all and he was put into the middle of the pit, far from us, for the battle of his life. After bouncing between 4th and 5th place, he ended the round smiling but found himself in fifth place instead of fourth... not what we had hoped but a good attempt nevertheless. Fourth place would qualify you to move on and fifth place was your standard "thank you for playing but bye" placement.
I, Caesar, was up next and my work was cut out for me. The same people I was dominating in warm up managed to show me my place in the actual event. After a long struggle I landed in fifth place, still appalled I had failed to qualify for the next event. Next, Bee and Neksone were called together and both placed last in the event. None of us managed to pull out a fourth place position so we hung around for a bit watching the event and meeting people but ended the day going to dinner at the House of Blues.
The next day we arrived at the event and warmed up against a team that beat us down in multiple matches. The three red bulls were just not cutting it and, although we put up a great challenge, they beat us in every warm up match. In the end, they were the team to hit the main stage in the pro bracket so, all in all, it wasn't so bad losing to a clutch team like that.
We placed 52nd out of 300 teams in the first round because we managed to get a bye without having to compete. Round two arrived too soon and we nervously approached to show the enemy we're a force to take seriously. Our coach was a huge help in the second round because they helped to relay information to the entire team during the very noisy event. In the end, we won by two kills thanks to the coach covering the communication issues and our work as a team.
After this win we became more confident and super aggressive. We jumped to Midship and eventually took control over the opponent. After overcoming a tie we gained map control and built momentum to continue the session. We advanced to the winner bracket for round three but went back to discuss the areas of work we needed. Our couch talked us through some of the problems and got us back into the game and ready for the next round.
Our names were called for the third round and we came out flying. The next game was a hotly contested multi-flag battle on Midship. The lead see-sawed as we traded flag captures. With twenty seconds left, we managed to secure a 3-2 lead and played defensively the remainder of the time ensuring our victory. Team slayer on Lockout was our next prescribed game type and we managed to use a basic BR tower defense to take easy control of this match, winning a close fought battle 47-44 and sending us to the next round.
I was literally shaking from the excitement and intensity of the battle. The look on the kid’s faces upon our defeating them was priceless. We did the traditional handshake and "good game" talk but a quick look in their eyes showed their displeasure with being defeated by us ol’ folks.
Our morale couldn't have been any higher until we learned that we would be facing a team of semi-pros in our next round. We fought valiantly, but were trounced in two straight games. The first game, team slayer on Beaver Creek, we lost handily 50-22. The second, capture the flag on Warlock, was more of the same as we were beat soundly 5-0. We faced a team of elite players, and because this was the first MLG event for most of us, we were not prepared for the exhaustion we felt after playing the previous matches.
We ended with a top 64 finish and our final rank was 41st in the event, not so bad for a month of true practice and our first professional event. If anything, we proved that older gamers do stand a chance in the pro leagues and we can indeed meet the challenges of a team of kids playing video games for six to twelve hours a day (or more).
This was a perfect end to our lives as Halo 2 players and we cannot imagine it going out any better. It may be time to move on to the third game in the series...
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