From performance in monitors with pixels who had the size of a fist, the ESPORTS have come at the time when the Plaza de A Franchisee Competition can reach a value of 30 million euros. A prey evolution of immediacy that has never tried to preserve such a forgotten past as the 56K modem was doing each time we tried to connect to the Internet.
Alberto “ Neptune ” González Molinillo is 29 years old and is one of the few Spanish players of the time that is still active. He playing on the cyber team of the neighborhood of him in exchange for not having to pay for the session to do so for clubs that invested millions to be at the Overwatch League. A trip that takes over two decades and four different games in which he is has won so many trophies that it is impossible to draw a palmés before you get bored by reading .
The new adventure of the player will take him again at the highest level of the National Competition of Valorant. Bored of Overwatch after the pandemic, Neptune signed by Case Esports. With them he has achieved a square at the Valorant Rising Series, the highest national category for the Tactical Shooter of Riot Games for which he got access after exceeding all open qualifiers of LVP.
When the espapors still slept in portals
In the same way that the first Spanish rappers had their Holy Grail in the models recorded in cassettes, the competitive players who gave their first step with the arrival of the euro found in the cibercafés ** their place of worship. A space with dozens of computers connected to the Internet in which to enjoy a practically unattainable system in any other circumstance. A place with its own rites and norms in which, so that we can make the idea of everything that has changed, you could smoke in front of the keyboard.
At that time it was normal and even a way of knowing where they would be ‘the kids’ spending the afternoon. Leisure alternative to which it was added Neptune accompanied by a few relatives. However, there was soon something different in him. He was not badly given that of the triggers and he ended up reaching the greatest status to which he could be accessed by then: Be part of the cyber team and be able to spend so many hours playing as he wanted without spending a single euro .
This marketing tool allowed to climb the level of a trade, making it more interesting and causing some players to come to him to challenge the team. A competitive spirit that naturally developed a national circuit with face-to-face tournaments in which representatives of all the Spanish geography were gathered. Among them was, of course, the premises for which he played a very young Neptune who, As he pulled out good grades, he had permission from the parents of him to dedicate the hours he estimated appropriate.
The growth of the national scene soon gave rise to remote competitions of the city of it. Not even by then the teams wanted to go to the tournament without the star of it and there were those responsible for the cyber: asking for permission to the parents of a 13-year-old kid to take it to Madrid to play tournaments. A safely after some insistence and pulling confidence, the parents agreed. A positive one who soon allowed the player to be able to call himself professional self. Above all, when he touched the roof winning a qualifier for the World Cyber Games of Seattle . At 15 years, he was taking a transatlantic flight to play Counter-Strike in the United States after defeating the Flipin X6tence for two zero maps.
However, most competitions did not reach such dimensions of Glamur. “What we were going to the tournaments in Counter-Strike 1.6 sometimes we did not have to sleep. We called a portal we were welcoming inside and we were literally sleeping on the floor until the next day. The tournaments were since you got up until 2 in the morning and just out the day after 7 or at 8. We were going to the poor, “the player told us about this first competitive stage.
the way of what I feel like
Everything so far pointed out that we would live the promotion of one of the great legends of the Spanish Counter-Strike. These are cases that we have already known with Musanban1 or Flipin1. However, Neptune is a different player who confesses to having a career marked by what motivated him the most. Thus, in 2009 he did not cost too much to leave counter-strike for go to League of Legends when Riot Games has just just launched .
According to his own words, League of Legends was the first game to which he really “hooked” and during the first season he managed to finish in the Top 40 of Europe. A situation that led him to look for players to create his own team with which to start playing tournaments at a semi-professional level. There was hardly money at stake, but it would not be a long time until he could savor professionalism.
Competeing in different games has merit according to the achievements achieved in them. However, in the case of Neptune, the race is irreproachable. Can boast of having won the division of honor (equivalent to the current Superliga) and had participated in the classification to the LCS Europe (current LEC) in 2014. In fact, in the latter he had won the already deleted in the Challenger Series . However, errors that involved both Riot Games and the manager of those also missing Karont3 Esports left them out of the competition.
The stick was such that it was about to stop playing, but he stayed two more years in the elite in which he is almost able to revalidate the title and ended up in 2016. The reason was the release of Overwatch a game that I knew it was going to happen “as soon as he saw the announcement of the game.” A prophecy that was confirmed at the same moment in which he started playing “_14 hours a day.”
In the Activision-Blizzard game he was also able to highlight, dominating Europe with Movistar Riders before the birth of a franchisee linking worldwide to which he joined in the first season. Constant boom A The career of a player who had already fulfilled the fourth of century and who surpassed everything he had done until that moment in electronic sports.
If in Counter-Strike and League of Legends Neptune shined at the national level, in Overwatch he got along with his team the runner of the first season. A historic landmark achieved by Philadelphia Fusion, which led him to represent Spain in the global selections that took place during the first years of life of the game until the pandemic put them brake abruptly.
What does a last dance mean?
The health situation was the maximum responsible for Neptune to decide to end the adventure of him in Overwatch. The drama with the visas that made him travel round and return to Korea every few months forced him to miss parties and lose a property that until then was indisputable. Lack of motivation accused by the situation of the team and a physical and mental exhaustion that a farewell precipitated that, again, the player had soon to see the game.
This time convinced that he will be his last title before a withdrawal in which he still does not think, Neptune decided to go to Valorant . “The valorant was salted that was a mix between the magicians of the overwatch and the whole base of the counter-strike 1.6 that I played as a child and is my favorite game of all life… I knew I wanted to play the Valorant. I do not think there is another game that will change me afterwards. Maybe one day I retire myself and I feel like playing TFT to hang out, but not at the competition level this is my favorite_, “the player explained.
This last change of third seems to be the final step in a race in which few sticks are to be played and the return of the player to the national competition. The last tall on a road in which the player confirms not to repent anything. However, we should not interpret this situation as Neptune will hang the mouse from one moment to another. The player wanted to end up knocking down some myths and ensuring that, although Valorant will be the last dance of him, it will not last a few songs.
“There is not withdrawn in sight… I do not uncle. When I stopped playing play, I’ll stop playing. I believe that people ends up mentally burned. I still motivated and I like it. The theme of mechanics and reflections seems to me a nonsense. I still have many reflections. They always spend the joke that I am very old and we do a reflex test. It is supposed to get me a lot, but I usually won them. I have 155/160 milliseconds of reaction. At the mechanical and reflex level, at least Yo “.
We can see Neptune playing with Case Esports in the next Valorant Rising Series Spain , which will begin next February 15. A competition that marks the return of a legend of the Spanish esports that, like the first day, assumes the challenge of gaining a position in the global elite of a new title.