Our Call of Duty team, comprising of Dillon “Lithium” Charalambous (Captain), Rahil “Rahil” Bux, Robert “Kohvz” Levkov, Alton “Inferno” Coetzee, Jordan “Scorpio” Cupido, Dimitri “Detrony” Hadjipaschali (Manager) and  Oli “Levkov” Levkov (Manager and Coach) will be attending the Call of Duty World League (CWL) in the Copper Box Arena, Olympic Park, London hosted by non-other than Gfinity.

The event starts on May 3rd and ends on May 5th. With a total of 128+ teams attending the open tournament, the tournament the Bravado COD team is playing in, we can expect some intense Call of Duty action over the 3 day event, perhaps some upsets and most certainly foresee the team coming back with knowledge they would have otherwise been incapable of acquiring playing in South Africa. It’s time to put South African Call of Duty on the map!

All the players are obviously excited but none of them are as excited as the captain of the Call of Duty side, Dillon “Lithium” Charalambous. Despite the busy schedule and hours upon hours of practice, he managed to give me some of his time to give the rest of South Africa some insight into the experience and emotions heading into such a big stage of all the players’ gaming careers. Here’s what he had to say:

How long have you been planning to attend a Call of Duty tournament/event overseas?
Ever since joining Bravado Gaming and even prior to that, it’s been something I personally have been working towards as well as my team. The beginning of last year was the actual start because we finally sorted the team out (in 2018). We were planning to go to one of the events, unfortunately it didn’t work out but ever since 2016 we’ve been working towards it.

Have you had a boot-camp yet to polish up before the event?
We have been practicing against teams where we play large series of maps and overseas we’ll have facilities to boot camp for 2 days before the event. Apart from that we haven’t had a boot-camp per say but we definitely have been putting in the hours required to make this event worthwhile.

What are the expectations heading into the event?
It’s quite difficult to gauge our expectations, we are playing in the amateur/open bracket and this is our first time playing overseas which obviously will bring about a lot of nerves but we will have it under control I’m sure, it’s something we have all been working towards for so long and now that we finally have this opportunity under the Bravado banner, it’s really something we are grateful for. The open bracket has pro teams in it as well as a relegation system, however I do feel like we can definitely do well. We were watching the first amateur event a few weeks ago, judging from that we think we should perform well, we have been grinding away and putting the time where it needs to go. Of course watching and playing is a completely different thing, all I can say for now is that we have put the practice in, let’s see what happens.

Another thing to note is that this is the first time any of us are going overseas for Call of Duty, it really is a dream come true. All of us have the same goal and same dream, this is an opportunity to make it all a reality. We will be leaving on the 30th April and we will depart on the 6th May. Those few days before the tournament we will have to make good use of.

Competing overseas, what does it mean after working towards it?
Well it’s something we have been working to from 2015 under Astro when we first started taking competitive Call of Duty seriously. It’s been something we’ve worked really hard towards since the original Bravado team which was original Astro team. We dominated the scene for 2 years prior to joining with Bravado Gaming, upon joining Bravado Gaming in 2017 we kept 2 of our players and dropped 2 more. This was because there were meant to be over 18 tournaments. We needed players over 18 to compete in most of the events and have a chance of going overseas. This lead to us struggling locally because most of the better players are under 18 and only a handful of players over 18 are on top of their game. In 2018 we finally sorted our roster and picked up the players we wanted to that finally turned 18.

Towards the end of 2018 we picked up our game a lot and into 2019 with the new roster changes I feel like we’ve made the best roster Bravado can have and the best roster South Africa can have and send to represent. Everyone in the team wants to make a career out of this, the past two big events we have dominated, we need to keep our form and not lose sight of our goals. This means the world to us, to have this opportunity

In this country this wouldn’t have been a possibility without Bravado Gaming, if you want to have a career in an esports title, if there’s an opportunity, Bravado can and will build a team to compete at the highest level and only Bravado has been successful in sending teams overseas for events and tournaments. Unlike other organizations,  Bravado has a specific and unique goal, which is to make an impact for South African esports not only locally but at an international level, Bravado is actively trying to make an impact for the local scene overseas. It’s an honor to be a part of this organization.

Will we see organizations from other countries be looking into South Africa as a potential market for young talent provided the team performs well overseas?
To be honest with you, in COD you don’t really see mixed teams like in other esports titles like CS, where you’ll have players from all around the world playing together, usually you have teams with players from the same country or region. As far as the league and CWL goes, if we do well there might be a league and national qualifier  for South African teams to play and qualify for the overseas events which is something that has really been lacking for us. If we manage to do that it will bring a lot of investment and interest into South Africa for Call of Duty and who knows, we might potentially even start to see multiple South Africa COD teams be invited for these big events. But for now, there are no national qualifiers for us, Bravado Gaming has taken the initiative and we have done this out of our own to show the world what our COD team has to show and what South Africa has to show.

It’s clear that the Bravado Gaming Call of Duty team is ready to show what they’re made of.
Stay tuned for more Bravado news and updates!

We would like to once again thank each and every person for your continued support. Make sure you follow Bravado Gaming on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for continuous updates on Project Destiny. Bravado Gaming is proudly sponsored by ALIENWARE and Intel and is the proud brand ambassador for ALIENWARE in the META Region. Learn more about Bravado Gaming, ALIENWARE and Intel here. | #bvdgaming #bvdalienware #bvdintel #bvdtacchini #bvdvertagear #alienware #intel #sergiotacchini #vertagear #bvdstore #bvdfinesse

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