Brisbane gamer finetunes tactics ahead of online siege

A Brisbane gamer shares what it takes to level up in the lucrative world of professional online tournaments.

Matthew McHenry is finetuning his skills in Rainbow Six Siege ahead of the Australian grand final of the Rainbow Six Masters Tournament.

A NORTH Brisbane gamer is finetuning his online battle tactics overseas so he can help his team lay siege to the competition and retain its title as Australia’s best.

Matthew “Acez” McHenry, of Carseldine, will join his Fnatic teammates at the Rainbow Six Masters playoffs at the Melbourne Esports Open at the end of the month.

Eight of Australia’s best teams will be battling it out in the online tactical shooter game Rainbow Six Siege for their share of $50,000.

Matthew McHenry loves the challenging nature of online game Rainbow Six Siege.

The Fnatic line-up, which has been together for nearly a year, is ranked No 1 in Australia and top five internationally.

Mr McHenry, 22, said the competition could get extremely intense and the team was currently in London testing new strategies and perfecting new ones.

They will then head to the 2019 Six Major Raleigh Tournament in the US from August 12-18, before the Six Masters in Melbourne from August 31-September 1.

“With the (London) facilities provided by (esports brand) Fnatic, it gives us the opportunity to practice against the European teams, which is arguably the best region in the world at the moment,” Mr McHenry said.

“With the enormous amount of teams in Europe we get more top-level practice than we would back home. In Australia we can only practise against a couple of teams whereas in Europe we can pick from hundreds.

“Practice over in London involves learning and reviewing footage of our opponents that we’ll be facing at the Six Major Raleigh and Six Masters.

“We’ll develop counter strategy for them and practise to see if the strategies work on teams in Europe. During this period we hone our skills and clean up any mistakes or problems we may encounter on game day.”

Matthew McHenry has logged more than 5000 hours playing Rainbow Six Siege.

Mr McHenry said Rainbow Six Siege was a game where any team could come out on top.

“It’s currently so diverse in competition where an upset isn’t unheard of. It comes down to who performs each play day, each series, each game and each round.

“Within Rainbow Six Siege there is a very steep learning curve. It isn’t just about who has the best first person shooter skills.

“It relies on mainly game knowledge, such as learning map layouts and game mechanics, which is gathered by hours and hours of playing the game.

“Throughout your time of playing you learn what angles to hold and not hold, learning opportune timing when and when not to do certain things, learn how to effectively use your Operators (in-game characters with unique weapons and gadgets) and how to counter the enemy team’s Operator line up.

“Siege is a constant battle of moves and counter moves, no two rounds are ever the same.”

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Mr McHenry has logged more than 5000 hours on Rainbow Six Siege since it was launched in 2015.

“During the closed beta demo test, I instantly fell in love with the game due to it being nothing like I’ve ever played before.

“What I like about Siege is it’s a challenging game. There are so many fundamentals when it comes to playing this game competitively which other games don’t have.

“It’s not all about gunfights. There is information gathering, mind games being constantly played and a tremendous amount of strategy involved.

“No two rounds are ever the same and that’s what I loved when I first started playing the game.”

Matthew “Acez” McHenry during a tournament.

While Siege is “by far” his favourite game, Mr McHenry said he usually has a second game on the side which he plays so he doesn’t get “burnt out”.

“I enjoy other shooter games like Apex Legends, Battlefield and Call of Duty,” he said.

“I usually only ever play one other game on the side and it is whatever is popular at the time.

“It used to be Call of Duty, then it was Fortnite for the first couple of seasons, now Apex Legends as well as other first person shooter games.”

Mr McHenry said professional gaming became his first job after success at Rainbow Six Siege.

“Coming out of high school I took a gap year off while learning Graphic Design and Videography. Throughout this period of time, Rainbow Six Siege was released.

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“I first got involved in competitive Rainbow Six Siege in December 2016 when Ubisoft announced the Six Invitational … the first ever International event that invited teams from Australia and Asia.

“We were the lucky ones to qualify and represent Australia on Xbox One. I competed alongside current Fnatic team director Jayden “Dizzle” Saunders and, through the experience of this one event, it gave us the motivation to make this hobby a career.

“When we placed top eight in the world at the 2018 Six Invitational, we caught the attention of Fnatic which is one of the top tier organisations in the world.

“From then, and with the support they have provided us, it became a career. To summarise my career, it really was the right place at the right time.”

Matthew McHenry in game mode.

Although the Six Masters has a prize pool of $50,000, major overseas tournaments attract a much larger jackpot.

The last major Six Invitational 2019 overall prize pool was $US2 million and the Six Major Raleigh 2019 offers $US500,000.

After the Six Masters in Melbourne, Mr McHenry and his teammates will return to Online Pro League which may eventually lead them to the Pro League Finals in Japan, where the eight best teams in the world will compete in a single elimination bracket tournament.

Mr McHenry said he was lucky to have had access to a game console since he was very young.

“PlayStation was my first console when I was about five or six years old. I spent many years after that on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 until Rainbow Six Siege came out, which I bought on Xbox One.”

His message for young gamers was to “be realistic with your future”.

“Set high goals for yourself and know what you must do to achieve these goals. There is much more to this life than just being good at a video game.

“You need to be able to work well in a team environment, be willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve your goals and, overall, be marketable to companies.”

Mr McHenry’s Fnatic teammates include Queenslanders Jake “Virtue” Grannan (24 years), Etienne “Magnet” Rousseau (21) and Ethan “RizRaz” Wombwell (20) alongside New South Welshman Jason “Lusty” Chen (22).