Journey Continues with Tt : Blog

by Kalvin Chung / May 11, 2016
Journey Continues with Tt : Blog

We announce that we will continue to work with TteSPORTS and now Thermaltake as well. We want to be more transparent with our followers and fans about who we work with as we feel it’s important for you to know what happens behind closed doors at MnM.

Our journey with TteSPORTS started back in August where we were in discussions with them moving into the UK eSports scene once again. TteSPORTS have had a long history with UK eSports having worked with teams such as Team Infused and London Conpsiracy and have been a head sponsor in several Insomnia Gaming Festival Tournaments over the years.

Things moved forward and TteSPORTS were and are our only peripheral sponsor. After meeting the German and UK members of TteSPORTS at Insomnia 55, we officially joined Team Tt 2 weeks later in mid September.

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MnM at the Insomnia 55 TteSPORTS booth (August 2015): FL3XYY, vertiGo, SmokeyLemon, Flash, me & Thermaltake members

This was a big step for us, to work with a leading company in peripherals and to offer our players something we couldn’t before, equipment and the chance to represent and worldly recognised brand.

Personally we could not be more happy to offer our players equipment and gear in return for the effort they put into the game to represent MnM. I appreciate this being a gamble for TteSPORTS, supporting an organisation that still has a lot to prove nationally and internationally.

A month later we showed up at our first offline event as part of Team Tt (not counting Insomnia 55 in August as we were not technically official then). We had a respectable finish of 5th after losing out to Reason Gaming who later went to finish 2nd.

mortism using his TteSPORTS Keyboard, Mouse Mat and Mouse Bungee
mortism using his TteSPORTS Keyboard, Mouse Mat and Mouse Bungee

I recall people saying it is Christmas as FL3XYY and I marched in with boxes full of gear that TteSPORTS had sent us.

In November we found ourselves taking 2 ESWC Qualifier spots with Kappa taking it in the first qualifier and Beat taking it in the second. This was a big celebration for us, the first time we would be attending an event as big as ESWC.

ESWC Collage
Trackmania Players, Management and Tt at the LDLC Booth in Paris (ESWC)

This was a great opportunity for players to meet and get to know more people from Thermaltake/TteSPORTS. Why was this significant in moving the relationship and partnership forward with Tt? It puts a face to the brand and it made the Trackmania team even more proud to be part of Team Tt, having received product support during and after the event.

This even helped motivate the team as a whole after the event as in the next ESL CPS, the team surprisingly beat PlanetKey Dynamics 51 in the Premier Group Stages. From experience at this level of eSports it’s never truly possible to “force” or “make” anyone do anything unless there is big money involved, in short money does make the world go round. However using the meet up with TteSPORTS at ESWC and their support following as an example, motivation can come from feeling proud to be part of something. This is where I think TteSPORTS came to play their biggest part in MnM on top of their product support.

December 2015 brought the last event of the year for us at the NEC in Birmingham. Insomnia 56 was the first iSeries the new CSGO Team would attend as MnM and the first event the League of Legends Team would attend for months due to League of Legends no longer being supported at epic.LAN.

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Various photos of the Tt booth and event itself.

Unfortunately we were not able to attend the next event, epicLAN 17 in the following February due to it being sold out. The previous CSGO team disbanded and departed on mutual and healthy terms and the new CS team’s next event would be Insomnia 57. Thermaltake and TteSPORTS had decided to attend Gamers Assembly instead of Insomnia 57, an event we wish we could attend for Trackmania as it is considered the second biggest Trackmania event of the year. Unfortunately due to budget issues, our previous player Kappa joined PlanetKey to attend the event and this was a big concern for me.

Like I said before, money makes the world go around and there is always a limit in budget that every organisation has. I felt that we were reaching our budget and although we could potentially continue to sustain our current attendance and achievements, it was evident that the players and management (myself included) aspired for more.

We needed more support to send our players to attend bigger events but we unfortunately were unable to. This is where our journey continues with TteSPORTS and now Thermaltake themselves. TteSPORTS took a gamble back in Summer 2015 and I like to think that we have made every effort to work with them, promote them and aid in their expansion to UK waters.

What’s next?

The next immediate event would be our very own co-founder, Javelin, attending Computex Taipei in Tawain at the end of May along with the CEO, Directors and members of TteSPORTS, Thermaltake and Luxa2 (Thermaltake Mobile). This is a great chance for our exposure as a brand and to continue to talk and effectively communicate with our sponsors.

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Image from Computex

We hope that the issue of players changing to go to events that we could not support would not be an issue in the immediate future, and that we continue to sustainably grow as an organisation and with our sponsors. I would personally like to thank TteSPORTS and Thermaltake for continuing to work with us and for supporting us to achieve the things we have in the past 8 months.

We are delighted to continue our relationship with the team and the players, and we look forward to many exciting times ahead
Johnny Hsu | TteSPORTS Director

some of our ACHIEVEMENTS under the tt banner:

ESL UK Premiership Spring 2016 Season – 6th
Insomnia 57 LoL – 7/8th
Insomnia 57 CSGO – 4th
Insomnia 56 LoL – 3rd
Insomnia 56 CSGO – 9/12th
ESWC Trackmania – 5/6th & 9/12th
epic.LAN 16 CSGO – 5/6th
epic.LAN 16 Rocket League – 2nd

Thermaltake: Website | Facebook | Twitter
TteSPORTS: Website | Facebook | Twitter
Luxa2: Website | Facebook | Twitter