Halo pro Cameron "Victory X" Thorlakson has not won a tournament since November 2010.
"It would certainly be nice to put another notch on the belt after a nearly seven-year drought. I could see myself taking a page out of Peyton Manning's book and going out on a win."
Every athlete dreams of going out on top. Be it the Super Bowl, Dota 2's The International, or the League of Legends World Championships, the ideal scenario for most of the players that compete at that level is to win and, depending on the career, retire on top.
Some players never get the chance to make that a reality, but Victory X of Luminosity Gaming has that very chance this weekend at the Halo World Championships in Burbank, California.
The Halo veteran has been competing for the better part of 12 years, narrowly being edged out as the longest tenured professional Halo player by a slim margin to Brett "Naded" Leonard. Being around from the very beginning of the Halo franchise, Victory X has seen the game evolve from four friends getting together in a friend's basement to the million-dollar tournament that takes place in the ESL studios this upcoming weekend.
"After the first few weeks [of playing], I realized I was starting to get noticeably better than my friends. There was another group of players at my school that were slightly older than me, who happened to be a little more serious and better than my friends, so I started to play with them, and eventually one of them invited me to play in a local 2v2 tournament. I went and we must have placed first or second. That is when I started playing more and getting more into the competitive side of Halo."
As is the case for most young players, Victory X was met with opposition from his mother. Concerns over his grades and how that would impact his future were the foundation for the resistance. Nonetheless, the young Victory X continued to make his way to national tournaments, and people began to take notice. It wasn't long before he began to consistently place well, including a top-eight finish at MLG Anaheim in 2006. Little did he know, his best years, and worst, were ahead of him.
Victory X made his presence known at MLG Charlotte 2007 alongside Kyle "Elamite" Elam, Joseph "Mackeo" Reinhart and Justin "SKHalogod" Mann (otherwise known as SK). The roster, known then as FBI The Agency, made its way to the winner's finals against powerhouse Final Boss, but lost a close Game 5 and was sent to the loser's bracket. The Agency fell apart and lost to Carbon, but Victory X made something clear that weekend.
He belonged with the best, and there was a span of time, after a short dry spell, when Victory X was nearly untouchable.
"Hands down the run I had with Final Boss in 2010 during the last season of Halo 3 was the highlight of my career," he said. "We had a great year, tournament-wise, and my teammates were some of my favorites of all time."
Victory X joined Final Boss in 2009, but it wasn't for 14 months that he would find the recipe for success. At MLG Columbus 2010 the team placed second, the highest placing of Victory X's career thus far.
After that, Final Boss rattled off three first-place finishes in a row: MLG Raleigh, MLG D.C., and the MLG Dallas Championships. Victory X's team was the only one in Halo history to win three consecutive Halo 3 events. For all intent and purpose, he was at the top of the world.
He has not won an event since. The move from Halo 3 to Halo: Reach appeared to impact the team significantly, and the loss of veteran, and now legendary player, Tom "OGRE2" Ryan after MLG Dallas in 2011 didn't help, either.
So 2011 was a year of disappointment. As he continued, Victory X was plagued with a nagging theme.
"Perhaps 'close, but no cigar' would be a good way to sum up the majority of my Halo career," he said.
From MLG Charlotte, to the Halo World Championships in 2016, Victory X has found himself on the bitter end of defeat more than any would like. His best finish since the MLG Dallas Championships in 2010 was third place with Cloud9 in 2015 at Iron Games Atlanta. Otherwise, you could sum up the past six years as middle-of-the-road.
Sixth at MLG Providence Championships in 2011.
Fourth at Iron Games Columbus in 2014.
Sixth at the Halo Championship Series Indianapolis in 2015.
Fourth at the Halo Championship Series Season 2 finals in 2015.
And in between those, a smattering of fourth- to eighth-place finishes since 2011.
"That loss danced in his mind for weeks. He says he couldn't sleep because of it, and to this day, it still bothers him."
The "close, but no cigar" colloquialism is showcased most recently less than a year ago at the Halo World Championships in 2016. Alongside his new team Renegades, Victory X headed to Burbank to compete for what is to this day the biggest prize pool in Halo history: $2.5 million. The team made quick work of its pool and looked like a serious contender for a first-place finish.
Renegades drew Team Allegiance in the first round of bracket play, the second seed from its respective pool. Ren took a quick 2-0 lead and headed to Game 3, Coliseum Capture The Flag.
Even someone on the event organizers side thought Renegades was looking good and prepped for the end of the match early.
"Well, not many people are aware of this, but right around then the fog machine located just beside us on the stage started emitting some smoke, [someone] thinking that we were soon to close out the series 3-0 and emerge as the winners. That is when things took a turn for the worse."
Team Allegiance pulled out the reverse sweep and roared back to win three games in a row, sending Renegades home with a top-eight finish in the process.
"After all these years, I have learned to take it game by game, which is what I try to relay to my teammates," he said. "If we lose one game, shake it off and reset heading into the next game. I really didn't think anything of it until we found ourselves down by 10 or so in Game 5."
That loss danced in his mind for weeks. He says he couldn't sleep because of it, and to this day, it still bothers him.
"Just thinking about what we lost out on and what could have been. It was devastating, I have not gone back and watched any of that series to this day."
Victory X now faces a date with redemption. Donning the Luminosity Gaming banner alongside a new roster, confidence is at an all-time high. He says his team is equipped with more knowledge and strategy to handle a wider variety of scenarios.
Despite his confidence, Victory X is well aware that the masses do not agree with him.
"A lot of people are counting us out for whatever reason. ESL recently released an article that essentially called us mediocre, but we proved we could hang with the top teams just a couple of weeks ago in Vegas. I embrace the role of the underdog, and I do like the pool draw we received, I think we match up well against Liquid, and can definitely see us doing some damage at worlds. Our online performance has not been great, but the was also the case before Vegas and except for a few games, we played very well.
"I believe this team has the potential to make a deep run, and I expect us to do just that."
This weekend, Victory X will play in his 61st major event. He has considered retirement on more than one occasion, but every time he considers hanging up the controller, the allure of the top of the mountain calls him back.
He's close, and this weekend at the Halo World Championships victory could rain down upon Victory X, erasing the drought.