Carlsbad, Calif. – 9 November, 2011 – Razer, one of the world’s first pioneering supporters of e-Sports, and Team AmazYn, professional Xbox 360 console gaming team, have formed a partnership to tackle the competition in the Gears of war 3 scene and marks the first dedicated professional console team sponsorship of Razer with many more to follow.

Team AmazYn have been a key player in the Gears of War pro-gaming scene since the game was first introduced to the Major League Gaming circuit in 2007 and will now represent Team Razer as its first professional console gaming team, with some of the most talented and popular faces in the community.  Members of Team AmazYn have also been closely involved in the past with the validation and testing of Razer’s console peripheral prootypes prior to the Razer Onza and Razer Chimaera product launches.

“Team AmazYn stood out from the crowd when we considered picking up our first professional console team,” said Robert ‘RazerGuy’ Krakoff, President, Razer USA. “The team strives to be the best in what they do, be t on the battlefield or in the community.  We’re excited to see them thrive in both these aspects while gearing up with the Razer Onza and Razer Chimaera and we look forward to their continued contribution to the development of more products in our console line.

During the 2009 MLG season AmazYn took their first title in Dallas, showing themselves to be one of the high-flyers in Gears of war 2 and will now continue to hunt and claim their first Gears of War 3 victory under the Team Razer banner.

“I cannot express how excited we are with our new partnership with Razer,” said Kendall “arCtiC” Lynn Smith, Team Founder and Captain of AmazYn. “Razer’s entry into the competitive console gaming scene is something I have been waiting to witness for a number of years and their support is vital to our continued growth as a team.  Razer’s peripherals are changing the dynamic of competitive console gaming and they will be a critical asset to our success in Gears of War.”

Aside from being brutal combatants and well-drilled competitors inside the game, outside the game AmazYn also plays host to one of the web’s largest resources for Gears of war discussion, guides, strategies, video commentaries and product reviews, partnered with a successful YouTube channel which keeps them ahead of the game.

About Razer:

Razer has been a pioneering supporter of e-Sports since its conception.  It is in our blood and we are driven to further the culture of professional gaming in all that we do.  We work hand in hand with our pros to forge weaponry for the players who stake their livelihood on podium placements.  Our gear is designed to perform flawlessly in high-stress tournament conditions where winning is everything and mistakes cost championship0s.  Those who compete with our equipment will attest — We live by our words: For Gamers. By Gamers.

For  More Information, Please Visit: www.razerzone.com

About AmazYn Gaming

AmazYn was created in December 2008 with the intention of establishing an environment that promotes healthy competition, loyalty, and success. AmazYn was created by Kendall “arCtiC” smith and is currently managed by his brother Kerrington “OraNgE” Smith.  The team is comprised of players located in North America and aims to compete in e-Sports competitions centered around console gaming both online and at major competitions abroad.

For More Information, Please Visit: http://reflectzyn.com

Press Contacts:

Razer

Christopher “Razer|Right” Mitchell

Razer e-Sports Manager

sponsorships@razerzone.com

AmazYn Gaming

Kerrington smith

Team Manager, AmazYn Gaming

kerrington@reflectzyn.com

Today starts the first official online tournament that our team will be participating in, however I must caution some of our supporters and fans —  should we advance to next weekend we will be forfeiting our matches.  One of our teammates, @Calinorth will be out for that weekend and we have no intentions of filling in a substitute for Round 3 of the tournament.  We apologize in advance for anyone that may have hoped we were going to play out the tournament.  The good news is that we will be streaming the matches played today on Calinorth’s live stream — http://www.twitch.tv/calinorth. Calinorth regularly streams so if you’re not following the stream, I would kindly recommend taking a gander over there over now and again.  Additionally our first match will also be featured on the GoW Nation Live stream to kick things off for the tournament.

