Home|Sports|Bahamian ‘JTalon’ advances to IESF World ChampionshipsSports
Simba FrenchSend an emailSeptember 29, 2022 383 2 minute readFacebookTwitterLinkedInShare via Email
Bahamian Johnathon Lucius, whose username is “JTalon”, qualified to represent The Bahamas at the International ESports Federation (IESF) World Esports Championships, set for December 1-12 in Bali, Indonesia. He will be competing in Tekken 7. Lucius will have a chance to compete for the IESF Tekken title and a $25,000 prize pool.
To get to this point, Lucius had to compete in the IESF Pan American Regionals. In the end, he finished fourth overall with a 6-4 win/loss record in the competition to land a spot in Bali.
“When we got the news that we were able to qualify, I was shocked because when I lost I was down on myself because I know I could have played much better in my final match. I was ecstatic that I qualified because I saw it as a second chance. It feels good to represent The Bahamas because I never got a chance to do so in my entire time gaming,” Lucius said.
President of the Bahamas Esports Federation (BESF) Michael Armogan said that Lucius is a hard worker, and he has been for years.
“We’re ecstatic about how far we made it, with even the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Mario Bowleg calling it ‘great works’ for the country. Lucius has been putting in the work for years now, even ranking in the highest tier of players in the world for Tekken,” Amorgan said.
The 24-year-old Lucius wins came against countries such as Colombia, Guadeloupe, Ecuador, Jamaica, Costa Rica and Panama. His losses came against Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. He said his easiest win was against Jamaica and his toughest victory came against Guadeloupe.
“I was a little saddened because I was expecting to place a little higher than that,” Lucius said. “I normally play much better than how I did but I am still happy with the overall results. My easiest match was Jamaica because he used characters that I was knowledgeable about. Guadeloupe was my most difficult victory because the way he used the character that I had knowledge on forced me to get a deeper analysis on how to take him down. I had to change character to take him down.”
His primary character to use in the game is Ling Xiaoyu while his secondary character is Zafina.
To qualify for the IESF Pan American competition as the representative from The Bahamas, Lucius had to win a local tournament. Normally, the winner of the regionals would be the person or persons to represent the region against the other regions around the world. This year, the IESF had to host them online, so even though the regionals happened, all players for our region in select titles like Tekken and eFootball will get a pass directly to the World ESports Championships.
Lucius plays Tekken 7 on the computer. The computer platform is not his first platform as his Tekken journey began with Tekken 3 on PlayStation 1. He said he was introduced to it from when he was five years old. When Tekken 7 was released in 2017, Lucius said he decided that he wanted to be good at it so he can be competitive internationally.
“I never saw myself at this point competing. I competed before in another competition Combo Breaker in Chicago, Illinois, and there were people from around the world competing, but my results were not as good as in the IESF Pan American competition. It was my first big event and I enjoyed it,” Lucius said.
He said he will look to sharpen his skills between now and December by playing online or against his friends. Lucius will head to Bali at the end of November.