NICKMERCS has quickly transitioned from one of many big creators to emerge from games like Fortnite and Warzone to being one of the largest Apex Legends streamers in the game. With so many successful transitions from game to game in his streaming career, it’s easy to see why the FaZe member is so successful.
Instead of taking an opportunity to relax and enjoy some of the spoils of his extensive streaming career, however, NICKMERCS is skipping a planned trip to the Formula One Miami Grand Prix to play in the Apex Legends Global Series Last Chance Qualifiers. He’ll compete for a chance to qualify for the ALGS Championship in July, despite already dropping some serious money on the planned F1 trip.
“I booked a yacht, I have a hotel, I have my tickets. They’re VIP, like awesome tickets,” the streamer told his chat while dabbling in Fortnite’s Zero Build mode. “My guess is we’re probably not going to be able to go.”
NICKMERCS had planned to go to the F1 event with several other content creators, including TSM streamer Dalton “Daltoosh” Hester. Just the tickets to the event likely cost NICKMERCS a pretty penny since the cheapest passes to the event ran around $600 at face value. More expensive packages, like the one he seemed to purchase, could easily eclipse the five-figure mark.
“I care more about being an Apex pro than anything else, to be honest with you,” he said when asked why he wasn’t going to go to the event. “I’m a competitor, man. I could be doing anything I want, and I still compete in video games. And I got news for you, man. If I didn’t have no stream, no damn sponsors… you know what I’d be doing? I’d be competing in video games.”
Faced with the choice of a luxury vacation weekend in Miami and competing in an Apex tournament, most people would probably pick the weekend in Miami. But that option simply wasn’t on NICKMERCS’ radar: “Full transparency, I would rather be playing in that fucking tournament than going to F1 either way.”
It’s that competitive spirit that has kept NICKMERCS playing Apex over the last year and helped him improve so quickly. His team, Tripods, raced through the final two Challenger Circuit tournaments of ALGS Split Two after low placements in the first two, qualifying for the first LCQ. They followed that performance up by advancing to the final round of LCQ1 through the winners bracket, despite facing off against teams that competed in the Pro League’s second split.
The finals of LCQ1 will be held on May 6 and the top 10 finishers will advance to LCQ2, where they will face some of the region’s biggest teams still needing to qualify for the ALGS Championship, including Sentinels and Complexity. And to NICKMERCS, that’s worth more than a day on a yacht.
Published: May 2, 2022 02:13 pm