TO some, playing videos games is just fun or a way to socialise with friends – but that’s not the case for West Nowra’s Matt Lee.
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Sure Lee has fun while playing his video games – specially PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) – but the 21-year-old is also making a name for himself on the world stage.
“I played games a lot as a teenager and always had a competitive attitude, which I started to naturally apply to video games, around mid 2017,” Lee said.
“It was as this time, while browsing through twitch.tv categories, I noticed a game called PUBG and after watching less than two minutes of it, I decided to buy the game.
“I seemed to be naturally good at the game – I was playing with friends for months until eventually they all stopped playing and I started looking for people to play with.
“I made a post in discord server (a communication platform for gamers) with 20,000 people in it, to which I had a lot of people messaging me to play with them, which is when I discovered competitive PUBG.
“I looked up everyone messaging me and when I got to a player called Ykikamucow [why kick a moo cow], he was apart of a high level team and asked me to trial and that’s where it all started and I’m still playing alongside him to this day.”
Since then, Lee has improved his playing ability out of sight – so much so, he and his Order team have just returned from Bangkok, Thailand, where they became the first team from the Oceania region to win an international tournament.
“Two months ago, our team played in an Australian qualifier for the OMEN by HP Challenger Series, in which the top two teams from the country would go through to play in Thailand,” Lee said.
“The qualifiers were a best of six games, in which the highest two scoring teams from the region qualified, which thankfully included us.”
In Bangkok, Lee’s side competed against teams from 10 different countries, in a tournament that involved more than 450 teams – all consisting of four players.
“We started the first day off strong with a few faults costing us but nothing major – we came out in second place by a close margin,” he said.
“We went into the next day very confident playing a different map (miramar), as our play-style is very strong for the map.
“We had an amazing day that day, never placing outside of the top three, which is considered really good for six games.”
At the conclusion of the tournament, Lee and his team took out first place, bringing home $20,000 worth of prize money.
“This victory is easily one of, if not my biggest achievements of my career so far,” Lee said.
While stoked with this result, Lee and his team are now hard back at training, in preparation of a big 2019.
“We spend around 40 hours a week as a team practising strategy and team play – we consider ourselves one of the strongest and aggressive teams in the region,” he said.
“The game at high level becomes a very decisive and quick thinking game, where you need to think fast and adapt to any situation and always plan five steps ahead.
“We have lots of online tournaments lined up, so next year is looking really hopeful for international LANs.
“And personally, experience is everything for me – I want to travel the world and verse the best in the game.”