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Tom Ryan, known under the pseudonym Ogre 2, is a retired professional ''
Halo HALO, halo, halos or haloes may refer to: Most common meanings * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head * ''Halo'' (franchise), a sci-fi video game series (2001–2021) Arts and en ...
'' player from
Columbus, Ohio Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...
. He is widely considered to be the greatest Halo player of all time. He and his twin brother Dan (" Ogre 1") are known as the "Ogre Twins". In 2005, the Ogre Twins won the gold medal in ''
Halo 2 ''Halo 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox console. ''Halo 2'' is the second installment in the ''Halo'' franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclai ...
'' at the
World Cyber Games The World Cyber Games (WCG) is an international esports competition with multi-game titles in which hundreds of esports athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions also known as Esports Olympics. WCG events attempt to ...
. His esports tournament history includes in '' Halo: Combat Evolved'', ''Halo 2'', ''
Shadowrun ''Shadowrun'' is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in an alternate future in which cybernetics, magic in fiction, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and crime fiction, crime, wit ...
'', ''
Halo 3 ''Halo 3'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the ''Halo'' franchise following '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' (2001) and ''Halo 2'' (2004), the game's story centers on th ...
'', '' Halo: Reach'', ''
Halo 4 ''Halo 4'' is a 2012 first-person shooter video game developed by 343 Industries and published by Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. ''Halo 4''s story follows a Human genetic enhancement, genetically enha ...
'', '' Halo 5: Guardians'', '' Halo 2: Anniversary'', and '' Call of Duty: Ghosts''. The Ogre Twins are a highly accomplished pair, winning many national ''Halo: Combat Evolved'' and ''Halo 2'' tournaments. Ryan has played for many professional teams, including
Instinct Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements. The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to me ...
, Shoot to Kill, Team Domination, DtO, Final Boss, and
Team3D Team 3D was an American esports organization that formerly had teams competing in '' Counter-Strike: Source'', '' Warcraft 3'', ''Dead or Alive 4'', ''Halo 2'', ''Painkiller'', and ''Call of Duty''. Team 3D was one of the most successful North A ...
. In June 2006, he signed a three-year contract with
Major League Gaming Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) was a professional esports organization based in New York City. Founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso, MLG held official video game tournaments throughout the United States and Canada. The ''Boos ...
. He played on the ''
Boost Mobile MLG Pro Circuit ''Boost Mobile MLG Pro Circuit'' is a television program on US cable television network USA Network, USA, and later G4 (U.S. TV channel), G4, airing recordings of the Major League Gaming (MLG) ''Halo 2'' Pro Circuit in 2006 and 2007. It was spons ...
'' on
USA Network USA Network (or simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was launched in 1977 as Madison Square Garden Sports Network, one of the first national sports ...
in 2006. and was briefly sponsored by NBA player
Gilbert Arenas Gilbert Jay Arenas Jr. ( ; born January 6, 1982) is an American former professional basketball player. Arenas attended Grant High School in the Valley Glen district of Los Angeles, and accepted a scholarship offer to the University of Arizona l ...
. He was also sponsored by
Red Bull Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks created and owned by the Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With a market share of 43%, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2020, and the third most valuable soft drink brand, behind Coca-Cola and ...
, Stride gum, and Eon. Ryan was a member of
Counter Logic Gaming Counter Logic Gaming (CLG) was an American esports organization headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in April 2010 by George "HotshotGG" Georgallidis and Alexander "Vodoo" Beutel as a ''League of Legends'' team, and branche ...
from 2014 to 2016.


Gaming career


Halo Combat Evolved

Ryan began his professional gaming career at small local tournaments along with Dan Ryan, his twin brother. Ogre 2's 4 vs. 4 teams in '' Halo Combat Evolved'' (''Halo CE'') finished first on multiple occasions and were regarded among the best teams. However, for 2 vs. 2 players, Ogre 2 teammate was mostly his twin brother; they became one of the best duos in the history of ''Halo''. They were so unstoppable that the level "Chill Out" was nicknamed Ogre City. They won many events together and quickly stamped their names as the best players in ''Halo.'' Since then, Ryan has been a member of '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' and ''
Halo 2 ''Halo 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox console. ''Halo 2'' is the second installment in the ''Halo'' franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclai ...
'' teams, some of which have garnered media and gamer attention for their impressive showings. These teams include Team 3D's ''Halo 2'' team, Team StK (Shoot to Kill), Team Domination, Final Boss,
Team Instinct A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to info ...
, a revived StK, and CLG. Tom and his brother also represented the United States in the ''Halo 2'' competition at the 2005 World Cyber Games in
Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
, defeating team Canada to secure a first-place finish.


