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The Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds Grand Invitational is the second ever Global Tournament Event by PUBG Corporation (Bluehole) and will likely be the first of many to come for the future of PUBG esports. Coming out of the gate boasting a 2-million dollar prize pool, the event has seen pro, amateur, and new teams by the thousands competing in open qualifiers for their chance at the 150k closed qualifiers in Burbank, California. After several rounds of blood, sweat, and tears, Wildcard has placed 3rd overall in the final online qualifier taking one of the 5 spots available in their lobby for the California lan on June 22nd.

Max “Toumai” Marine (Team Captain) and Alfred “Pride” Choi (Primary Fragger) have banded together with Aki “Tryffeli “Minkkinen (Fragger) and Alexander “Caint” Syukrin (Fragger) from the original European Lumbermill roster to take down the competition in the PUBG Grand Invitational by PUBG Corp. Though Wildcard Fragger Matt “Kickstart” Smith and Sniper Daniel “Sharpshot” Hernandez are unable to compete due to age restriction, they will continue to practice with and play on the main roster for non-age restricted events such as GLL, Pubgonline, Auzom, ect.

With the tournament less than 2 weeks away, the squad is getting geared up to face off against some of the best teams in North America.

How does it feel to qualify for Burbank?

Pride: “It feels great to qualify for 2 lans back to back, it would be a dream come true if we can make it all the way to the grand finals at PGI.

Tryffeli: “This will be my 3rd lan so far as a professional player. I played at IEM Oakland with a small organization called Wind & Rain and then I played at the last GLL Lan in Bucharest with the team Lumbermill.

How have you guys adapted to the meta shifts and 2 new teammates?

Pride: You can’t really 4x spray anymore, so I’ve gone away from that, but I’m still able to efficiently use .556 weapons efficiently even though it’s technically a .762 meta. As for the squad, the team dynamic has been very positive even though we don’t have Kick and Sharp. We’ve been very good about discussing our mistakes and just being overall, very calm and collective which has helped us improve very quickly with 2 new members. We’ve been practicing almost every day about 30+ hours a week for the last 3 weeks”

Tryffeli: I haven’t been affected too much by the meta shifts yet. I’ve had to practice my AK a lot more since it became super viable but that’s it. Overall, NA plays a bit differently from EU, different strats, different spots players like to play, and it’s taken some time to get used to the playstyles of Toumai and Pride. I do believe Caint and I have adapted quickly to Pride and Toumai’s playstyles and I think Ben has been super helpful. Even though he’s an owner, he’s like the coach of the team constantly pointing out our mistakes and when he finds something that we need to improve on, the team works on that thing constantly until we get it down.

What’s your role on the team?

Pride: I’m primarily the entry fragger, so I’m usually always first into a room if we’re pushing a building. There’s really no primary fragger on the team, we all pretty much just frag out and rack up kills.

Tryffeli: I prefer being an all-around fragger. Toumai does most of the early game calling and in close range fights, I feel I’m mostly calling out the kill targets and where enemies are. It seems to work pretty well for us from what I’ve seen so far.

What’s your favorite Weapon right now?

Pride: It’s probably the scar right now. You can control the spray really well and you can tap with it accurately and from any distance.

Tryffeli: Mine is definitely the SLR. The damage is just so high and shred up close and from a distance. I try to always grab it as a secondary unless a teammate needs it instead. Otherwise I always pick it up.

The PUBG Grand Invitational (PGI) Qualifier Finals at Burbank California will be live starting the 22nd of June and will consist of the top teams in North America. With $2,000,000 on the line and only 3 spots for the grand finals in Berlin, Wildcard Gaming is fired up and ready to take on the competition. For information on tickets and social media coverage, Click Here. The game will be broadcasted live on the official PUBG Twitch. You can also follow the team and players directly:

“The organization has been great and it’s been really nice to be here competing for Wildcard.”

-Tryffeli