SteveC: A Love Story
SteveC is an Information System Management major at U of Maryland with a 3.5 GPA, his favorite movie is Spirited Away, he sponsors a team with a guy on it that likes to ejaculate on pictures of people, has played at the top level this game has to offer, and still plays for the joy that TF2 brings him. Late one night, I decided to inject video game steroids and talk to SteveC: namesake of SteveC Games and scout extraordinaire in both 6s and Highlander. We talked about his story...nay his legacy as one of the most celebrated back-ups TF2 has ever seen on a journey that was both fun and entertaining. His gamer resume is incredibly impressive, having played in just about every division of competitive TF2 you could imagine with some incredibly talented players. SteveC is known as one of the most fun people to play TF2 with on a team with his ability to keep the game fun and to perform some game changing antics on the fly. The only player to have been banned from ESEA for tauntsliding, SteveC's story is unusual and incredibly human to say the least.
Steve's TF2 career started when his cousin bought TF2 for his birthday in 2007, although Steve's computer was so terrible he wasn't able to run the game at first. It wouldn't be after he started taking computer classes that he would finally update his computer with a new graphics card to play with a whopping 55 frames per second. His competitive career started in the now de-funct TWL (Total Warfare League) season 4 in division 2, playing with some people he met on GAME FAQs. His team was able to make playoffs in the first season, but the team folded because the game was pretty bad at the time, and Steve had yet to unlock his potential. Soon he would join a team with CtrlFMuffin of demoman fame, as well as zeron from his old TWL team. While Steve did try out other classes, he would go back to playing scout when it was clear the other classes didn't speak to him on a serious level. The CEVO team he joined, Euphoria, had what are now pretty well known players, also legendary in their own right: BigDaddyRick, CtrlFMuffin, Blinky, and Seanbsly. However. the only thing Steve really could recall from this team was Sean running into the pillars on granary second repeatedly, and that he's pretty sure Sean still has the same computer that he is currently playing on back then.
Even though Steve was only a back up at the time, it didn't stop him from trying to join teams like Lore's Merry Men (Ghostayama, KillingintheName) or the old AG team with Clandestine PZ and Squiggling with Squiggle. One would think he would finally start for a team, but alas it was not to be so. Right around the time that ESEA started to emerge as the main league for TF2, Steve got a job at Chucky fucking Cheese's as a cashier, and his TF2 playing stopped for a hot second. “I had to wipe every machine down whenever I worked there, and it took like 2 hours every time. So I quit.” So, Steve traded one evil for another and started working at Micro Center as a cashier instead, where they didn't make him clean machines for two hours. While working at Micro Center, he stumbled into doing some contract work for Google and Bing where he was paid a lot better, but at 18 with no self motivation, he decided to just go to college and play TF2 3 months later instead.
Season 9 of ESEA would mark the beginning of Steve's actual playtime on an Open team called “We Go Play Hoop”, with the likes of Rando, Technosex, Kapow, Drogo, and Spanker. Steve recalls some fun times trolling Technosex with Rando, on the subject of “baked or fried wings”, where Technosex was the only person in the history of forever to prefer his wings baked. The team would make it to 6th place after beefing it against Sin City in the losers brackets, but it was good enough for the roster to move to IM. Like most TF2 players, however, Steve would not be tied down to just one team, and promptly left the team to play for a one of my personally favorite team names, Banned from eHarmony in season 10 ESEA-IM.
Banned from eHarmony was defy, CHE, June, Shrugger, and BOLT_ with Steve joining them on scout. Unfortunately, the team didn't do all that great that season, so the team died with two matches left in the regular season and Steve would join forces with Remedy to form the Carl Sagan Foundation. At the start of season 11, Carl Sagan was Remedy, WaffleB, ChrizTahFah, Spadez, and Chimpfeet. The team had a decent season and made it to playoffs, where along the way Waffle got cut for Ma3la. Steve talks a little about some of the issues the team had: “It wasn't that bad most of the time, but Remedy would go days without sleeping at times.” Once they got to IM playoffs, they would lose the first two matches and finish 7th. This had been the farthest Steve had made it in his TF2 career, and even though Carl Sagan died that season, a new team was formed that would go further than any of his previous teams.
Wowow Kapow was formed from the dead Carl Sagan roster with Chriztahfah and Steve keeping the roster alive with the likes of Boink, Rando, Drogo, schicken, rave (who got cut after playing only one match). Eventually Steve would leave after playing 6 matches and be replaced by first oov and then Powah. The team would go on to change their name to SteveC Games before they beat Xensity in the Grand Finals, which Steve will take to the grave as the season he technically won IM. The roster would go to Invite that next season without Steve and be sponsored by AG, dropping the SteveC monaker. Eventually that roster would go to LAN in season 14 after getting rolled in season 13, while Steve would essentially take two seasons off. Around the time Steve left SteveC Games, he would start his illustrious Highlander career on the gold team known as Quality Control.
