Mission accomplished for the SetToDestroyX team.
The five-person online gaming team, which included Red Deer’s Keynes Ng, emerged as champions of Canada’s first multiplayer national eSports tournament held in Toronto on Aug. 21.
As winning team in the Cineplex WorldGaming Canadian Tournament, Ng and his four teammates shared a $50,000 prize.
“It was pretty exciting,” said the 18-year-old Ng, who attended Notre Dame High School and goes by the gaming handle X_dex_. “A lot of hard work paid off.”
The team, which included four Albertans and a player from Ontario, had to win qualifying and regional tournaments to earn a place among the final eight teams. Teams were pitted against each other on PlayStation’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, an action game based around the adventures of retired fortune hunter Nathan Drake and his accomplices.
Ng, who knew all but one of his teammates from previous online gaming, said they spent about four months, five hours a day honing their strategies.
Ng works part-time at Best Buy and other players also had jobs so they played mostly in the evenings. “Usually, we’d begin around 5 p.m. up to around 10 p.m. or so,” he said.
The art of hitting the top ranks is getting to know the games down to the pixel and identifying where your weaknesses as a player are.
“We know what basically what to work on. (It’s about) putting in the time and making sure you’re working on the right stuff.”
The team could also draw on experience in other online gaming tournaments. Ng met teammate Allameen Ally (TheAnonAlly) from Brampton, Ont. at a one-on-one Call of Duty competition.
Ally won the $20,000 top prize at that tournament and Ng, and another player who was on his winning Uncharted 4 team, Taber’s Tim Li (P-iston), placed in the top 16. Rounding out the Uncharted 4 team is Calgary’s Bradyn Gardiyash (Skzzyy) and Edmonton’s Nicholas Brewer (HacKiEE).
Ng’s winnings will likely go into rent, he said. He’s apartment hunting in Calgary right now because he is returning to SAIT soon to take his second year of new media production design. The money will definitely come in handy, he said.
Meanwhile, the gamers are now setting their sights on their next competition.