Ultimax Gaming signs RUINS
It has been announced that Ultimax Gaming has signed the Americans from Ruins to represent them in the states. This is UMX's second Counter-Strike squad that they will support along with the Taiwanese team, which just competed in the IEM 5 World Championships. The Americans currently participate in ESEA Counter-Strike 1.6 Invite, where they sport an 8-2 record as the number two team in the standings.
The team has been signed to a one-year contract in which they will receive full support along with a team house in California. The organization will send the team to events domestically and internationally throughout 2011.
We spoke with team captain Dustin "dizzaman" Dilyerd in an exclusive interview.
Please introduce yourself and give us a brief history of your Counter-Strike career for those who may not be familiar with you.
My name is Dustin "dizzaman" Dilyerd and I have been playing Counter-Strike 1.6 for 7 years now. I have worked my way from the bottom to the top over the years and am now the Team Leader of UMX.US, the new American team of Ultimax Gaming (the other team being UMX.TW from Asia), where I act as the in-game strat caller. Therefore I review demos, design strategies, organize practice sessions to dry run them or scrim and generally help guide my teammates as best as I can.
Your roster was formed in the off-season and has so far found great success against teams like Damage Inc and EG. What has been going well with this mix of players?
Teams like EG, DINC, Backfire, Area 51 and others practice hard as any top North American team should. For our team, UMX.US (TRULS, iNERTiA, sLip, flowsicK and myself), we just try to work harder than the next guy. This is not to say we're "better" than anyone but all 5 of us are low key and extremely hungry to prove ourselves because I guess you can say we're the underdogs. I say low key as, honestly, none of us are top #1 worldwide superstar players or have the spotlight on us and I wouldn't have it any other way. We are out to prove ourselves day in and day out and it's that drive which pushes us to next level. With everyone sharing this mindset it makes it much easier to practice and compete together since everyone is on the same page.
So to answer your question, we work our tails off more than any other team out there and with all 5 guys sharing that thinking process naturally we come in very prepared against any team. This UMX.US sponsorship is something we are extremely grateful for because having full support and not to mention a freakin' team house is what any true competitor dreams for. With that said we will bust our tails off day in and day out.
This season of ESEA featured an interesting map rotation with putting some of the tougher maps towards the beginning. Being the person who runs the show, how confident were you going into maps like de_hell and de_lite with this new team?
Collectively my teammates and I were mindful to treat all teams and especially all maps, custom or not, on an equal level at the beginning of this ESEA League Invite season. There is no room for assumption or plain arrogance on this team. I won't have that. While everyone has their own opinions on new maps such as de_hell at the end of the day we just treated it as any other map and practiced accordingly. If anything I looked at de_hell as an even playing field, literally, for all teams and players. As such I was very excited to compete in a new map for a change. I wouldn't say the map was tougher or "worse" than any others but it was just different for me personally speaking.
So as the team leader I really wanted to stay away from letting our heads and other people's opinions of maps like de_hell or even de_lite get to us. Going down that path which only results in us most likely facing a "bad" loss where we can't and don't want to learn from and improve upon as a team is not what any of my teammates or I have signed up to go through. All in all we all tried to have some fun with both maps and the results came out alright in the end.
What are your thoughts on having these maps towards the beginning of the season? Is there any benefit?
Again, for our team we treated these maps like any other and wouldn't make any difference if we were to play it at the start, middle or end of the ESEA season. The only real benefit of playing something like de_hell so early on was to see which teams could really scramble and practice as much as they could with the limited time they had. For some other teams perhaps it was nice to get through these new maps done and over with early on but I cannot speak for anyone.
Let's talk about your teammates for a moment. What would you say each teammate brings to the table to make the team successful?
flowsicK: Along with TRULS he has been my teammate for several months now and is the dependable, go to player especially on LAN. He's definitely one of the most dedicated on this lineup. I mean he got into a car accident and still made it home for practice and for a match!
iNERTiA: The old man of the team! Just kidding, he brings a ton of experience to the table along with his calm, mature demeanor (he is the oldest player on this lineup) and playstyle which pays dividends for us. When things get tense on LAN you can expect iNERTiA to handle the pressure and persevere.
sLip: The young gunner and up and coming star in North America although that's not really his drive to play. His drive, like any other teammate on UMX.US, is to win as a team and to learn from our mistakes. He had a great performance at ESEA LAN 7 after winning ESEA LAN 6 with his Main team. So he's been working up the ranks and proof that hard work can bring excellent results. sLip is learning and growing every single day. TRULS: My teammate for many years who lives near me. We've competed and grew up together at the same time so I would say he and I are the backbone of this team. He's definitely an "under the radar" type rifler who can also wield the AWP. So TRULS is pretty much the all around smart, versatile low-key player. Also he and I will be screaming our heads off at LAN as usual to help boost everyone up!
