Player Skill vs. Determination

Posted by: xilef

The following article is written by Steven "Stune" Embling

There’s no secret that some people are born naturally skilled at something. Whether it be gaming, academically, or some other ability that may or may not become useful sometime in their lives. For most of us the reasons why we are here (at CGS) is because we have a talent in gaming. But just how important is skill when compared to determination?

Ok, so it’s obvious there is a trade off. Someone who has very little skill in gaming won’t get drafted to CGS anytime soon unless they can show they can do a good job for a team. However, the other way of looking at it is, player skill will only get you so far. The rest is down to hard work and determination.

I can think of many examples where players who weren’t necessarily the most talented at the start have gone on to achieve some truly great accomplishments as time went by. Carolina CORE’s Fifa player Nicholas ‘Peekay’ DePalmer had a dismal Region 1 regular season loosing 11 games and only winning one, a record he surely wanted to but behind him. Thanks to his dedication by the time of the World Finals 8 months later he had really improved, and even managed a draw against our very own ChrisyB, who earned 2nd place in the individual final only a few days previous to the franchise match. Perhaps Peekay’s improvement may have been fuelled by embarrassment more than anything else, but the point is his hard work made him into a valued member of the CORE team.

Another example is Chicago’s Jeremy ‘Black Mamba’ Florence. He had a fairly typical region 1 regular season with a record of 6 wins and 6 losses placing him 3rd overall behind Ryan ‘Offbeat Ninja’ Ward and Emmanuel ‘Master’ Rodriguez. By the time of the world finals Black Mamba earned an incredible 15 points and conceding only one in the three games he played. This stellar performance gifted him the MVP award for the entire event which was well deserved in my opinion. Such an improvement was obviously the result of incredible hard work on his part.

My next example is a little different to the previous two. While they were stories of how they improved their game over time, this is more a story about taking an opportunity and making the most of it. Mauricio Sierra Vargas also known as ‘UFO 79ERN’ (or just UFO as we called him) didn’t quite make the Mexico City Furia team at the time of the draft. Like all CGS teams they have taxi players assigned and UFO was the taxi player of PGR3. Fortunately for him Mexico City Furia’s first choice racer Delpiro could not attend the event so UFO got his chance. Because he didn’t think he would be attending the event he was naturally out of practice and on raw pace alone it’s safe to say he wasn’t as skilled as some of the very fastest at the event. Furia’s taxi player started practice as soon as he got to LA, learning as he went and doing his best to prepare for the challenge ahead, the Berlin Allianz. Berlin’s racers Philippe ‘Yggdrasil’ Vaillant and Erno ‘Finpro’ Kuronen were on paper the fastest racers at the whole tournament so it was a huge shock when Mexico City Furia pulled of a surprise 6-3 victory. A win that would have sealed victory for the Mexicans if it wasn’t for the amazing performance from the Berlin Counterstrike team, who won their game 14-4, handing them a narrow victory in the franchise match.

So with less than a week remaining until the region one draft I keenly await to see the outcome regarding what type of players the GM’s will go for. Weather they will base their choices on skill entirely, or if they base it more strongly on personality and player determination. Where the GM’s perceive this ideal balance between player skill and determination to be will play a major part in the success of the US teams when they are formed next week, as well as all the other teams from around the world.

My final message is this. Skill is a great thing to have, but with it comes responsibility. If you are good chances are you can be great, and if you are great chances are you can be greater. Only through pushing yourself to the limit can you obtain your potential. And on the way to achieving that potential your value to a team will increase enormously.