"Team Liquid" as they call themselves, led by Dulantha Wijesundara (19) and including Thushan Hettiarachchi (17), Amri Anwar (17), Faiz Arif (17), Rukhan Rila (16), will take wing to Germany next week to take part in the annual gaming competition which will be held from November 4 to 9. Their specialty: Counter Strike (CS).
Team Leader Dulantha "Sean" Wijesundara, who has been living in the US for the past couple of years, is a professional gamer who according to his team members is the most experienced of the lot at CS.
"I lead the most competitive team in Sri Lanka, but a real competitive team must have at least four years' experience together to develop chemistry, so I don't think we stand a chance," he says to gales of laughter from the rest of the team.
Seriously though, this team is probably the best in town to represent Sri Lanka at this heavily sought after gaming showdown, having won the national levels organised by Lanka e Sports, in September. They were the national finalists chosen for the category of Counter Strike, a first-person shooter strategy game involving two teams of five players.
They also won CS at the recently held Sri Lanka Cyber Games (SLCG).
So exactly how are they so good at this?
According to Thushan, it's the tremendous amount of practice they put into the game, an unbelievable six to eight hours a day. Of course they have a great, ready made excuse for spending so much time glued to a computer screen – need to practise to bring glory to the country, andnot to mention the grand prize, a whopping $10,000.
Thushan, a student of Wicherly International, preparing for his A/Ls next year insists that it's all done after school. "I started playing CS in 2002. I'm into it because of its addictive nature," he says.
His parents have no issues with what he does, he says, adding that he's been doing it forever and it had never affected his studies. In fact, he got very good results at his O/Ls despite the long hours in front of the computer, he says proudly.
They also ‘boot camp.’ “We go over to one person's house and stay over for a few days practising hard and looking at videos of international gaming events, trying to spot their mistakes,” explains Amri.
Amri and Faiz, both from Asian International School, started CS only a year ago, but they're just as good as their fellow team members. "I didn't play CS seriously until I joined this team when it was set up four months ago," says Amri.
The team was put together by Raveen, the admin of gamer.lk, a web based gaming community which was also behind the successfully concluded SLCG.
Faiz, who used to frequent the Colombo gaming cafes before he joined Team Liquid, was introduced to competitive gaming with CS. "I'm going to Malaysia next year for studies, and I think I'm gonna quit gaming after WCG," he says. Amri will be joining Faiz in Malaysia next year, although he has no plans of quitting any time soon.
Commenting on the standards of gaming in Sri Lanka the team members say that it's not professional enough and no one comes forward to sponsor the numerous teams; or "clans" as they're known in the gaming community. "No one wants to play with us here in Sri Lanka. There's no competition for us here. But abroad, it's a different story," says Thushan.
Team Liquid could very well be the youngest team to take part in the WGC, and this is the first time a team from Sri Lanka is taking part in an event of this nature. "We don't get to practise with good teams," says Amri.
However they have got in touch with the Singapore team, and played with them online, says Faiz. The team is optimistic that the situation in the country will improve over the coming years.
The only way to go about this is to get more teams involved and for more sponsors to actively take part in the gaming phenomenon, says Dulantha.
"Play hard, go pro," he says.
Here's wishing our very own pros all the best.
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