PGI Qualifers - A Test of Character

Its been a while! I apologize for being almost 2 months late in this blog post. June was a hectic month for us. We played in two big LAN events, PGI Philippines Nationals and PGI SEA Championships. This month's blog will mostly be about my experience in those two events as well as a few team updates. Get ready, this is going to be a long one!

For those unfamiliar, some background about PUBG Global Invitationals (PGI). It's the first major tournament for Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. Teams across the world (North America, South America, Europe, CIS, China, Korea, Japan, South East Asia) have to go through a series of qualifiers to make it to the final event in Berlin, Germany; where the 20 best teams around the world will compete for a prize  pool of $2 million USD. Since our organization is based in the Philippines we took the SEA route to qualify. First step was the regional qualifiers within the Philippines. Qualifiers were held in Luzon, Mindanao, Visayas as well as 2 online qualifiers. Only the top 4 from each qualifier would advance to the PGI National Qualifiers where the 20 best teams in the country would compete. From the PGI National Qualifiers only the top 4 teams will move on to the PGI SEA Championship which was held in Bangkok, Thailand. The SEA Championship was somehow complicated, 20 of the best teams in SEA would compete for a prize pool of $100,000 USD and the winner would get the final spot for the PGI Finals in Berlin. Now this is where it gets complicated, since Thailand was given its own slot for the PGI Finals there are some technicalities in terms of who gets the final slot. Thailand had its own set of qualifiers much like the Philippines did, except whoever won overall in Thailand secured a spot in Berlin directly but was still eligible to play in the PGI SEA Championship. Basically if the winner of the Thailand qualifiers won the PGI SEA Championship then the final slot would go to the 2nd place team.

PGI Philippines Nationals

Before I talk about my experience during the Nationals I want to talk about the month leading to this. About a month before the event I couldn't practice at all with the team. Mainly it was my work schedule causing me to miss practice, I was scheduled for afternoon shifts. Heading to the biggest gaming event of my life (at that time) I had no practice at all. I was extremely anxious but couldn't show any sign of anxiety or talk to my teammates about my worries since I am the captain and I'm supposed be the one they look up to. Imagine seeing your leader having an anxiety attack before a big event; not good at all for the team. To make things worse, I was arriving in the Philippines just a day before the event, so I had to fight through jet lag during the games. I would tell myself to rely on my experience and countless hours spent practicing in the past.

This was my first major LAN experience. Being in an arena with a live audience...I loved every bit of the experience. After all, this is every gamer's dream...this is what I've been working towards. It was amazing seeing all the things that happen behind-the-scenes. All the production work for a big event like this. Game 1 of the Philippines Nationals...winner winner chicken dinner. What a way to start the tournament but I knew it was only game 1 out of 8. True enough, game 3 and game 4 we placed 18th out of 20. We finished the first day 2nd place, just 100 points behind the first placed team. I called an emergency team meeting as soon as we got back to the hotel. Among the other things discussed during the meeting, I remember telling my teammates we're back to 0 tomorrow, don't think of the lead and the current standings.

Day 2, the most memorable play of the tournament. Against all odds, my teammate Yves (k1lla-) wins a 1 v 4 to get us another win for the first game of day 2. The hype and excitement at the arena  when that happened...I will never forget that. That paved the way for a solid day 2 from us and we won the tournament because of our day 2 performance. Personally, I felt I performed well below my standards throughout the event. I'm not taking any credit away from the other Filipino teams, the top teams were solid as expected and gave us a hard time. Luckily my teammates played really well and I'm glad I was still able to make good contributions to help us win

ArkAngel family celebrating the win

PGI South East Asia Championship

Thus far the biggest gaming event I've participated in. Unfortunately my phone broke during a recent trip, so I don't have photos of the venue to share. It was cool (understatement) seeing an LED ArkAngel logo in our booth. At this point I regained some of my form, was able to play and practice a bit before the event. Even though this was the biggest event I played in thus far, I was not nervous at all. Like I said earlier this is what I've been working for, this is what I wanted from the start. For the past few years whenever I watch eSports events I can't help but wish I was the one playing. Then in a blink of an eye, there you have it, performing in front of a live audience, playing in front of over 20,000 viewers from Twitch alone. I don't know the numbers from the Facebook stream but I would assume it is in the thousands as well. All the hard work and dedication from our team finally bearing fruit. The spotlight was finally here for 12 games.

Day 1 was  terrible for us. It's not that we played terribly, PUBG is somewhat a luck reliant game but the best teams find a way to consistently finish within the top 10. There's only so much you can do if the next playzone shifts away from you, especially at the professional level. I'm actually proud of our performance during day 1. Despite terrible luck with the playzone, we managed to finish day 1 within the top 10 overall and even snatch a win in the very last game.

ArkAngel PUBG discussing adjustments

We went into day 2 focused and believing we can win it all despite being almost 1000 points behind the 1st placed team. There was still 6 games to play, it's not over yet. After 5 solid games in day two we found ourselves 2nd place overall, 100 points behind the first placed team and 400 points ahead of the 3rd placed team. The current team at 1st also won the Thailand qualifier so we only needed 2nd place to make it to Berlin. Qualification to Berlin was already at the palm of our hands. We just needed to make it to the top 10 in the final game, that or the currently 3rd placed team doesn't make it far in the final game. The two things we wanted to avoid happened. We placed 19th in the final game and the 3rd placed team won the last game. I have no words to describe how I felt.

