Jurgen Cutajar Interviewed - PUBG Professional Going International

1.) Good afternoon Mr. Cutajar. Before we progress with the interview, let’s educate our readers a little. If you could, please describe your personal history with esports up to this point in time.

Up till now, I had never played in international esports scene. The first time I played in a large local tournament was organised by gamers.com.mt where the team I was participating with placed second in CS:GO.

2.) The main scope of this interview builds on a recent occurrence, as you’ve signed a professional contract with an American organization for PUBG! Could you provide the details and share how this happened?

Basically, I made friends with some players on Arma 3 and from there on,  together we bought different games with one of them being PUBG. One of the player was also a partnered streamer. I joined a discord channel and started playing some scrims with professional players together with other players searching for a team. This is where I started to get known by killing good players. I joined a team in order to play in public tournaments and personally performed really well in my opinion. That is where teams were contacting me in order to try me out to see how I integrate with their team members. I got to try out different teams and got offered different packages. One of the teams was Nova Esports. With Nova I played a lot of scrims and tournaments where we performed really well. That is when they decided to offer me a contract.

3.) With that being said, one can only imagine what you’re feeling. So tell us, how does it feel to be professionally signed with an international esports organization?

I feel proud because I worked hard for this. It feels great that I talk with other professional players and I am recognised when we are in a game playing against each other. I cannot describe the feeling I get when I am in a game against another professional player and he mentions me on stream with his viewers.

4.) What are your goals and prospects for the year to come? Are there any specific things you’d like to accomplish?

My goals for 2018 are that with Nova Esports, we win some big tournaments so that I get a good name internationally and from there I can grow more.

Jurgen (middle one) with his ex-CS:GO squad

5.) We’re sure that 2018 will be terrific for you. Shifting our focus to PUBG; heading into March, we’ll be witnessing the second major LAN for the title. What potential do you see in the game as we move forward into its lifespan on an international level?

I am sure that this year the Esports for this game will grow bigger and bigger with the price pool increasing with its success. I am looking forward for it to be more polished so that more people can take the game seriously to increase the Esports level which may lead to organisations investing into the game and assemble teams to compete.

6.) Malta is also undergoing some growth when it comes to PUBG. What are your comments regarding the local scene? What is required for this growth to continue?

I don't really follow Local PUBG tournaments since I was busy training with foreign friends. I think that locally more people should join tournaments. Participation is increasing every year, but I am sure that there are much more gamers out there. They just need to not give up and participate in tournaments to have fun and make friends. It is important to make friends so that you can play with different people and learn different strategies.

7.) Back over to you – did you ever expect to be professionally signed to an organization? How have you worked to arrive here? What has your daily schedule been like?

Since in the last few months I have been playing with professional players and realised that I am at their level, I knew that I had the opportunity to train with an organisation. In order to make sure that I succeed, I had to do some sacrifices. I had to change my schedule in to play with the Americans. Moreover, I dropped from school because I knew that I had a great potential if I invested a good time into PUBG. I play daily and even trained with different teams before signing this contract. In order to get better I play around 9 hours a day. I also invested a lot of time in FPS games which lead to getting my aim better and better. I have over 7.6k hours played in FPS games (PUBG, CS:GO, Arma 3).

8.) As usual in our final question, we like to ask for personal advice regarding growth as a player. Hence, Mr. Cutajar, what advice would you give to anyone attempting to become a professional PUBG player or an esports competitor in general? What sacrifices and mentality are required?

I think that you need to be determined. If a player is determined and is willing to invest a good portion of his time to get better with some sacrifices, one can achieve this goal. One thing that helped me personally was that I record my game play and whenever I kill a person or get killed, I review the replay in order to see what can be improved from my end or the mistakes the my opponent did so that I can easily take advantage in the future. If one thinks that he is able to compete in the Esports scene in PUBG, below one can find a discord link where North American people are looking for teams. Maybe sometime we can compete together or against each other.

NA team there is a discord: https://discord.gg/bUzZE4j