Player Spotlight: autimatic_ps

Once again, the Player Spotlight series return, and this time, features our first interview of a Global Offensive player. For this edition, we will feature Tim "autimatic_ps" Ta, whom led all of invite in frags for the season . While his team, WE ARE LIONS, did not manage to make the 4-team LAN playoffs to represent North America, autimatic has solidified himself as one of the top individual players in the division, which is especially impressive considering this is his debut season of CS:GO. This article will provide a little insight into this 16 year old prodigy.


Tell us a little bit about yourself for anyone who might not know you.

My name is Timothy Ta, I'm 16, and I'm from San Diego, California. I'm currently a junior in high school. I've played basketball since I was in 3rd grade and stopped when I was a sophomore to wrestle. When I'm not out playing sports or hanging out with my friends, I'm always on the computer playing games.

Tell us a bit about your CS history. How did you start? What drew you into the game?

I was first introduced to the game when I was in 2nd grade. I went to my cousins house every Saturday to play 1.6 up until 3rd grade when I started playing basketball. I didn't touch cs after that until 7th grade where I started playing source in a 24/7 Dust2 no awp/auto server. What drew me into the game was how bad I was at it. Every time I played I felt like I was getting better and it was very satisfying.

In contrast to some of the more experienced players currently in invite, many of whom have played this game for years, you only really started playing competitively in season 9 for CS:Source. You jumped straight from an open team to a good invite team in Fighting Irish. How exactly did you manage to pull that off?

I was given a chance from dannyjones to ring for his team against some of the top invite teams. I was really scared to play against the people that I've watched and admired for years. Even though I felt like I was doing bad and just hitting lucky shots, danny said that he thought I could be an upcoming player and picked me up.

While you were unable to make LAN in your two seasons with Firish, you were able to get your chance to go in season 11 with vVv. As the youngest source player to ever make LAN, tell us a little bit about your first ESEA lan experience!

My first lan experience was amazing. Even though my team and I didn't do that great it inspired me to keep playing. I met a lot of people that I looked up to such as, Volcano, n0thing, impulsive, and steel.

You did not play the first two seasons of GO for ESEA, so you could be considered a newcomer. However, you ended up being the league leader in frags for invite. How'd you manage to do that?

I literally started playing this game a week before the start of the invite season and I had to learn a lot of new things to be able to compete with the best. Given the short amount of time I had, I got myself premium at netcodeilluminati and learned a TON of stuff that would have taken me months to learn. Aside from watching videos made by the best players, I also scrimmed, 10manned, pugged, and watched a TON of demos.

While it does not look like your current team (WE ARE LIONS) will be making the top 4 in order to make LAN playoffs this season, you guys have still had a very successful season to date for a rookie invite squad. How would you personally rate your teams performance this season?

I would rate my teams performance at a 9 or 8. Although our record was not that great and I would have preferred to make LAN, this was our first season together and dannyjones and I started playing CS:GO literally a week before the season started. We're still learning the maps and experimenting but I'm very excited about next season.

Last, but not least, do you have any last comments or shoutouts you want to give?

I'd like to give a shout out to dannyjones, maxkap, brian rank, louis(Mashiro), truck, dennis(718), MitchC, and vinh.