Post written by Royce “Bubbadub” Newcomb of compLexity Gaming.
I quit my socially respectable job 14 months ago to pursue professional gaming, but my journey started long before that. I started playing League in September 2012 with the intention of testing the waters to see how motivated I was to go pro. After a few months of playing 6+ hours a day while holding a full time job and reaching top 200 on the solo queue ladder multiple times, I felt both confident and motivated to step up my game even more.
March 1st 2013 marked a leap of faith. With my wife supporting me, I had resigned from my engineering job to pursue my dream, a career in professional gaming. After quitting my job I quickly realized I knew next to nothing about the game past solo queue and I spent a lot of time trying to qualify for large tournaments with nothing more than mechanics learned from solo queue to back up my efforts. The more I learned about team play, the more I started to value team practice and theorycrafting with solo queue as a supplement. Eventually I found a balance with all three was a necessity to make it as a pro.
Making the LCS means I’ve achieved a dream that I once could have only imagined. On the way the team had many highs like qualifying for Spring Relegation and just as many depressing performances like getting smashed 3-0 by EG in our first relegation tournament. As a team we managed to adapt and come out strong for the NA summer promotion tournament and we qualified by taking out Curse Academy in a close 3-2 victory and Team Coast 3-1 in our second relegation tournament.
Making the LCS means I can live my life knowing I am one of the top players in NA, and it allows me to strive to be the best while competing with the best in the region. It means I can take my game to an even higher level than before, improve my game play and even come up with new ways for the game to be played while showcasing my progress every week. The ultimate goal is to compete at Worlds and do well, but we have a lot of work to do before we can even dream of it.
For making it this far, I would like to thank my wife, fans, compLexity and their sponsors: Sound Blaster, CyberpowerPC, NewEgg, Scuf Gaming, L337 Gaming, Twitch, and Dxracer.