Meet Ty, the Prodigy of PA
The release of Tekken 7 back in 2017 brought a massive wave of new players into the fighting game community. While some approached the new game with a more casual attitude, players like Tyler Beecroft emerged as hopeful new faces in the competitive realm. Better known within the Tekken community as Ty, he has quickly become one of the bright young stars to watch in North America.
“I first got into Tekken seriously back in 2017, when Tekken 7 first came out. A group of my friends and I were talking about buying it, and I had a lot of nostalgia for Tag 1 since it was one of my most played games as a kid. So, when they were talking about getting Tekken 7 I thought it would be really fun but I never envisioned that I’d still be playing it today.”
Spending lots of time near Tekken 7’s release watching players like JDCR and MBC, Ty learned how the game functions at a competitive level and begun to understand concepts better through watching hours of Korean Tekken footage. He has also found inspiration in the gameplay of Jimmy J Tran and Knee, both often hailed as two of the best Bryan Fury players in the world. Naturally as a Bryan player himself, Ty strives to become the best by understanding how fellow strong competitors make the character work at the highest level of play. Lastly, Ty cited Joey Fury as his current biggest American Tekken influence.
Despite playing Tekken for years now, Ty is still quite young compared to many big names in the competitive scene. While many high level players are in their 20s or 30s, Ty being in his teenage years is quite rare for such a strong player.
“Back in the day when I was starting out, I felt like my age would be something I’d get made fun of for. But now, I’ve had a few young people message me and say I’ve inspired them. It’s good to see people respect me more either despite my age, or maybe even more now because of it.”
“One of my most memorable moments as a competitor was when I made my first top 16 at a big event, that was at ECT back in 2019. I was going up against Shin Paulo and I felt I could beat him if I played with confidence. At that point not a lot of people knew who I was or knew anything about me really, so I went into it as an underdog. Shin Paulo had just won Red Bull Conquest and beat GM, so people were looking at him as one of the favorites. For me to come in and win the way I did, it was just amazing.”
Ty also mentioned his experience with playing a set against Arslan Ash in late 2019 as one of the most exciting times of his Tekken career. Thanks to the help of NYC tournament organizer Helst, Ty was able to make the trip to New York and fight against one of the strongest players in the world.
While not competing in tournament brackets or grinding online Tekken, Ty has recently worked on growing his streaming platform at twitch.tv/ty_pa_. With the help of his friend Sheesh, he has also produced educational Tekken content for his Twitter page at @tyler_beecroft.
“Playing Tekken 7 is really hard for a lot of reasons, and the online experience makes me want to gravitate towards something else, some other aspect of the game. That’s why I started doing some coaching and some content creation, because right now my expectation with the game is that if I get on and try to take it seriously I may have a bad time. So when I get on, I just want to have fun, to teach, to do something other than play competitively because I don’t think that’s really the wave right now.”
Ty’s recent venture into coaching has allowed him to approach the game from a different perspective, placing him in a mentor position to those who seek his guidance in Tekken. His prior experience with helping friends in Tekken as well as previously being a top 100 ranked Overwatch player gave him the confidence to believe in his ability to start a coaching service like players such as Joey Fury and Qudans.
“Coaching does not come easily to a lot of people, and I had to really work and think about how I was going to do everything. I think it’s also something that can improve you as a player as well which is part of why I’m doing it, because I think learning how to teach can make you a better player and vice-versa. Tekken is a game with a huge knowledge gap and the game doesn’t really teach you why you lost. You hear about stuff like players going to Korea for a year to train, but you don’t really hear about that kind of thing in other games.”
While Pennsylvania offline events have finally returned for Ty to play locally again, he has bigger aspirations for his future with Tekken. Hoping to attend major tournaments in the future after plans for Combo Breaker and Final Round in 2020 fell through, Ty wants to further test his Tekken skills against the world’s best.
“I think that I now have the potential to win regionals if I really play well, and for me it’s just a mindset thing. I need to go into these events with confidence and telling myself I can win, and I really think that I can. One thing I’ve learned this year is a lot about mentality and tournament mentality especially, because I was already getting top 8s and winning locals but now I want to aim higher. When offline comes back I want to see everyone there and have fun, and I think I can really do some cool stuff when offline comes back. I think I have what it takes to win, and I want to prove that.”
Be sure to follow Ty on Twitter at @tyler_beecroft, as well as catching his live streams at twitch.tv/ty_pa_.
