RamBeau riding wave of success from Nerd Street Champs to ALGS Championship

“I'm riding like a super high wave right now.”

That’s how Beau "RamBeau" Sheidy described his recent run of success in an interview with Nerd Street. With long blonde hair, a muscular physique, positive demeanor and constant references to riding a wave, you’d be forgiven for thinking RamBeau was a surfer talking about his success on the water. Not to mention the fact he tweeted out a photo of himself with a surfboard a few weeks back.

RamBeau wasn’t talking about surfing though -- he’s a pro Apex Legends player. The wave of success he’s talking about began when he won the Apex Legends Nerd Street Winter Championship in March and has only gotten bigger with a fifth-place finish at the ALGS 2022 Championship in July.

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RamBeau gets called into action

That fifth-place finish at the ALGS Championship is remarkable not only because it came at the biggest tournament of the year in Apex Legends, but also because of the circumstances. RamBeau won the Nerd Street Winter Championship with Torrent, but the team didn’t do well enough across the ALGS season to qualify for the ALGS Championship. He ended up competing at the championship in Raleigh, North Carolina, after getting a last-minute call from GMT Esports.

“My initial reaction when they called and told me I was playing I was like, ‘Wow,’ I was like ‘I can't believe I'm actually about to play at a LAN.’ It was kind of like a surreal feeling,” RamBeau said.

He didn’t have time to let that feeling sink in though. It was the morning of the first day of the tournament that he found out he would be playing.

“I remember I hopped in the shower and was out the door in like 15 minutes ready to go play,” RamBeau said.

The call didn’t totally come out of left field though. RamBeau was already in North Carolina after signing up to be an emergency substitute for GMT. Every team was allowed to have an emergency sub ready to go in case one of their players couldn’t compete.

As it turned out, many players were called upon to be subs due to visa issues, travel complications and COVID preventing 32 players across 17 teams from competing in the tournament. When GMT’s Rasmus "maydeelol" Zettergren tested positive for COVID, RamBeau got the call.

Even though GMT are a European team based in Azerbaijan and RamBeau plays for a North American team, it wasn’t a totally foreign situation for him.

“So me and Gnaske actually go way back,” RamBeau said about playing alongside GMT’s Casper "Gnaske" Præstensgaard. “We've been really good friends for about two years. We used to play and compete in online tournaments together and stuff, so I was really familiar with him, and I played with [Matthew "SirDel" Biggins] before, so I was a little familiar with him.”

Despite no practice together as a team leading up the event, RamBeau felt that he fit in naturally.

“It felt like we had been playing for months and years, the way that we communicated and talked,” he said.

RamBeau’s impact

Photo credit: Joe Brady / EA

The Valkyrie player’s role essentially was to just get kills for the team.

“They already have all their strats,” RamBeau said. “I just kind of plugged in to be that support fragger I guess you would say, just kind of shoot my gun and try to output a bunch of damage.”

He did indeed do a lot of damage. Across the bracket stage of the ALGS Championship, RamBeau accrued 48 of the GMT’s 112 kills. In the finals, he stepped up even more, amassing 18 of the team’s 33 kills. It was the second most by any player in the finals.

Not only did RamBeau step up big in the server, his positive demeanor also seemed to be a critical part of the team’s success in the high-pressure environment of a major LAN tournament. In an interview with Esports.gg, GMT CEO Ogtay “OGGiE” Gasimzada said RamBeau “provided the vibe, provided the hype.” It’s easy to see what OGGiE is talking about if you caught even just a few minutes of the championship broadcast. Whenever the camera was on Rambeau, his infectious smile and high energy came across loud and clear.

“Basically, even when we were starting off bad early on we always kept positive vibes, positive energy, and I really think that's what separated us from a majority of the other teams,” RamBeau said.

RamBeau said their attitude was “GG go next” even when they had bad games and that he wanted to keep the positive energy flowing for the team.

“When you're having fun and you're actually enjoying yourself, I say the rest is just easy and it just comes natural I guess you'd say … the good things will just come and the games will go good if you keep that energy out,” he said.

Riding the wave into ALGS Year 3

Photo credit: @valdizbro / Twitter

Rambeau’s fifth-place finish with GMT at the ALGS Championship came about four months after winning the Nerd Street Winter Championship with Torrent. Apex Legends’ season-ending championship might have been the crest of the wave RamBeau’s riding, or it might just be the start of an even bigger wave.

He’ll have plenty of chances to keep riding the wave in the fall as Torrent have been invited to compete in the first split of Year 3 of the ALGS.

“I'm super excited to push for it in Year 3 with Torrent,” RamBeau said. “Me and [Cole "Rkn" Prommel] are searching for someone right now to play with in Year 3 … we're going to spend like the next few weeks to a month to find the perfect fit for us going into Year 3.”

Rkn also was a sub at the ALGS Championship, so both players know what it takes to succeed in high-pressure tournaments. Not long after the interview, Rkn revealed via social media that their third would be Keon "Keoon" Berghout moving forward.

The trio have already finished second (to GMT, of course) at the Proving Grounds: Season 5 Finals and first at the HisandHersLive Invitational, a tournament featuring all the best North American teams. Based on these results, Torrent should be a force to be reckoned with in the upcoming ALGS season. With such a positive attitude, it’s hard not to root for RamBeau and Torrent this upcoming season.

“You're gonna have some bumps in the road and you gotta push through the hard times, and eventually man, like I always say, good things will happen to good people,” RamBeau said. “I've just managed to just stay positive and keep grinding, pushing through the hard times. And yeah, finally I've had sort of a successful run I'd say the past six months or so. So I'm gonna keep trying to ride this wave while I can.”

Lead photo credit: Joe Brady / EA