Number 2 Player of Year 4: Rampy

Rampy has been consistently one of the best players throughout the entire year. In the early period when SSG struggled online and could not make deep runs at LAN events, he still was a standout individually, but when SSG really put it all together in the latter months of the year, Rampy was unleashed. He stood out as one of the game's best fraggers while at the same time improving his team play. 

Rampy's run began in earnest around the Raleigh Major when the team unexpectedly pushed its way through Group C in 2-0 fashion. Rampy played well but it was by no means a solo effort, everyone on the team played a part in the promising showing for SSG. Immediately after this SSG would make their biggest move of the year: bringing on longtime in-game leader Canadian from Evil Geniuses to fill the IGL gap they'd had on their team since benching Redeemer. 

Under Canadian, Rampy became a god. After a settling-in period, Rampy began to dominate at the OGA PIT Minor, leading the team to a second-place finish. He was the second-highest rated player in the tournament, just behind tournament MVP Paluh. He continued to impress online during the SI Quals and the first split of Season 11, but his best performance was still yet to come. 

At the Six Invitational, Rampy could not be stopped. Once again he would lead his team to a flawless record, earning himself MVP honors in the process. He was again the second-highest rated player to make the playoffs (behind only Shaiiko). Closing out the year on such a high note meant that many of SSG's past shortcomings could now be let go, as the new North American powerhouse has seemingly arrived.  

Here are each of Rampy's performances this year:

Tournament	Rating	K-D (+/-)	Misc.
PL S9 NA	1.20	130-96 (+34)	6 1vX Clutches
Allied Minor	1.10	56-45 (+11)	0.85 KPR
Raleigh Quals	1.09	112-93 (+19)	27-11 OK-OD
Raleigh Major	1.11	56-47 (+9)	57% Headshots
DH Montreal	1.05	65-57 (+8)	Buck/Jager Main
PL S10 NA	1.08	125-103 (+22)	68% KOST
OGA Quals	1.55	61-22 (+39)	88% KOST
OGA PIT	1.20	129-84 (+45)	0.93 KPR
USN Finals	1.08	63-47 (+16)	41% Survival
SI Quals	1.15	102-73 (+29)	0.86 KPR
PL S11a NA	1.32	76-42 (+34)	75% KOST
SI 2020	1.20	168-120 (+48)	34-24 OK-OD

 

We also had a chance to speak with Rampy about his performance this year:

You ended last year with a heartbreaking loss to G2 at the Invitational, and now one year later have lifted the hammer yourself. How much of a difference does one year make?

Honestly, this team has always been consistently good at LAN events. We would make it out of groups nearly at every event but then would fall short in playoffs. When we brutally lost to Secret at Raleigh (0-2) we had a deep understanding of what we needed, which was a true IGL. For the longest time, we didn't have a true IGL, we ran a 3-man system which consisted of Bosco, Me, and Fultz. It wasn't anything crazy, just small adaptations mid-game and some strat calling. Our last true IGL was Redeemer and we replaced him on the team a while ago. We've made a lot of roster changes and with the pickup of Troy (Canadian) being our most recent change, we feel like he was the missing piece to our puzzle. His IGLing and experience as a player have made us the team we're now, for example, we're more flexible and are changing strats on the fly(mid-game). I'm a firm believer that with Canadian we're stronger than ever.

You individually but also SSG as a team started the year out relatively slowly, but have been on fire the last few months of the circuit. What made the difference and allowed such an improvement in individual and team performance?

I personally believe we only had a slow start when we first picked up Canadian and we were dealing with role changes and being a brand-new roster, this also includes Dreamhack Montreal 2019 when we got knocked out by EG. We do normally struggle when it comes to online matches compared to LAN events just due to how different the game plays. I believe my slowest individual performance was in season 8. It was my first season in pro league, and I finished the first split at -18. I'm still not where I want to be and I'm not planning on changing my work ethic just because of one win. Also, people always tell me that they can see my confidence and can see a huge difference from where I was on Noble to where now I am now. Confidence was a huge struggle for me at the start of my professional career and once I got it up, I was playing better. Now with the team I will say one thing that has changed tremendously about this team when we picked up Canadian is our composure. Before we made the change for Canadian if we were losing in a game our comms were different and not as productive which always made it harder to get back into a losing game. Canadian has changed all of that and you could really see it at the Invitational, even when we were losing rounds we were still trying to answer back and never went down without a fight. I think that’s why we beat NiP, because they were dominating us in all aspects of the game in the first two maps and even in the start of the third map (Clubhouse) if we would've lost our composure we would've not lifted that hammer guaranteed.

How are you feeling about the future of Siege as an esport?

I can see the growth of this esport and it’s very exciting to see, the prize pools are getting bigger, our game is growing in players. I believe that this game will take over the esports scene very soon. I can't wait to see what happens in the future.

What are you going to work on to improve your success next year?

One thing our team is known for is our grind, we play this game constantly learning and improving our strategies. I believe we have the best work ethic out of all teams, and we aren't going to change anything. We will continue to work hard and focus on ourselves and improving our game on all aspects.

Is there anything you would like to say to your fans and the wider Siege community?

To all our fans I really thank you guys for being there for us through our struggles and through all of the roster changes. We loved hearing all the SSG chants while we were getting absolutely obliterated vs NiP which was crazy in itself. While I was playing, I thought to myself saying "They're chanting our names while we're getting smoked" but it kept us moving and knowing you guys had faith in us kept us alive. So, thank you for that! :)

You can also watch Rampy's best plays of the year in the fragmovie below:

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Stay tuned for more of the top ten players, you can check out the full list in the awards hub and make sure to let us know what you think about each one on social media!