{"id":3549,"date":"2014-08-07T10:30:59","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T17:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cpgaming.gg\/?p=3549"},"modified":"2014-08-06T15:57:58","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T22:57:58","slug":"sheeps-blog-on-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/sheeps-blog-on-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheep’s Blog on Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jamie “sheep” Gallagher of Team Coast<\/em><\/p>\n

First and foremost I would like to thank CYBERPOWERPC. I am currently playing on a Zeus Mini generously provided by them and the computer is amazing. I am very thankful especially to Joey, but also the entire staff at CyberPower that have always treated us like family. Thank You!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

About:<\/strong> My name is Jamie Gallagher, I am a 22 year old professional League of Legends player who formerly played for XDG in the LCS and is currently playing for Team Coast in the North American Challenger Series in an attempt to gain entry into the LCS in September.<\/p>\n

Prior to Joining XDG<\/h3>\n

\"DP7KNWS\"<\/a>This is undoubtedly the least eventful part of my experience as a professional gamer up until the present. I was a typical high-ELO solo queue player, playing the game 8-14 hours a day, duo queuing mostly with DontMashMe and skipping a great deal of my University lectures to do so. I sacrificed many relationships with my family and friends to put all of my time into playing League of Legends and in that time period all I cared about was winning. Although I performed well in academics I wasn’t ever interested in pursuing them seriously, something that was extremely hard for my family to grasp. The emotions I was going through during this time manifested itself in solo queue and I was really toxic but always invested completely in every game and never wanted to lose. Up until I joined XDG, I never tasted real success and that thought consumed me day in and day out as I played; I wanted my chance to show what I was capable of.<\/p>\n

At the time I got the offer to join XDG, I was playing under Curse Academy in the challenger scene and had I declined the offer it is very possible we could have qualified for LCS Summer Split instead of Complexity. A weaker Curse Academy roster lost only 3-2 to Complexity Black in the NACS playoffs and I really think if I was playing with them, it would’ve given us enough of an edge to knock Complexity out. No offense to Complexity, just the reality of that situation from my perspective.<\/p>\n

Joining XDG and Playing in the LCS (February 2014)<\/h3>\n

The question that most people ask me regarding the XDG situation is generally the same: How did XDG go from being a contender at Worlds and top 3 NA team to where they are now? This is a loaded question and also one that I can’t answer completely as I was only playing with the team that is much older than me for a total of two months.<\/p>\n

At first, I was simply ecstatic to be going to California and finally having an opportunity to make my dream of being a professional gamer come true. My mother and sister were both very supportive of me at this time. Anyone who has gone through something like trying to make their own way in what is a relatively new job path in North America knows how hard explaining what professional gaming is to your parents. My father has always been supportive of me but he is very much still living in the past and would have likely preferred for me to finish my schooling if I told him what I was doing at that moment and asked for his permission to leave right then.<\/p>\n

For the first time in my life I was independent. It was my first international flight, my first time flying on my own, and my first time living on my own. From the time I left Toronto Airport I was terrified and nearly got denied entry at U.S. customs as they put me through a secondary checkpoint and XDG management didn’t prepare me fully \/ provide me with the necessary documents to seem unsuspicious such as a return flight ticket etc. However, I eventually made it to the XDG house in La Habra, CA., and was welcomed by the team and manager with open arms. Everyone made me feel a lot more comfortable and relaxed with the situation and I miss the time I spent with all of them every day.
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\nThe first game we played against cloud nine was my first week in the LCS. I was completely new to the studio \/ lan experience, playing with my teammates and was still a little shaken by the whole experience. Despite all of this, this was probably the best game I have ever played competitively<\/p>\n

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Watch live video from Riot Games on Twitch<\/a><\/p>\n

This was, from a completely unbiased perspective, my peak performance against the best team in North America at the time. Also, I was uninfluenced by the environment of the team, coming into the game with the best attitude I would have all split and I was not worried about the performance of my teammates. I simply focused on my capability to assist my team in winning the game and the results followed. It is weird looking backing on the game now as it is clear even from that game that individuals were struggling and getting outplayed around the map. Although at the time, for that game specifically, I never even considered that my teammates were having issues because of how we won the game. I just assumed we outplayed them as a team. Even looking back at the VOD now I can\u2019t help but ask myself, if I hadn’t played that game perfectly and drew so much attention bot lane for my team would we still have won the game? This is never the feeling you want to have when you’re on a team; you always want to make sure if someone on your team has a bad game that your teammates or yourself, will pick up your slack and keep you on the right track. Of course, this is a pitfall of winning, you don’t consider the serious problems within a team until you begin losing consistently and by then it becomes a matter of how quickly you can actually identify and fix those problems before it is too late.<\/p>\n

Over the next two months the two most important desires in my heart: to win and to play competitive League of Legends, would slowly rot away as I was further exposed to playing in the XDG environment. There’s no point in getting into specifics as it will create a witch hunt towards certain individuals on the team, so I will just say the major problems as generally as possible.<\/p>\n