Halo 2

They won countless ''Halo 2'' tournaments after the transition to the new game, which also saw them add another dominant ''Halo CE'' player, Saiyan, and team Domination was born. The team was considered unbeatable and although they lost a few events, they never fell below second place. They changed their names to Final Boss. As the key member of Final Boss, Ogre 2 lead his team to win the first ''Halo 2'' Nationals and two consecutive
Major League Gaming Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) was a professional esports organization based in New York City. Founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso, MLG held official video game tournaments throughout the United States and Canada. The ''Boos ...
National Championships in 2004 and 2005. It wasn't until the emergence of Team Carbon that Final Boss struggled to continue its reign of dominance. Carbon and Final Boss would soon develop what was the biggest rivalry in ''Halo''. At the 2006 Nationals, they placed second to
Team Carbon Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) was a professional esports organization based in New York City. Founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso, MLG held official video game tournaments throughout the United States and Canada. The ''Boos ...
in a 4–6 match. The OGRE Twins and their team Final Boss dominated MLG tournament play in both ''Halo CE'' and ''Halo 2,'' finishing in the top two in 38 consecutive tournaments (winning thirty of these), including ten tournament wins in a row between 2004 and 2005 and nine tournament wins in a row between 2005 and 2006. They also have an older brother Marty, OGRE3, who served as a coach for Final Boss at several tournaments. For the last season of ''Halo 2'' in 2007, the team made a change. They dropped Saiyan and picked up Strongside from Carbon. The result was a loss-free tournament. In the 2007 Nationals, Final Boss took first place and received a $100,000 check. This was one of the biggest winnings in competitive gaming history at the time. Ogre 2 and Ogre 1 had some of the highest winnings among players as well.


Halo 3

As the 2008 ''
Halo 3 ''Halo 3'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the ''Halo'' franchise following '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' (2001) and ''Halo 2'' (2004), the game's story centers on th ...
'' season started, Final Boss won at MLG Meadowlands by defeating Team Classic. In a surprising move, after placing dismally at the next two events, Final Boss dropped longtime captain Walshy to pick up another high-profile player from Str8 Rippin, Neighbor. Walshy would go on to join Team Instinct for the remainder of the 2008 Season. Going into 2009, Strongside departed for the newly formed Status Quo and Ryan's brother left Final Boss and moved to Australia. This left Ogre 2 as the only remaining original member of Final Boss, alongside pro players Mackeo, Fearitself, and Victory X. The next season brought a variety of new additions, including Mackeo, Fearitself, and Victory X, along with Neighbor, Sypher, and Totz. After a disappointing eight-place finish at the end of the 2009 season with a roster of Ryan, FearItSelf, Totz, and Victory X, the team improved to a third-place finish to team Instinct. Final Boss dropped Totz to pick up Justin "iGotUrPistola" Deese, part of the Triggers Down squad that had dominated the 2009 MLG circuit. Final Boss improved, finishing second behind Instinct and then going on to win the next tournament. With this win, Ogre 2 passed his brother and became the winningest player in MLG history. Final Boss continued to dominate ''Halo 3'' in 2010, winning three tournaments, including the national championship.


