Infinity: A Slice of Pro Life History

John Meek, also known by the present alias of Dark Cloud Z, was born in Tampa, FL, USA on March, 23rd 1989. He is known as a professional Halo player who was signed with Major League Gaming & competed on the LAN Circuit in the 2005 - 2007 seasons. Winning 1st place at the National Tournament of MLG 4v4s New York 2006 Open with the esports clan Type-Z [1]. He continued to excel in the official live competitions where all the world's best in the game would participate, finishing in the Top 16 Pro Rankings at every league hosted tournament for the entire year of 2007 [2]. During this emerging early establishment of Console Esports, he was then known by the name of Infinity Z [3]. Teamed with Renowned Top 8 FFA/1v1 Players Hulk [4] & Str8P [5], along with other Pro 4v4 players of Fossik, Cpt. Anarchy, & Ownation.

Type-Z vs 5K (consistently in the League's Top 4) 50-49 in Tiebreaker Game 5 for MLG '07 Pre-Season Online Seedings Tournament. [6] See Game 3 - Midship Ball. [7]
5K went on in the brackets to win first place in the MLG War of the Web competition where all the Pro League's Top 8 teams participated. [8]

It was the Final Event for the year's regular season, where only 1 team would be granted entry into the Major League Gaming Playoffs Invitational with the rest of the top established powerhouses.
Nearly 200 of the most Elite teams participated for the New York LAN Tournament, each aspiring to claim the last spot into the following event's National Championships. The ante was highest bar-none going into the event, Infinity-Dark Cloud, along with the rest of Type-Z had been training nightly full-time with unshakeable mentality of dedication with hopes to earn the only remaining Pro Contract the League would be awarding for the year. Halo 2, being the World's #1 FPS Game at the time, no matter whether Console or PC, had the largest playerbase of countless millions of active competitors signing onto Live each jumping into the Shooter Versus Mayhem of wishing to obtain the top of the rankings. While maintaining the prestigious achievement of breaking into the Top 32 Pro Bracket at every major LAN event of this season leading up to the Playoffs Open, Infinity felt that the pressure was on that there would be one team out of this event who would Advance to the Championships Grand Finale, despite Type-Z being one of the favored to take the spot, many had their bets against them.

The tournament would endure a grueling, hard fought endurance marathon of 9 rounds in one day, each LAN faceoff lasting up to 90 minutes each. While dominating 3-0 sweeps for the initial half best of 5 series, the competition heated up in the latter half of the brackets, round by round, Dark Cloud Z & Crew having to edge out even tougher earned wins match by match, other intensely dedicated teams able to chip away a game here & there from them in a 3-1 or 3-2 series, Type-Z's outrages feats of off the charts strategy & aim skill was enough to clutch out the win matchup after matchup, making it all the way to the Top 2 Winner Brackets Finals. Infinity found himself face-to-face with the Tournament's Endgame Showdown, Mainstage awaiting him...

While Z was already established & respected by the Pro League & community, often scrimming against the other Top 8 Pro teams online, at this LAN Live event was the ultimate proving grounds. Many taken by surprised, the doubters were proven wrong by the hard concrete won results that Type-Z were capable to make it this far in the last Halo Majors event of the year. They would meet their long-fought official rivals, LG Gaming, who had secured several tie-breaking wins  in the seasons previous LAN events against Z. The whole venue watched with attention undivided, Z was ought to get their revenge, & here at the ender's tournament where it matter the most.

Psyched up, entranced into the moment, this is where every shot counts. The real deal. No one is holding back.
LG Gaming takes Game 1.
Up 0 - 1.
Z scores Game 2.
Series is tied 1 - 1.
With every ounce of Pro Skill laid out on the active battlefield's crossfire,
LG wins the next very close two games by only 1 Flag Cap in Game 4 & 50-48 a marginal 2 points in Team Slayer to claim the Winner Bracket Finals.
With Z down in the series 1 - 3, if they are to return to the Grand Finals, the odds were already harshly stacked against them.

Infinity, Hulk, Ownation, & Str8Pimp, steamroll forward against the Top 3 team also on Mainstage for the Lower Bracket finals in a large gap match wins 3 -1 victory,
showing the whole League's Administration & Audience that they undeniably without question are of the absolute best of the best teams & deserve to be in the Grand Finals.