During his time on Quality Control, he would stream non stop and become a popular TF2 streamer, often streaming late at night with his shirt off, injecting video game steroids. Eventually he would make it to Platinum with the team DEATHFORCE 9, but then real life started to catch up to Steve. During that summer, Steve got a job at Burger King and started school at University of Maryland after graduating community college. A step up from cashier, Steve was a delivery driver for Burger King, whom nobody orders from and therefore Steve never got tips. At some point along the way, Steve realize he hated not getting tips, hates his minivan that he delivered Burger King in, and hated traffic because it was awful. So of course he does what every normal human being would do: he quit Burger King and started smoking medical marijuana.
Steve's preferred method of injection is with a vaporizer, and more specifically a vape known as Da Buddha Vaporizer, or DBV as it is commonly known. Before the DBV he had been using the Magic Flight Box, which was a wooden box with a battery in it that could act as a portable vaporizer. Steve's steroids of choice are OG Kush when he wants to sleep better (being a very potent indica) and Durbin Poison when he's feeling more like a potent sativa. “I don't want to die from smoking, but being high can be incredibly uplifting. Its not a feeling I can really explain, but if you have felt it you know what I'm talking about.” Funny enough, Steve usually didn't smoke during scrims and matches, but on stream with his shirt off eating bananas, he guessed he was high about 25% of the time. His routine would usually be to vape right after more serious scrims and matches, sometimes using the vape with a bong so it wouldn't produce dry coughing that could destroy his throat. I've never even considered using a vape with a bong, and so I consider SteveC to be a genius video game steroid injector.
Season 14 was the ronin season for Steve, where he reverted back to backing up for a variety of teams, including eGO, SYOPs TF2, and Down to Pound. Funny enough, around the same time that he started vaping a lot was also the time of his biggest opportunity in Season 15. Despite not having played on a team full time the season before, Steve was “invited” to try out for Ggglygy's Invite roster on Show Me the Monet. During his try out, Steve can only recall baiting his whole team and doing well, even though Steve had no fucking idea what he was doing. But big Gig wants SteveC, so Steve gets the spot over Sal and has his shot at the big leagues. Show Me the Monet was Ninjanick, Milehighmilitia, Grape, Ggglygy, 38special (for a hot second) and Ranga. The team would finish with an 8-8 record at 5th place, one spot away from making it to LAN. “Gggly was probably the nicest and funniest person I've ever played with. Sometimes he would do Nick's homework for him...he even did my homework sometimes too.” Right around the middle of the season, Ninjanick would start his video game steroids addiction, and hilarity ensues. Even though they did well enough to hang in the middle of Invite, Steve's efforts of trying to keep the roster alive are to no avail, as all his teammates parted ways after the dream of LAN was gone.
Where is Steve now? Steve plays for The Sad Zone in ESEA IM, backs up for Menace to Society in Platinum HL, and sponsors the Gold Highlander team SteveC Games, which really just means he pays for the server. The highlander team he sponsors has some of the biggest trolls in highlander, posting pictures of their dicks with people's faces on it and doing other ridiculous things. Even after all his playtime, Steve prefers 6s because he feels that pyro mechanics ruin the game, but still enjoys highlander to a certain extent. I asked him who were some of his biggest influences in the game to which he replied, “I didn't really look up to anyone because I didn't want to fear them if I had to play against them. I love watching Shrugger, but for the most part I don't like watching TF2 because it can be a little boring. Extine is my favorite showcaster because he actually makes the game fun to watch.” And to Steve, thats what its all about: having fun no matter what division you're playing in until its not fun anymore, which is something I think we can all relate to.
Big thanks to SteveC for putting up with my bullshit and talking to me for like 4 hours about his TF2 life and for being the chillest dude to play games with. Thanks for the patience, homie.
SteveC's Gamer resume:
Show me the Monet(ESEA-I S15) 5th
Lonely Hearts(UGC Platinum 6v6 S13) 12-0 1st
Yancy Dick Sucking Club(UGC 6v6 S8) 1st
DeathForce6 (Cevo 6v6 S1) 14-0 1st
SteveCGames (ESEA-IM S12) 1st
eGO FFA 2012 1v1 1st
TEAM SIREN (GXL Lan 2013) 1st
Menace to Society(UGC Platinum HL S12) 2nd
DEATHFORCE9(UGC-Platinum HL S10) 4th
Quality Control (UGC-Platinum HL S9) 5th
Paddie's 2v2 Bball TF2 tournament 2nd
Carl Sagan Foundation (ESEA-IM S11) 5th
We Go Play Hoop (ESEA-O S9) 6th
Banned from ESEA for tauntsliding
+30 or so of other teams I backed up on.