Just as you start thinking you’re at the pro level in a game, you watch a world tournament, which is enough to humble you. You’d be amazed at the cat-like reflexes the players have once they enter a tournament.
Don’t lose heart and start practicing until you finally believe you have what it takes to enter a world tournament. You can practice on all your favorite games by playing with players from all over the world through an online mode.
While online gaming is all about your skills, you do need the right hardware and a reliable internet connection. Regardless of whether you play on a console or a PC, I recommend Xfinity Internet since I began my online gaming journey on that too, and it never let me down!
Along with challenging people online, you can also watch all the popular tournaments to observe players’ strategies to form one of your own. Here are some famous tournaments that you should check out.
The League of Legends World Championship
League of Legends has been around for a while now, and it is considered to be among the best strategy-based games of all time. The game is played between two teams consisting of 5 players each. The objective of the game is to infiltrate the opposing team’s territory and destroy their “Nexus”.
The Nexus is heavily guarded by players and other defensive structures. It is up to the team members to figure out how to defend their own Nexus and destroy the one at the enemy team’s base. The League of Legends World Championship is held by Riot Games, creators of the game.
The International
This is a famous tournament held for the ever-popular Defense of the Ancients 2 (or DOTA 2 for short). You would be surprised that League of Legends takes a lot of inspiration from DOTA, which is why both games might seem very similar to each other.
The game mode that is usually played in the tournament is the Captains mode. It’s a 5 vs. 5 mode, and the way the game plays out is more or less the same as League of Legends. The captains choose 7 heroes, and it is up to the players to pick their preferred hero to play with.
The purpose of the game is to head to your enemy’s base and destroy the “Ancient” that is located at the center. The Ancient is a structure, much like the Nexus in League of Legends. You’ll also have to take down their defense towers as you go, and you must also keep up your defenses at all times!
ESL One
The ESL One is a popular tournament platform for games like DOTA 2 and CS: GO. Since I’ve already talked about the former, I’ll keep my focus on CS: GO for this one. Just like most other online games, it is played between two teams consisting of 5 players each.
However, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (or Counter-Strike 2) is a first-person shooter (FPS) game, which is why you need to be good at gunplay for this one.
All CS games have two teams consisting of the Terrorists and the Counter-Terrorists. The purpose of both of the teams is to get as many eliminations as they can.
However, in the Captains mode, the Terrorists team has to plant a bomb at a set point on the map, and the Counter-Terrorists must either find the bomb and defuse it or simply just stop the opposing team from planting it in the first place.
The team that wins the first 16 rounds wins the game. It might sound easy, but it isn’t when the players in the other team have amazing aim and reflexes, which is why you have to be on the tip of your toes during every match.
Also, keep in mind that you need to work with your team, so all of you must be on the same page with your strategy.
Evolution Championship Series
Commonly known as the EVO series, I would be surprised if you told me you didn’t know about it. Though the championship is held for mainstream fighting games, the most popular game played in the tournament is Tekken.
Previously, the tournament was dominated by Tekken 7, and the undisputed champion was Arslan Ash from Pakistan every time. Then they switched from Tekken 7 to Tekken 8, and guess who the champion is now? Still Arslan Ash!
Tekken is the kind of game that anyone can play. You just have to pick your favorite character and grind it. You’ll need to master combos and dodges so that you can inflict more damage than take it. You should also be quick to parry grapples since they tend to deal a lot more damage.
As kids, everyone told us that playing video games rots your brains and that it has no future. Well, I guess they were wrong all along, considering that we have world championships now with prize pools in the millions.
Who knows, maybe if you put in enough practice, you could become the next champion of your favorite game.