Team huddle and prayer before game 1

It was a test of character for me as a leader; how would I react, what do I say to my teammates. I remember telling my teammates "We played our best game today, I'm proud of you guys." Of course I'm disappointed we didn't qualify for Berlin, but looking back at the experience; our team grew a lot, personally I grew as a leader throughout the events. We held each other accountable with mistakes but still had each other's backs throughout the tournament. Something I will never forget is someone telling me: "Dex, that was 2 extremes that just happened, what are the chances of that happening? In God's time you will taste success, this is just a preview of things to come." That being said I'm really grateful for the support we received from ArkAngel; who treated us like family. As much as they were devastated by the ending, they were there for us and cheered us up.

My favorite part of the tournament, aside from playing and the environment, was spending time with people from ArkAngel and the camaraderie enjoyed by the Filipino teams in Thailand. What used to be teams literally fighting with each other, got together and became a close group of friends. Being able to represent the Philippines was an amazing experience, even better was making Filipino fans proud of its own with our performance. We promise to stay dedicated and keep working hard, we want to give our fans a reason to be proud.


Securing our First Major Sponsor

After 2 months of rumors, it's official. ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) agreed to be ArkAngel's first major sponsor. We were told our recent performance in PUBG was a big factor, which makes me proud of our team. To those unfamiliar with the eSports / gaming scene, Asus ROG is one of the biggest brands out there. Comparable to Nike, Adidas and Under Armour in the sports world. This is definitely a big win for ArkAngel, I may be wrong but as far as I know; we are the first Philippines based eSports team they are sponsoring.

Asus Republic of Gamers logo

What's new with ArkAngel

I know this has been a long one, bear with me! One last exciting announcement I want to share. We're getting our jersey redesigned! Here's a mock-up of our new gaming jersey. Note, that's just a mock-up, so far our official sponsors are Asus ROG and ViscoCity, please disregard the other logos. Hopefully more sponsors come and support ArkAngel.

ArkAngel Jersey rev.2

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read. I greatly appreciate it! If there's a topic you want me to talk about in my next blog please leave a comment. As much as possible, keep it related to ArkAngel, eSports or PUBG.

A Higher Calling

First blog post, the first time is always the hardest. Let's start with a short introduction and what I want to achieve by blogging. For those that don't know me, I am Dexter Lou. I work in the IT field for my day job, I will not go into much detail as this is not the focus of my blog. Whenever I'm not at work I'm pursuing my dream to be a professional gamer / eSports athlete. It is an interesting career to say the least, a millennial profession if I were to put it in my own words. Writing was always a low-key hobby, I may not be good at it nor do I get to practice often but I definitely enjoy writing about my experiences. Each person knows me differently, some see me as a happy-go-lucky troll whereas others see me as a sincere and sensitive person. I am all of those. I hope this blog will be a beacon of hope to those I can reach; my family, friends, fans and haters. I want to make the most out of my social reach. It is not often you get the chance to have an above average social reach. I do not know how often I can write but I am aiming for at least once a month.

For my first post I wanted to do a short reflection on my journey into this career so far as well as my Christian faith. As some people know I'm a professional gamer playing Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG). I started playing the game about a year ago with a few long-time gaming friends. About 2 months after playing the game we realized we were above average players and were pretty good at the game. Soon after, life got in the way; some of my gaming friends had to use their free time elsewhere, others lost interest in the game. This however did not stop me and my other friend (Paulo) from taking the game seriously. We then found 2 other guys (Andrei and Yves) who had similar goals and aspirations. We were good to the point that we were considered among the best in a large Discord community. This encouraged us to take the game more seriously, we would climb the in-game leaderboards and finish top 10 in all of Asia. After several seasons of topping the leaderboards we decided to enter international competitive events and see how good we really are. Despite the lack of competitive experience in the game, we managed to get promoted to a higher division after our first season. After our first competitive season, our progress hit a wall. We were still considered a top 5 team in the Philippines but often had bad showings in international events and other local teams were catching-up qickly.

Fast forward to December 2017, I had doubts whether or not I should continue with this gaming career. We were still good, but there was no progress, it seemed like we were trying hard and using so much of our free time for no reason. I also felt pressure from important people in my life to improve my day job and look for better opportunities. I would not say this was an all-time low in my life but it was a troubled period for sure. I did not share my concerns with anyone...I did however share it with God. I would pray about it nightly asking Him what to do...asking for a sign. Some people know me to be religious, I practice my faith but I wouldn't consider myself religious, since I know other people who do so much for their faith. I guess being called religious is very subjective and practicing one's faith could be considered religious for others. However, I will never say or think I am a perfect Christian. So back to my reflection, I asked God for help and for a sign whether or not this is what I should be doing at this point in my life. January 2018, a Philippines based organization called ArkAngel reached out and wanted us to play under their organization. Coincidence that the organization's name is ArkAngel? No, my prayers were answered and I took it as the sign I've been asking for from God. What better way for God to answer my prayers. Knowing this is what God wants me to do boosted my confidence and motivated me to work even harder towards this career.

Of course I am thankful for awesome hardworking teammates. I am also extremely grateful to play for such a generous and caring organization (ArkAngel). However, all our achievements since then, I attribute to God. There is no way to repay His kindness and love but I wanted to share His kindness and acknowledge Him publicly. If there is one thing I want my readers to take from this, it is to have faith. God is always listening to your prayers even if He doesn't answer them immediately. Always ask God for help in times of uncertainty.