The brackets and tournament information can be found here: link

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There are no formal rules to scrimmaging or practicing in the competitive gaming scene.  It’s more like a wild, informal, lack-of-structure type of atmosphere where consistency is an afterthought and players change teams like a baby changes diapers. At the beginning of the 2009 MLG Season our team adopted a set of guidelines to follow when preparing to practice against other teams in this inconsistent atmosphere.  These self-imposed guidelines were a driving force behind our Scrimmage Mentality because they reflected the experiences and troubles we previously encountered as a team, but wanted to avoid and rectify in order to improve our “game” each and every day we practiced.

One of the earliest rules we adopted was the “first come, first serve” policy.  Our reputation as one of the “weaker” top teams usually meant a lot of other top teams would leave in the middle of a scrimmage against us in order to practice against, what that team perceived as a “better” team.  I am sure that the mentality of playing “better” teams equating to “better” practice still exists, but it just didn’t fly with us.  Perhaps in some instances it truly is better practice, but for my team that simply was not the case.   It became a little difficult to practice consistently against other top teams so we decided to shift our priority and focus on defining our principles and goals of practicing as a team.  We wanted repetition, we wanted consistency and we wanted to play against teams that felt they needed to improve as much or more than our own team.  That’s when things got really interesting; the moment we said “screw” trying to play “the best,” and instead working on perfecting our game and practicing in an environment that benefited our work ethic and dedication to improvement.

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Overall, I think the new mode is a great addition to Gears. I was never a fan of Horde Mode in GoW2, and I expected Beast Mode to be equally as unappealing. After playing and watching it firsthand, I can say that it truly is the most fun and unique co-op mode I’ve played in any of the Gears of War games so far.

Beast Mode’s claim to fame is its variety. You can play as almost any enemy in the Gears of War universe, and they all feel pretty unique. I was able to play about half the characters and watch others play the rest. The only criticism I have about the new mode is that the pricing seems to be wrong for a few characters. For example, most the melee or short-ranged characters seemed overpriced for how ineffective they were. Characters with healing (like the Kantus and Savage Corpser) seemed overpowered for the price they were currently set at.

The Savage Grenadier on the other hand, who only has a shotgun and grenades, didn’t seem worth the price at all since almost all the battles took place from a long range. Judging from what I saw, about 1/3 the characters weren’t worth buying due to them being overpriced or another, way more useful character being priced too low. I only got to play a few games, so I’m hoping that my initial impressions are wrong, and all the characters have a place in Beast Mode. Either way, it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Without further ado, here are the videos:

If you want to read more in depth about all the Beast Mode characters, you should check out this thread on the Epic Forums.

I may be a few days late, but my gameplay from last weekend’s #GearsWeekend was posted on the @AmazYnMLG YouTube channel earlier this week.  Last weekend I was able to include some games with fellow teammate @Skyzyn, so I made sure to include some Execution gameplay.  I’m hoping to get additional gameplay with the rest of my teammates, @PhoboszYn and @Calinorth, as we start getting into our practice schedule routine.

I also want to note that the #GearsWeekend gameplay is being captured using the Roxio Game Capture, not the HD PVR.  I’m prepping for a review so bare with me on the quality, I know it is not what you may have become accustom to watching.

I asked this question yesterday on Twitter and received an overwhelming response, so overwhelming in fact, that it crashed my Tweetdeck application! First things first, I do not believe that Pro Players from Gears of War 2 should retain their Pro status should the game be on the circuit during the 2012 season.  I just wanted to gauge how the community would react to the question and by my estimates it’s an overwhelming “No it’s a new game, everyone should start fresh,” type of response.  The discussion is continuing over on GoW Nation, sign up if you haven’t already.

NOTE: I did not include everyone’s tweets — just too many.  Apologies.

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I’m a big fan of statistics. During some of our early tournaments I was known as the guy who brought a clipboard and notebook with him to events and would take down the stats after each map we played. I felt that we could use these stats – which I had broken down by map and player – to improve our chances of winning. The metrics I tracked were the same which the game presents during a match:

After an event I’d spend the couple hours waiting for my flight back home compiling the numbers to see how we did individually and which maps gave us the most issues. I did this a couple major events before I came to a conclusion: You can’t really determine anything from looking at these stats in Gears of War.

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