We are extremely grateful to have this sponsorship as UMX.US. All of us are treated very, very well and something we all dreamed for. So again we are just going to keep our heads down low and bust our tails every single day. We want it more than the other guy.
It's now been announced that Ruins has been signed up by Ultimax Gaming. Please take us through the process of how this came to be.
Tony "xaN" Lo helped arrange this sponsorship deal from ZOWIE GEAR, the sponsor of Ultimax Gaming. He acted as the translator and channel medium basically. After several existing team and new lineup considerations everyone just felt we were the right team for UMX.US, the American team, based on work ethic and our dedication. Along with UMX.TW, one of the top Asian Counter-Strike 1.6 teams, we plan on representing Ultimax Gaming as best as we can.
As players we were told that Ultimax Gaming could have signed a top European Counter-Strike 1.6 team instead of expanding into our community, North America, to join with UMX.TW. Obviously that didn't happen and with that said it makes us work even harder.
Since it has been announced that you all will be moving in together, how are the personal relationships meshing within the team? Is there anyone who could be considered the jokester?
Like I said all 5 of us are on the same page and we're all low key type players. So personality wise I really don't forsee any conflicts or clashing. I understand practicing and competing online as a team as opposed to living all under the same roof are two entirely, completely different things and we are fully aware of that. Therefore we are going to minimize issues, which will always come up no matter who you are, as best as we can. We're all adults here and can talk anything over together as a collective unit. Plus our UMX.US Manager, David "DchozN" Cho, will be living with us which should be a great help in terms of organization and scheduling. And Ric (aka iNERTiA) and I drove to the UMX.US team house, a 30+ hour road trip, and didn't manage to kill each other in the end. That has to account for something, right!?!
In your opinion, what is needed to jumpstart North American e-sports to the level that Europe is at currently?
Really hate to sound like some sort of fanboy but what you guys at ESFI World are doing is a bonafide required necessity to push our scene to the same level as Europe. Without journalists who is going to cover our matches? How will anyone know who the top American players are? Who to root and cheer for? The darkhorses? I mean people say we need more sponsors this and more sponsors that and while I agree there really is no point in having them when nobody will know or simply care. Without the media then what is the purpose of all this? We need to help re-establish our community in only the right ways from now on and having a well organized news website like ESFI World, ESEA News and others is the first of many steps we need to take to do just that.
In terms of e-sports coverage, what do you feel is the strongest aspect that will help push our beloved games to the mainstream audience?
Looking at the StarCraft 2 community, I really admire what people like Day9 are doing. By providing amazing content like commentaries, they're helping grow the scene by helping players get even better and of course drawing in new fans and followers. I'd love to see more of that for all games including of course Counter-Strike 1.6 on top of live streams and casts that ESEA, ESL, MLG and others seem to be doing more and more of. So first we need to make ourselves as polished as possible first and foremost. Presenting ourselves in an unique manner that tournaments and notable figures are already spearheading is what we're doing. We just need to scale it up and hopefully that will push us to the next level: mainstream.
Thanks Dustin for your time and good luck to you and your team with the rest of the season. Would you like to give any shout-outs?
Thank you very much for your time and courtesy. Also want to thank ZOWIE GEAR (http://ZOWIEGEAR.com) because none of this would be possible. On behalf of UMX.US we appreciate all of the new fans we hope to bring in while we work hard and represent Ultimax Gaming in the best way possible. Stay tuned to http://UMX-Gaming.com for exclusive content featuring videos of our UMX.US team house in California! We hope to bring some more championships back to USA!
UMX Gaming USA Counter-Strike 1.6
| Dustin 'dizzaman' Dilyerd |
| Ric 'iNERTiA' Bundy |
| Ricky 'sLip' Cohen |
| Kyle 'flowsicK' Mendez |
| Chris 'TRULS' Navratil |
2 Comments