From Ranked Queues to Pro Rosters: How X-Team Developer Arthur Andrade Competed at the Top of 2 Games

Eight hours a day of practice. Fourteen pre-tournaments, each one spent crammed inside a teammate's house training together for hours on end. And through all of it, a left-handed mouse setup that routinely confused opponents at local events.

Arthur Andrade spent years competing at the professional level in two very different games — Rainbow Six Siege and Smite — before stepping back to focus on university and, eventually, software development at X-Team. His path to the pro scene, and his departure from it, says as much about discipline and self-awareness as it does about raw gaming ability.

In this story, Andrade, a full-stack developer at X-Team, explains how he broke into competitive gaming in two distinct genres, what a methodical training regimen actually looks like, and why he eventually traded the pro grind for something more sustainable.

Getting Into the Pro Scene Wasn't Just About Rank

Andrade arrived at Smite with an existing foundation. He had played MOBAs — DotA and League of Legends specifically — since early on, so when Smite launched in its early stages, the genre's core strategies transferred naturally. What kept him engaged was the game's third-person perspective, which gave it a feel he describes as uniquely its own. "Smite is one of those 'easy to learn, hard to master' games," he says.

Rainbow Six Siege appealed to a different part of his instincts. "It's a really strategic shooter," Andrade says. "I was always more analytical than I was mechanical. That's why I decided to give RS a shot over any other shooter. It's quite strategic and doesn't rely purely on razor-sharp reflexes."

But reaching pro in either game required more than climbing the ranked ladder. Andrade is clear on this point: ranking into the top fraction of players is a starting condition, not a finishing line. "You need to know someone who's already in the pro league — as I did for RS — or have good friends who are already highly ranked, as I did for Smite," he says. The social layer matters because pro teams aren't just evaluating mechanics. They're evaluating whether a player is a communicator and a team contributor. Playing alongside established pros gives those teams a chance to observe that firsthand. "When you play with them, they can evaluate your social skills and invite you to their pro team."

That network paid off. Andrade won three championships in Smite — two with his team and one playing solo, in the Smite Joust League. The team events included the Brazil Regional Tournament, hosted by LevelUp, and the Brazil Game Arena Tournament. In Rainbow Six Siege, he competed as part of his university team in the Federal E-Sports tournament hosted by UFMG e-sports. The events drew real audiences. Some university-versus-university tournaments in Brazil, he says, drew 15,000 spectators — enough to generate genuine energy even if it wasn't the scale of the biggest international esports broadcasts.

Discipline, Weaknesses and an Unconventional Mouse Hand

Andrade describes his approach to training as methodical and disciplined. The first step, he says, is honest self-assessment. "You need to identify what your strengths and weaknesses are. Your weaknesses, in particular."

For Rainbow Six Siege, that meant confronting the mechanical demands that come with not being the team's shot-caller or strategist. He drilled three specific areas: aim and flicker reflex, using empty lobbies and reflex-training websites; movement precision, including 180- and 360-degree spins stopping at exact positions; and map knowledge — choke points, camera placements, trap locations and environmental interactions.

Where he couldn't fully eliminate a weakness, he adjusted his role to minimize its exposure. "I'd usually be the person setting up defense and protecting the objective," he says. "This meant that trappers and information-gatherers were my go-to's." In Smite, he played the middle lane and took on the shot-calling role — which made tracking enemy positions across the map while holding mid lane a core part of his practice.

Complicating all of this was a detail that regularly surprised his opponents at local tournaments: Andrade is ambidextrous but controls his mouse with his left hand. Crucially, he doesn't invert the mouse — his left index finger still clicks the primary button, which means his thumb handles right-click, a particular challenge in shooters. Opponents at in-person events sometimes asked him to switch seats. "It's also difficult for my opponents in local tournaments, who get confused because I play this way," he says.

The training volume was significant. Eight hours a day was standard, and the fourteen pre-tournaments added compressed, team-focused sessions on top of that baseline.

Why the Pro Life Has an Expiration Date

Andrade left competitive gaming in stages. University arrived and the time required to stay sharp at the pro level stopped being practical. He shifted into a strategist role for his teams before eventually stepping away entirely. The time constraint, though, wasn't the whole story.

"Games are a way for me to de-stress," he says. "But I was really pushing myself to my limits in my final few years as a pro. It wasn't fun anymore. So I quit."

The reversal — from entertainment to obligation — is a pattern the interviewer notes is common among pro gamers, and one that Andrade experienced firsthand. The same intensity that produces results also drains the original motivation for playing. Stepping back let him return to gaming on his own terms.

Today, his library spans several genres: Rainbow Six Siege and Call of Duty: Warzone for FPS; DotA 2 and Smite for MOBAs; Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2 for MMORPGs; and Planet Coaster and Anno for everything else. The competitive edge is still there — but the eight-hour practice days are not.

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