TNC PRO TEAM
THE PHILLIPPINE E-SPORTS CHAMPIONS @TNCPROTEAMDOTA2
If you’re someone who’s ever teased your little brother for spending hours in front of a flickering game console, take note: World Electronic Sports Games 2016 Champions TNC Pro Team is about to teach you a thing or two about Dota 2 — mainly, that spending hours in front of a flickering game console could one day win you P40 million.
You might imagine every cool team has its own special HQ where they live and train together, and that’s just the kind of thing TNC’s got going on. When they’ve got an important event or tournament coming up, the team bunkers down in the TNC boot camp. After a morning of prepping for the day, they make sure to spend at least a few hours studying, discussing, strategizing, and loading up on gaming credits. “PayMaya is our preferred payment app and gaming ally as it allows us to buy 1:1 Steam credits (1 Steam Credit: 1 Peso).” And then, the games begin. For real.
“For us, gaming is really about competition and the need to be a better person than you were the day before,” a TNC rep says. That’s right: gaming is serious business, testing every player’s physical, mental and emotional limits. “There’s a misconception that gamers are unfocused and don’t know what to do with their lives.” But being a gamer is like being an athlete: it takes a lot of study, focus and training to play competitively. “Gaming is a serious field, and future aspiring gamers might want to make sure that their mindset towards improvement and hard work are honed, sometimes even before their actual gaming skills.” In this way, they explain, regardless of whether they continue to be gamers or not, “they (will) have the right tools to succeed.”
There’s real world value to virtual worlds, too. “We want to show everyone that becoming a professional gamer isn’t just about playing. We want to show aspiring gamers that being a pro is about being a professional — in attitude and in skills.” According to the team, even if they’re constantly battling other teams in the gaming arena, at the end of the day, “it’s still a battle between yourself and who you want to be.”