Halo Reach

In 2011, '' Halo: Reach'' made its debut on the pro circuit at MLG Dallas. Final Boss came in as the highest-seeded team but lackluster results left Ryan with a tenth-place finish. This was his career low. After this event, Ogre 2 and his teammate Pistola decided to leave Final Boss and join up with another set of gaming twins, Roy and Lunchbox, under coach Towey of Team Instinct. There was discussion if the Final Boss team name would be returned to Ogre and possibly change Victory X/FearitsSelf's team name to The Agency, a team Victory played on in ''Halo 2'', but it never came to be. After this merger, many dubbed this team as the God Squad because all five members are considered to be among the very best in the game. Each player had won a ''Halo 3'' national title in the prior two years, with Roy and Pistola fighting for Best Player by taking MVP after MVP. During online scrimmages, teams quickly realized the squad was almost impossible to beat, and the nickname God Squad stuck. In their first event, MLG Columbus 2011, Team Instinct only dropped one game out of 22 on their way to winning the event. They went undefeated at Anaheim, taking their win-loss record to 43–1. As they continued to win, teams around the league tried to create their own super teams to try to take down Instinct. Everyone was shocked when the newly formed Infamous team, ranked thirteenth, beat Instinct in the finals. Following this event, Orlando showed the same lack of show of their earlier success. After being upset by Status Quo in the loser bracket, Instinct took fifth, their worst placing as the God Squad. The team practiced for the nationals and they came back to win the national title at MLG Providence. This gave Ogre, as a five-time national champion, the unique distinction of becoming the only player to become national champion of every game in the ''Halo'' series''.'' In 2012, Ogre 2 and his team Instinct continued to compete in ''Halo: Reach''. They placed second at the MLG Event in Columbus, Ohio, losing to team Status Quo. From there, Ryan and his team competed in several smaller-scale events, taking first at an Arena League Gaming event. Several months later, ''
Halo 4 ''Halo 4'' is a 2012 first-person shooter video game developed by 343 Industries and published by Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. ''Halo 4''s story follows a Human genetic enhancement, genetically enha ...
'' was released and Instinct once again competed in Dallas, Texas for a pre-release MLG tournament. Some players illegally obtained the game early, however, and members of Instinct didn't think of it as a real event.


Call of Duty

In 2013, the competitive ''Halo'' scene was all but finished due to the dwindling popularity of the series and MLG pulling the franchise from their line-up. Ogre 2 made the transition to competing in the rival game '' Call of Duty: Black Ops II''. Ogre 2's new team, Rage, consisted of all eSports veterans who had been successful at other competitive games. In 2014, Ogre 2 revived the Final Boss team name and moved on to '' Call of Duty: Ghosts'', playing at multiple events with other former ''Halo'' pros. In March 2014, Ogre 2 announced his retirement from competitive gaming, citing a lack of enjoyment as the primary reason. He ended his career with over 100 tournaments attended, including winning five out of the eight MLG National Championships (across four different titles).


Return of Halo

After nearly three years away from esports, ''Halo'' made a return to the Competitive Gaming scene after the announcement of '' Halo: The Master Chief Collection'' and ''Halo 2: Anniversary''. Ryan brought back the name StK and competed at the developer-run Launch Invitational, finishing in third place. After the success of this tournament, the Halo Championship Series (HCS) was announced, again endorsed by developer
343 Industries Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) is an American video game developer based in Redmond, Washington, part of Xbox Game Studios. Headed by Pierre Hintze, the studio is responsible for the Halo (franchise), ''Halo'' science fiction franchise, ...
and hosted by
Electronic Sports League ESL Gaming GmbH (formerly known as Electronic Sports League) is a German-French esports organizer and production company that produces video game competitions worldwide. ESL was the world's largest esports company in 2015, and the oldest that ...
. OGRE 2 and his teammates were picked up by
League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL'', commonly referred to as ''League'', is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for ''Warcraf ...
organization
Counter Logic Gaming Counter Logic Gaming (CLG) was an American esports organization headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in April 2010 by George "HotshotGG" Georgallidis and Alexander "Vodoo" Beutel as a ''League of Legends'' team, and branche ...
(CLG), who were making their first splash into competitive ''Halo''. The first HCS event was in Columbus, hosted by Iron Gaming. Once again OGRE 2 took home a first-place finish, with a hard-fought win over
Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses (EG) is an American esports organization based in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington. Founded in 1999, the organization has fielded players in various fighting games, ''Call of Duty (series), Call of Duty'', ''Counter-Strike ...
. This was Ryan's sixth first-place gaming title and his 40th national/global level tournament win. After holding onto the number one seed for the majority of the season, a second-place finish to Evil Geniuses at Gamers 4 Giving pushed them back for the first time since the season started. Evil Geniuses continued their dominance and took PAX nationals away from CLG in the finals, leaving CLG to take home 20K. At the start of Season 2, CLG disagreed with teammate Heinz. Heinz was traded to Denial for Cloud. CLG seemed to have a more slayer-oriented team, placing in the top four in the first two preseason online cups. However, their weaknesses showed when CLG took a disappointing fifth place at the first LAN event of the new season. The team struggled after this by taking 5th/6th in the next online cup. Soon after, Ogre 2 left for Hawaii to attend his brother's wedding, which overall showed on the CLG team. As a replacement CLG snagged Clutch, which didn't work out in CLG's favor. They placed poorly in most of the cups and moved down in the HCS standings as a result. When Ogre 2 returned, CLG had their worst placing in the 4th online cup but soon changed by taking 3rd in the next two cups. When going into HCS Indy, CLG was a fifth-place seed. Wins in the first couple of rounds would pair them against a more aggressive Cloud 9 and an unstoppable Evil Geniuses who were almost unbeatable during Season 2. After being beaten by Cloud 9, CLG fought through the loser bracket only to take second just behind EG. Much like in season 1, CLG was beaten by EG in the winner's bracket and fought through the loser's bracket to meet back up with EG back in the finals. It appeared that CLG could take the championship after winning the first series, but EG came clawing back to beat CLG 3-0 in the second series. Despite CLG placing second, they became one of the top two best teams to have played in H2A.


