The Call of Duty Championship Grand Finals match in 2013 still haunts Raymond Lussier.
Lussier, better known in the CoD world as “Rambo,” was on the Team Envy team that lost in the final match to Fariko Impact 6-5.
The worst part for Rambo was that his Envy group had just defeated that same Fariko team a couple hours prior, but Fariko won its next match and exacted its revenge over Rambo and Envy.
Envy took home second place in 2013 and 2014 at the Grand Finals, and Rambo’s playing career concluded without him getting a ring of his own.
“Sometimes things don’t go your way,” Rambo recently said, recalling the end of his pro playing days. “But as far as emotions are concerned, that was the only time in my career where I lost and felt like I was cheated. It hurt. Even to this day I have a hard time watching that map.”
That match remains on YouTube, reaching nearly 680,000 views. Rambo won’t watch it if he doesn’t have to. Not getting a ring hurt, but Rambo was a guy that accomplished the goals he set for himself his whole life.
But he finished his playing career with a box unchecked when he went to work for Sledgehammer Games in 2014.
It wasn’t a quitting mentality, though. Rambo knew his time was up and his skills on the controller weren’t enough to keep up with his unique mind for the game.
His mind would return to the game eventually, because there is a redemption arc in play for Rambo, but it’s important to know how it developed. Rambo ended his six year hiatus from the professional scene when he signed with the Dallas Empire in early March as a head coach. The Empire were already a talented team made of some of the best to ever play and young guys looking to make their mark.
But they were missing something that could bring them together, and get all the moving pieces running at the same speed. Rambo, who has one of the strongest understandings of Call of Duty in the world, could be that guy.
His story started when he was still in diapers.
Saving the Princess
Rambo’s life in gaming didn’t start in the basement or with friends or siblings, but alongside grandma.
Jacques Lussier would take his son, Rambo, over to his mother’s house often. They all lived in Montreal, and Rambo loved visiting grandma. They would play games together, like Mario and Pacman.
“Unlike a lot of people, my grandma got me into video games,” he said. “Grandma was a NES superstar. I think I was three- or four-years old at her place watching her play and I got hooked.”
Grandma got Rambo his own NES when he turned five.
He’d play it often, and it remains a staple of his childhood as he made the moment his Twitter profile picture.
“She had a small Sony TV, maybe 10 inches by 10 inches, and my mother was into trying to save the princess,” Jacques said. “Raymond would take the console in his diapers.”
The interesting thing was, Rambo hadn’t dug into gaming just yet. He liked to play, but was an athlete from the time he was born, too.
For most of his childhood, bowling was his passion.
“He’d be in his stroller at 2-years-old and he would just stare,” Jacques said. “You could tell just looking at him that one day he would be on those lanes.”
Jacques has dozens of photos of Rambo’s accomplishments, and few of those photos actually have his son included. It’s not because he didn’t want him in the photo, because those pictures exist, too, but there were so many trophies and medals that he struggled to get them all into one shot.
Jacques compiled all the medals Rambo won from his sporting career in bowling, baseball and hockey -- 144 medals in total -- and laid them out on a bed for measure.
Rambo was a star by 11, when he won a Canadian National Finals gold medal.
But Jacques wanted to make one thing clear to The Dallas Morning News in his phone call: it was never about winning.
“You got to go out there and win. How come you didn’t win today, what are these second-place bulls---,” Jacques said, mocking the parents he would spectate when he brought a young Rambo to the lanes.
“There are parents that go out there and put that kind of stress on their kids, and I never did that. I just wanted him to have the opportunity to participate and enjoy the moment.”
Jacques and Rambo’s mother, Sarah Daigneault, separated when Rambo was young. But they maintained a healthy relationship for their son, and that led to him absorbing their best traits.
The sporting and athletics came from Jacques, he said, but Rambo’s mind was gifted by mom.
“I noticed when he was four or five that he had wisdom. He had some type of natural wisdom that would manifest in words,” Daigneault said. “He wasn’t a person that talked a lot. He listened more.”
Rambo’s gaming career developed a little while he was soaking in all the sports activities he could.
He upgraded from the NES to a Nintendo 64 eventually, and he couldn’t wait to show grandma.
“One of the actual big memories I have of her was when my parents got me the Nintendo 64 and I tried bringing it and showing her,” Rambo said. “She was kind of just looking at it like ‘What the hell is this?’”
So many buttons, he recalled her saying. Whether it was too much for grandma or not, it was important for Rambo to keep gaming, because sports wouldn’t last forever.
An Impressive Letter
Rambo’s athletic career came to a halt when he dealt with an illness that sidelined him. Doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him for a while, so Rambo spent more time at home.
And thus, there was the birth of a Call of Duty legend.
There were other contributors to Rambo’s rise to stardom in the esports world. He moved to the other side of Montreal, leaving behind his friend group that he’d play sports with. They’d still visit the city using the subway stations, but for the most part, Rambo was officially a gamer.
He received a PlayStation 2 for Christmas when he was 15, and all his hours on Goldeneye and Black Hawk Down paid off when he was introduced to Call of Duty 4.
“That’s when I really lost my social output and really went head down,” Rambo said. “It was something I really enjoyed and had fun doing.”
Jacques was happy his son found another outlet, was happy and finding success, but he fully bought in when Rambo received a letter one day from New York. In the top left corner was the logo for Major League Gaming.
“What is this?” Jacques recalled asking his son. “It was an official document for MLG saying he was considered to be a professional in Call of Duty and was eligible for a sponsorship. That’s when it really took off.”
He and his buddy, Will “BigTymer” Johnson would watch Call of Duty together, then play in small tournaments. They placed well, and developed an extensive knowledge for the game.
Rambo’s first tournament was in 2009 at the National Championship in the United States. He flew out to LA and won the whole thing with his team of four.
“It was an underdeveloped part of everyone’s games,” Rambo said. “People had knowledge of how to do some things, but the leadership aspect and making sure your whole team was on the same page was something a lot of people didn’t do back then.”
Part of an Empire
Rambo brought his talents back to Envy when he signed to be the head coach of Dallas Empire before the Los Angeles home series on March 7. He told The News then that he hadn’t made much of an impact yet. He hadn’t even moved to Dallas yet.
Basically everyone on the Empire disagreed with Rambo on that take.
“Rambo has actually helped us a lot,” Empire star Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro said in Los Angeles. “In scrims we kind of get frustrated and we go back and forth, but he’s helped us calm down and talk about a play with a calm tone.
Daigneault’s words make perfect sense when considering his immediate impact on the Empire.
He listened more.
The Empire took home the Los Angeles home series championship after the team put forth its most complete performance yet. That was just the beginning for the Empire, too. They have ring aspirations, and they all have something on the line.
Young players, like Shotzzy, have something to prove. James “Clayster” Eubanks has preached the reason why the 27-year-old continued to play was because of legacy implication. Ian “Crimsix” Porter, who actually ended Rambo’s playing career in the 2014 world championship, could continue to be the winningest player in history.
But for Rambo, it’s a shot at redemption.
“The way I see it, I think I clearly don’t have the skill to compete at this level anymore but I still feel like my head and my knowledge of the game is plenty enough to help the team,” Rambo said. “I still think my knowledge is still one of the best of any player or coach out there.”
He’s got unlimited confidence in his Empire squad. If they can truly learn to play together, he said there isn’t a scenario where they aren’t competing for a ring.
