During their recent visit to CYBERPOWERPC HQ, we sat down with the members of Team Coast Gaming to talk about life as pro gamers and how their partnership with us has helped them as an up and coming LCS team.
Part 5 features Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaya. Check out the video (transcription below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I02-BOlkG_k
CYBERPOWERPC: Tell us a little about yourself, how you got into gaming and eventually into League of Legends.
ZionSpartan: I got into gaming because it was just something I did with my family, specifically my brother, we’d just play games a lot together. He was the one who got me into League of Legends a couple years back. At the time I was playing games on Xbox and didn’t really feel like playing League of Legends. I was like, “Why would I play a computer game? I like Call of Duty a lot better.” But eventually I decided to play with him and I really got into the game. I was really bad at first but I just kept playing because I really loved playing the game and that’s how I ended up being a pro. I just kept playing more and more and eventually got good enough to get on a team.
CYBERPOWERPC: About how many hours per week do you put in to practice and competition?
ZionSpartan: I would say I put anywhere from 40-50 hours a week if not more into playing the game because when you’re a professional gamer it is your life, you don’t really have time for anything else. I LIVE at the place I work, so basically every day I’m playing the game and dealing with the game and I’m dealing with my teammates, who also want to talk about the game. There’s a lot of hours that have to do with the game (outside of playing) that you could also count as hours because everything I do is about the game. I’m living for the game – I’m living for the competition. The number one goal is to win so it doesn’t bother me that I’m spending all this time with the team.
CYBERPOWERPC: How did you link up with Team Coast, and what role do you play in-game?
ZionSpartan: I met up with Team Coast all the way back on team MonoManiac and Team Dynamic. I played two years ago in IPL 4 which was a really long time ago when it was just me and Nintendude who were the only two remaining members on the team. It just kind of started from there and the team eventually formed into what it is now, Team Coast. We got a new owner and that’s how we ended up with the current 5 that we have.
CYBERPOWERPC: What advice do you have for young gamers looking to get into the competitive scene?
ZionSpartan: If you really want to be a pro gamer, you can spend a lot of time with it, but don’t put all your eggs in one basket – try to make sure that you have something else going. While I feel that anyone can be a pro gamer, it takes everybody a different amount of time to get good enough to be able to compete at that level. For me, it took a lot of time and I had that time because I was going to school and I could play while I was at home and I didn’t have to worry about anything else. Every person has some sort of natural talent — some people pick things up quickly while others take a longer time. For some of you it might take too long for you to get good at the game to make it worth it. If you really want to do it, don’t give up and just keep playing, but make sure you always have a safety net because that’s really important as well.
CYBEROWERPC: How has the partnership with us helped your team get better so far, and what things are you looking forward to down the road?
ZionSpartan: Having a CYBERPOWERPC and being partnered with CYBERPOWER has been really helpful because having a reliable computer is one of the most important things of playing a game that is based on the computer itself, because if I don’t have a smooth computer that doesn’t mess up, that isn’t smooth and the settings aren’t good, the graphics don’t look nice, and the computer is constantly shutting down; If I had those issues – WHICH I DON’T, at all, with CYBERPOWERPC – it would be really hard for me to dedicate all my time to becoming a better pro gamer. With the CYBERPOWERPC and our partnership with CYBERPOWER, it’s been really easy to just focus on the game and not worry if my computer is going to shut down or if my computer isn’t good enough. I’m really glad that CYBERPOWER has taken care of all my worries about how well my computer will perform because it has been performing really well.