Halo 5

After MLG announced they wanted to take the reins of '' Halo 5'' in 2015, people quickly became interested in the new game's potential. The prize pool jumped to a million dollars and is now residing somewhere on the plus side of two million dollars. CLG was one of the few teams to stay together after the offseason of H2A. After a short time, Cloud was dropped from the team and replaced by Frosty. Royal and Frosty took the main slayer roles and Snakebite could then be moved to objective/support, which seemed to suit him better. Ogre continued to play the support role and CLG appeared to be one of the better teams. Going into the online qualifiers, CLG faced a higher seed. They played EG early in the bracket and finished 5th-8th. Upset with their placing, they came out hot, taking 3rd-4th, losing to the winning team Allegiance. However, they beat Allegiance in the following tournament. The next tournament seemed to have an effect on the other players of CLG after another 3rd-4th finish. This placing lead to Ogre2 removal from his team for the first time ever on January 24. Ryan joined Mikwen, former teammate Pistola, and Arkanum on the team EnVyUs. Due to a last minute team change, EnVyUs was unable to play for Xgames. Ogre 2 had to sit out and watch CLG make it to the finals. Going into the next season which was picked up by ESL, Ogre 2 was struggling to find a team. He tried out with
Ninja A , or was a spy and infiltrator in pre-modern Japan. The functions of a ninja included siege and infiltration, ambush, reconnaissance, espionage, deception, and later bodyguarding.Kawakami, pp. 21–22 Antecedents may have existed as ear ...
and the Renegades squad without success. As the Summer Pro League started to come closer, Ogre teamed with Seduce, Arkanum, and Nemassist on team Denial. Denial took second place in the Invitation online qualifier. This gave Denial an automatic invitation to the Summer Qualifier. However, Denial failed to qualify for the last chance qualifier. After another unsatisfying result, Ryan decided to take a break from ''Halo'' and find other spots in the Esports world. He announced his retirement from professional gaming on May 21, 2016.


Coach and manager

Ryan became a coach for the Evil Geniuses organization following the previous coach, Towey's, transition to ''Call of Duty''. He remained a coach until EG disbanded their ''Halo'' roster. On August 26 Ogre 2 joined the Florida Mutineers ''Call of Duty'' team as general manager.


Awards

* Best Overall Player – 2005 MLG Pros' Choice Awards * Best Overall Player – 2006 MLG Pros' Choice Awards * Best Overall Player – 2007 MLG Pros' Choice Awards * Best Strategist – 2010 MLG Pros' Choice Awards * Best Leader – 2011 MLG Pros' Choice Awards * Boost Mobile Season MVP – 2007 MLG * Most Valuable Player – MLG Charlotte 2007 * Most Valuable Player – MLG Meadowlands 2008 * Matador Bold Player – MLG D.C. 2010


Select tournaments


''Halo: Combat Evolved''


''Halo 2''


''Shadowrun''


''Halo 3''


''Halo: Reach''


''Halo 2: Anniversary''


''Halo 5''


References


External links


OGRE 2's Halo StreamAn ode to OGRE 2

OGRE 2 - The Greatest Player of All Time

Esports Amped - Boss Battle: Carbon vs. FB2006 MLG Pro's Choice Awards"So you wanna be a professional video game player?" by ESPN's Patrick HrubyOSU Lantern "A Slacker's Dream" - By Jared Chaney

Ogre 2 wins Halo 2 MVP award

MLG Canada 2007 Wrap Up

MLG Player Interview OGRE 2Congratulations to Instinct

Instinct Wins AGL Columbus 2012
{{Professional Halo competition Living people 1986 births American esports players Halo (franchise) players People from Pickerington, Ohio Team 3D (esports) players Counter Logic Gaming players Final Boss (Halo team) players Team Envy players Denial Esports players Esports coaches