Favorite Food: Steak and Shrimp from Fuji ( A local Japanese Grill )
Least Favorite Food: Anything with mayo on it
Favorite Sport: Football
Favorite Player: Steve Smith of the Carolina Panthers
Favorite Color: Green
Favorite Console system: Xbox
What do you want to be when you grow up? Don’t know exactly, I’m just
going to keep an open mind and look for something I can do that I enjoy.
Going to school: University of Tennessee Knoxville.
What for?
Majoring in Psychology / Minor in Business
Favorite League: CEVO
Why? Their anti-cheat client and the prize
money for each league.
Micol “Money-B” Brittain is the In-Game Leader of Team Pandemic’s Day of Defeat
team and his record tells you why: he helped Pandemic place sixth at the recent
WSVG ISC, first at Web2Zone LAN, and champions in CAL Main Season 14. So far,
his team is undefeated with a record of 5-0 in CAL Day of Defeat: Source Open
Season 1. Of course, no professional gamer ever makes it to the big leagues
without a lot of effort and dedication to his game and his team. Money-B is no
exception.
Money-B started out in 2002 playing bots on a LAN with his friend Matt. His
friend’s father owned a computer business, so Money-B and his friends took
advantage of the six or seven computers always at the house to play against bots
for hours on end. Matt introduced the concept of leagues and tournaments to all
of them. The friends soon started a local team called [BAH]. Unfamiliar to IRC,
Ventrilo, and formally scrimmaging, BAH played in RCL with default rates and
in-game voice communication.
A few months of hopping on random servers as a team brought them one day to clan
SIC’s server. They beat SIC regularly, until the spring of 2003. In 2003, BAH
scrimmed a team called Toonses during a regular LAN night. As Money-B puts it,
“They rolled us so hard I couldn’t believe it. They were the best players I had
ever seen play the game.” Toonses agreed to scrim them from time to time, and
somewhat ‘adopted’ them, showing them tricks on avalanche and all kinds of
things that their young team didn’t even know how to do. After beating the top
team at KnoxLan with 10 seconds left on the clock, BAH changed their name to
Unknown Killerz and finished Season 4 in CAL Open undefeated prior to an
unfortunate overturn – one of their teammates had adjusted his m_pitch and m_yaw
during the championship match.
“Our first invite match was on Donner against NHN. We won and I went like 36-4
on axis and got disputed. We played a pretty solid first season in invite and
made playoffs. We beat shockwave on avalanche when we unveiled the voodoo ‘nade.
That was a pretty big deal to us back then because they were one of the best
teams at the time. Then, during first round of the playoffs, we had to play VE,
but they needed to reschedule. We ended up saying, if they would play us on
avalanche, we would reschedule and they agreed. We stuck it to them and as a
result, they disputed Voodoo. Voodoo was then wrongfully banned and that was
when I took over UKZ.”
The loss of a good friend and player almost caused Money-B to quit. He had
played with Voodoo for almost two years and had taught Money-B everything he
knew about DoD up to that point. It was devastating. “It was pretty fun coming
home from school and playing on LAN with your best friends everyday.” He knew
Voodoo hadn’t cheated. As a result, the old UKZ players began dropping off.
However, it didn’t hold them back. In fact, one might say opened the door for
Money-B to bigger and better things. UKZ continued with different rosters for
two more years, placing in the top five spots during CAL-Invite for several
years in a row. At Summer CPL 2005, Money-B’s team lost to his future team,
Pandemic. Money-B says, “At summer CPL 2005 we lost in the upper bracket
semi-finals to Pandemic in what I consider one of the best matches of all time.
Pandemic made a second half comeback and capped out with a few minutes to go.
Then, Pie killed four of us as we attempted to take the last flag and cap back
on Pandemic. It was intense but after that tournament we played only one more
season before retiring UKZ.”
Soon thereafter he joined Pandemic and the rest, as they say, is history. The
decision for Brittain to join Pandemic was an easy one: “I first joined Pandemic
to play with my friends and compete at the highest level. I get along with the
guys great and I didn’t want to play with a team of people I dislike or don’t
get along with. Mainly, I wanted to play on a team with Brandon and Cameron.
Also joining the team that beat my team at the last major tourney can only be
for the better. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Despite having fun as the ultimate objective, Brittain definitely has goals he’d
like to see his team reach year to year: to play CEVO well, and help build the
team toward a CEVO-Professional Championship. Hopefully on Chemille Railroad2
and Harrington, maps which Brittain believes are Pandemic’s strongest maps.
When I asked him what he thought was most important for teams to function well
together, he replied “Everyone on a team needs to get along well with one
another. You can’t have a successful team with people constantly fighting and
arguing with team mates. Along with that, communicating with one another is
huge. One thing I love about our team is, we are all friends and we think alike
in game and outside of DoD. So many times, I’ll go to tell Brandon or Cameron to
do something and they’ll already be ahead of me, or they’ll know exactly what I
mean.”
For new teams wanting to compete with the big dogs, game awareness,
communication, and the “why” of things are most critical. Knowing what is going
on around you during the match is crucial to success. Really good teams all do
this – they are able to predict and counter their opposing team’s actions.
“Calling out positions quickly can give your teammate a much-needed advantage
when a situation hits that rewards the player with the quickest reaction time;
it gives your teammate the advantage. Whenever they are scrimmaging or
practicing, they need to ask why they are running a certain strategy.”
However, for any team, new or old, Micol insists that there is “nothing like
going to a CPL or WSVG event and competing against the best of the best. What I
like the least is having to play online so much. I wish there were more LANs
more often, but one can only hope.” Professional gaming, in order to become a
true professional sport, needs more mainstream exposure, more big name sponsors,
and a larger spectator audience, among other things.
At this point, I asked Micol if he thought professional gamers needed a boost in
image. What exactly does the public expect of the 'professional' players in the
game? There are so many opinions on the subject, a gamer can be hard-pressed to
decide what is and isn’t considered acceptable. “As far as the players go, I
don’t think they need to try to look professional by wearing suits. I think the
best way they can look professional is to all wear the same thing. Be like any
professional sports team; wear the same team shirts or jerseys. Lebron James
doesn’t wear a suit or jeans when he plays he wears the same thing as the rest
of the Cavaliers. Just wearing the same team shirts sporting the logo and
sponsor logos is the best start in my opinion.”
When it comes to the professional gaming circuit, the Europeans, he says, have
it down pat.
Americans versus Europeans: Who's better at gaming?
Euros. I say this just based upon what I have seen out of European CS and
they’re down right nasty.
Who’s better at DoD?
Until the best teams in Europe get to face off against the top North American
teams one can only speculate. It’s hard to tell because I’ve played on LAN with
and against the best of what NA has to offer and I haven’t had a chance to see
any top Euro team play on LAN. It’s a whole different ball game on LAN.
What positive skills and strengths, in general, do you think each brings to
the table?
The Euros seem to play smarter, slower, more conservation / smarter….they crouch
walk a lot and prone. They do hit tons of crazy spam shots. I don’t know much
about the Euro style of play, all the European DoD movies I have seen consist of
one guy killing 2 guys who are shooting and missing them and then proceeding to
shoot 3 or 4 more unsuspecting victims who seem to be oblivious to the fact that
this guy is killing their team.
Catch Micol “Money-B” Brittain in x3o LAN as he competes against some of the
best, and some of what he considers to be his biggest challenges, JMC and Jetty.
Good luck at x3o LAN, Micol, and here’s to seeing you lead Pandemic’s DoD team
to success.
Other Links:
Money-B Hysteria Movie
DoD Dealers Movie
UKZ Summer CPL 05 Movie 
