“We were all really like, ‘This is kind of random for WWE to be one of the games,'” she stated. “It was out of the blue, but we weren’t scared. We realized that the learning curve was really easy.”
Mata knew she came in last in the isolation challenge because she didn’t even defeat a single opponent. The game was in endurance mode; her character had to keep fighting other characters who kept entering the ring until her character’s health expired. “There’s this particular situation that I struggled to get out of during practice,” Mata said.
“It was so random it rarely came up. It’s where they put you up against the corner,” she elaborated. “By random unfortunate luck, the first thing that the guy does was put me up against the corner, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I stared at the screen; I was absolutely shocked. I was flawless, everything was going so well in practice.”
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She said she asked Caesar, who came in first overall, to put her in the elimination match against Kat Gunn. Although she could have picked someone like Quirico, who people considered to be one of the weaker players, she didn’t want to ruin their friendship. She also thought it would be better to take out a threat in the house. (Gunn is considered one of the top female gamers in the world and one of the best players in the house.) “[Quirico and I] had talked about how we both wanted to make it to the Gauntlet,” she said. (More on Techland: WCG Ultimate Gamer 2’s Gamers on What Drove Them Mad Last Night)
“That was tearing me apart because I could go for it and be sure that I was going to come back – well, not for sure because [Quirico’s] a really great gamer. But, it would be the easiest choice. I decided to take a huge risk, and pick Kat. Whenever I played people in the loft, I did 1000 times better, so I was pretty confident.”
In actuality, Mata didn’t know that Gunn came in second in the isolation challenge, and Quirico was not far behind at fourth place. A better choice would have been Ammari, who slipped up and came in second to last. She considered him, but decided against it, not knowing that he was so bad at the game. “I couldn’t dare to choose him,” she said. “Honestly if I had the choice who to go against from every one in the house, I would pick Caesar but he came in first so I couldn’t pick him.”
Her confidence didn’t pay off as Gunn beat her in the elimination match. It was a close race, both girls played a ladder-type game where player grabbed ladders and tried to stack them and climb them to the top. Kat beat her in the last seconds. “It really looked like I was going to take it but, well, Kat came back like a beast and kind of stunned me and took that remaining slur of the game,” she explained.
She has no hard feelings against Gunn, who she still thinks is an amazing player. “When Kat eliminated me, it was like, ‘Damn that sucks,’ but she’s a hell of a player,” Mata explained. “It only makes me want to do better in gaming and competitions. Part of being a really good player is knowing how you stand with other people.”
She won’t be pursuing gaming as a career, however. Mata has moved to Los Angeles to attend college, although she hopes gaming will always be part of her life. She’ll still compete once in a while, including at the WCG Grand Finals in Los Angeles, where she’ll be at the WCG Ultimate Gamer 2 booth accepting challenges from other gamers at the competition.
“It’s definitely a side thing,” she said. “I would love to game all my life, but realistically it’s not realistic. I would love to work in competitive gaming, representing it in one way or running events, but participating in competitions? I’m not sure I could do that forever. While I feel that it’s still doable, I’m going all out. It’s a passion of mine.”