There has been a lot of criticism on how the Infinity Challenge has been managed and this thread is not to disagree on those points.
Rather an observation, but I as a casual managed to learn a lot through the tournament.
My first few attempts at Regicide were complete disasters but the IC qualifiers required me to get in there. At some point, something clicked, not only in my gameplay but in understanding how the scoring worked and I suddenly found myself winning the occasional match.
I love Dominion so the chance to play it for nearly a week, helped me out with a few nuances to the gametype and that includes the CTF as well, my k/d is a little on the short side, but as objective’s go it’s not the important aspect.
One of the legit players in the top 10 has been streaming his gameplay over at HaloTracker, while my kids had the tv and I had time to spare, watching his gameplay was an eye opener. First, he’s certainly very good, understanding aspects of the game that I am completely oblivious to. Second, I realized I had absolutely no desire to play at that level of intensity. It was this that the concept that I was a casual-for-life sank in. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those guys thinking he is going pro, its just you reach a point where you think you have gotten decent at a game, you watch something at this level and it’s like…
Overall, my gameplay has improved. But as mentioned in the previous paragraph, when I bump into a team who is playing at a higher intensity level than I, I certainly get my butt handed to me, regularly.
With all the criticisms, valid ones even, I’m going to play as much I can until the tourney expires, any prize is out of the question (but here’s hoping for at least a spiffy Waypoint medal), which in reality is probably only four more hours for me until kids arrive home from school. Why? I’m not sure, maybe to pick up one or two new tricks…