Passionate About Helping Others Get Better At First Person Shooter Games
For as long as I can remember, I've been gaming. I started out playing on consoles like NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64, and PlayStation. I eventually moved into computer games around the age of 12 and learned how to build my first computer at the age of 14.
From the age of 14, I began to get into Counter-Strike. I participated in many seasons of an online league called CAL (Cyberathlete Amateur League) and played at local LANs such as LANageddon and Fragapalooza. I had my first LAN placement in 2003 where I placed 3rd behind Evil Geniuses and neRve. This was a huge deal for me. The players on EG and neRve were players that I looked up to. They were playing in CAL-invite and winning LAN events and that is where I was striving to be. I started receiving recognition as a player and joined a team called Clan Crisis, which was a CAL-invite team at the time. This was the start of my professional career as a player.
By the age of 15, I was playing at the highest level of online competition in North America. I was signed by Evil Geniuses and represented Canada at the World Cyber Games in 2005 (Singapore), and 2006 (Italy). It was such an honor to represent my home country with a reputable organization and to be able to play professionally and travel the world at such a young age. I had placements in North American tournaments, but it was pretty exciting to get my first podium finish overseas. Our Counter-Strike team (Matt "bl00dsh0t" Stevenson, Pasha "LaRi" Lari, Rob "blackpanther" Tyndale, Griffin "shaGuar" Benger, and myself) placed 3rd behind Team 3D (USA) and k23 (Kazakhstan).
Throughout my professional gaming career, I competed in many online leagues and domestic and international LAN tournaments such as the CAL, CEVO, ESEA, CPL (Cyberathlete Professional League), GGL, WCG (World Cyber Games), ESWC (Electronic Sports World Cup) and many more.
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In 2007, I left Evil Geniuses to join Team 3D to play Counter-Strike Source. At the time, a new league was emerging called the Championship Gaming Series. The CGS was set up similar to how major sports associations were. There were franchising spots for major cities in the US (New York, Dallas, San Fransisco, etc.), which was something new and exciting for gaming.
Team 3D's Counter-Strike team consisted of Kyle "Ksharp" Miller, Mikey "method" So, Sal "Volcano" Garozzo, Andy "rector" Rector, and myself went on to win the first Championship Gaming Series Counter-Strike Source combine tournament. Our team ended up being drafted by the 3D New York franchise at the draft ceremony which took place at the Playboy Mansion.
The Championship Gaming Series Season 1 took place in Los Angeles, California. All the franchised teams practiced and competed on-site and our matches were filmed on set. The whole season was captured and broadcasted on DIRECTV. I can say that I was a reality TV star at one point in my life :)
I started playing VALORANT in 2020 shortly after the beta came out. The mechanics reminded me of Counter-Strike 1.6, but with a fresh take because of the agents and abilities. Needless to say, I immediately fell in love with the game. I played ranked for fun with friends but after reaching the Radiant rank in matchmaking, I was hungry for more. I played in tournaments such as Nerd Street Gamers, Knights, and the VALORANT Champions Tour. I found success in the tournaments I was playing in, for over 2 months. My team (Team 2D) had won a few Nerd Street Gamer monthly qualifiers and we ended up placing third in the September $10,000 tournament behind China Nguyen (which went on to become EQUINOX) and Luminosity Gaming.
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Radiant Ranked since Season 1 Act 1 (Still Radiant)
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1st Place - Nerd Street Gamers September Qualifier 1
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3rd Place - Nerd Street Gamers September $10,000
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2nd Place - Knights.GG Boomer Bowl
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1st Place – Nerd Street Gamers November Qualifier 2
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Top 16 – Nerd Street Gamers November $10,000
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Top 32 - VCT First Strike Qualifier #1
After CGS Season 1, I retired from pro-gaming. I took my skillsets and started working in the Information Technology industry to gain further experience in leadership, projects, coaching, customer service, and start-ups.
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In 2017, I caught up with some of my old CS friends and found interest in playing games again. I played a few seasons of ESEA CS:GO for fun and made it to the ESEA-main division. Our team decided to disband due to different priorities in our lives.
VALORANT Player Achievements
I was successful in playing Counter-Strike and VALORANT, however my focus started to shift to wanting to help others play better.Â
Initially, I created an Instagram account for fun, and to post video clippings of my gameplay. After a few posts, I started to notice that my captions that had educational content were very well received by the community. There was no better feeling than reading comments from other players talking about how my posts had helped them rank up and improve their game. People were taking what I had written and applied it to their game and got better. This eventually lead me to become a professional gaming coach.
In February 2021, I was signed to Evil Geniuses as the VALORANT Head Coach for the first-ever professional co-ed gaming roster. Even though I spent most of my evenings coaching the team, I still took the time to post clips and educational captions on Instagram, almost daily because it was so rewarding.
In May 2021, I was presented with an amazing opportunity to consult for Statespace (Aim Lab) as the VALORANT Expert. I'll be working on projects, content, and designing tasks within Aim Lab to help players learn the fundamentals of tactical shooters and elevate their VALORANT gameplay.