Amped up off the Live Tourney win of the last round, Z & Dark Cloud charged back in again versus LG with ultimate confidence that being down 2 games in what will be a Best of 11 series,
couldn't possibly stop them from taking the Playoffs Open Champions Title.
...
LG shows that in the face of Type-Z's hotstreak, they are no force to be reckoned with, contesting them like a wall with snagging the first round & Game 5, of the Finals.
LG is up 1 - 4.  Z needs 5 games towards victory, while LG only needs 2.
Z makes the reversal counter in Game 6.
Series is 2 - 4. This next match counts for nearly everything if Infinity is going to break into the Pro Invitational.
Call outs shouting in screams, the intensity is maxed out. Strategy & Teamwork are virtually flawless on both sides of the Stage.
LG wins Game 7, up 2 to 5, only needing one more match to steal the glory & all its rewards.
No one is expecting Z to win at this point. LG had been relentlessly uncontested all tournament against every other teams, & earned themselves a strong upperhand lead vs Z for all to believe them to be the better team.
...
Dark Cloud & squad, did not lose faith, not in themselves or what is possibility in reality.
"One game at a time. This series isn't over. We got this. This Championship is ours. Don't give up. We are going to show this League here on Mainstage that we are the ones who deserve that Invitation, the Final Pro Contract."
Against all odds, Z was fired up!
Making a strong winning display for Game 8, the series was still 3 to 5. Z needing 3 more, with LG needing 1.
The crowd teased & chuckled, "It doesn't matter, there is no way they can make this come back.
Sparking life into what everyone thought was already done & over with, Z takes Game 9. The series lead now narrowed 4 to 5.
The hearts of the sportscasters & all watching begin to turn against their own disbeliefs,
"Is it possible for Z to actually turn this series around? If so, it would be of the most miraculous feats we have ever seen in our League's esports history!"
Game 10, Oddball on Lockout. 32 seconds left on the match regulation clock. Z is down by 30s, having to fight off slaying power 3v4 as the 4th man continues to phrentically rack up time,
H2's OT clock minding no extra grace for pausing regulation time.
Oddball holder down to no shields top-center pillar with 5s left, still 3s down...Z's teamwork clutches out a 4-man wipe to take Game 10!
The crowd is friggin' estactic tanked wild that Z has made this comeback to equal up the series, going into a final Game 11 tiebreaker match!
Everything is on the line. This is it. This is where all of our devotion into Pro Halo over the years of our life's training to be the best is passionate fiery hearts openly exposed to make a name for itself in real-time highest tier competitive play.
...
TS on Warlock. The most open map of non-stop aimskill + portals flanking from every side chaos will be the ultimate determinator of who moves onto National Championships.
Z. Wins.

Continuing to build experience over the next several decades, Dark Cloud Z had stayed involved with the Elite FPS online communities, always at the fringe of top-tier level competitors, having moving his focused to PC-based titles such as Unreal Championship 3 & Quake Champions, all the while involved with the following Halo installments nonetheless. Outside of competitive esports culture, getting involved with learning the foundation of his career skills for videogame design & programming in 2016, he finally decided to launch operations for his own multiplayer shooter game project several years later, seeing what he considered to be vast flaws for tournament balancing in every other major shooter on the market & wanting to bring resolution to where his pro insights perspective could bring massive overhauls on a platform for the Arena community to conduct their PvP activities upon with fair mechanics implemented.

"Imagine if it were in football that your team is on offense & scores a first down, then the rules state possession is now given to the opposing team...it would be outrage! I see no difference to the analogy for our current options in esports to compete on. That is, you make that ultra clutch big play of movement strafe & perfect aim to outskill your opponent, only to get one-shot picked off by one of his teammates who is much lower skilled than yourself. The outrage is all the same as the tides of competitive momentum shift. One example of a gameplay dynamic I'm integrating into our newest platform is, once you outskill your first opponent, you are granted instant full HP regen, therefore, you can outskill 100 players in a row who aren't on the level of aptitude as you. Thus, the mechanics remove the luck factor & heavily favors the team/individual who is actually the better side on the active playing field."

In 2020, the Codename: Dominion Synergy project began, built on Unity. This was a MP FPS title in a deep futuristic dark neon world. As a small indie team, much of the concepts were built as the core foundation of Dark Cloud Z's Vision for what would be the perfect arena shooter game. Development continued through till the beginning of 2022, where much of the game was complete & nearly ready for the public after the first several thousands of hours of invested time & efforts into coding, however a very tragic cataclysmic unfixable error occurred in the Source Code's Networking Infrastructure, resulting in software which made the Alpha non-playable for the genre demographic that it was being constructed for. Along with major technological breakthroughs happening in the industry over the span of those few years, John Meek decided that it was the end of the road for project, though only temporarily.

In 2023, after reorganizing all required business components to be prepped for the next development endeavor, the pro esports arena project was revived with the Era.S Decode [17] movement, rolling out full force forward with Dark Cloud Z's new independent studio, Cosmic Sagas. The game is a 3rd-person highly intensive PvP arena shooter, powered by Unreal Engine 5, that takes place in a fantasy sci-fi future spanning the spectrum of ages across time. Released on March 26th, 2025, ESD is now available free-to-play as a Early Access title on the Epic Games Launcher, featuring 100s of gameplay balances geared for tournament play & innovative Matchmaking playlists that stay true to the spirit of fast-paced strategic esports culture. Eras Decode is scheduled for mega expansions that will include 1st Person Viewpoint, Heavy Abilities with Economy Modes, Advanced Melee Duels Combat, Open World RPG Questing, Rogue-lite Dungeons, Clans, & the in-application Pro League.

Epic Games Store. 2024-03-31. Retrieved 2025-04-09.