Spank U: February 2012, Modern Warfare 3 to October 2012

Spank U was a tiny clan established on PS3 to bring a few friends together by Dustin Harwood. It was him, me(bullet103), and FedAgent. Dustin and I first met online in August of 2010 on Modern Warfare 2. I was a noob, and he took pity on me. He introduced me to his online friends, a few of which are still in TGBG Gaming –sillycrazmonkey, Jizz_N_My_Pantz(Justin831), and FedAgent. I’d like to insert here that my longest running and dear gaming friend, and still clanmate, L-CANGRY, I’d met earlier. We all played through BlackOps1, even trying our hand briefly in GBs under teams WTMW(Welcome To My World) and Jacob’s Ladder.

Modern Warfare 3 brought the COD Community Pub Comp by way of a website called Elite by Activision. It housed rosters, leaderboards, stats, etc, and helped clans organize their teams, compete, and achieve rep. Dustin decided he wanted a clan to start doing these Ops and Challenges, but he couldn’t think of a name. I came up with Spank U, an irreverent name that reflected the fun we’d been having. FedAgent, sillycrazmonkey’s brother, came aboard and the 3 of us were a clan in February 2012. Quickly afterward, Dustin realized he could not manage the website with work issues and eventually handed the team to me and left team for awhile. We had picked up youfinished, BenScheu1, L-CANGRY, Achtung_Castile, and a couple of others. Monkey had joined another already-organized team, the Mountain Clan, but they had scheduling issues and brought his team to us. That Spring/Summer we were very successful at Ops and Challenges, but did not place well on the leaderboards since we had such a late start. The competing mindset took hold, and by Fall 2012, we wanted more!

Tag M n Bag M: Fall 2012, Black Ops 2 through Fall 2014 Advanced Warfare

In Fall 2012, only 9 months after the Clan was established, sillycrazmonkey called me to ask a question that would change the course of this team – Did we want to be taken seriously in the gaming community? And if so, we should change our name.

He was right, and so we did. After weeks of team polls, and crazy names like the Crash Helmet Wheelchair Brigade(thank you Achtung_Castile) and something about cats, the majority of votes went to – Tag M n Bag M clan. Because there were so many other Tag ‘em and Bag ‘em teams spelled many ways, that spelling was the only one that worked on the Elite ClanOps Website, and we were not about to re-poll. We also chose “Indestructible” as our theme song, and the colors Black and Red, blood red. We identified ourselves. We were ready.

Black Ops 3 we played our Ops and Challenges hard getting to #46 on the leaderboard by the end of the year. We held Clan Clinics to improve skills, and slayed our way through pubs so hard that by Fall of 2013, gamers left lobbies often when we showed up in Search & Destroy and Domination verbally expressing they did not want to go up against us again. This would later be a reason we did not change our name, though we were very close to it in Ghosts.

By Ghosts release, we felt great about the new COD year. But it was a difficult start. ClanOps and Challenges were replaced by a new App System by Beachhead Studios called Clan Wars. A system so different it required a completely different approach, and a commitment from those involved. No more could you say you’d play and not show up, the loss would be severe. Tag M n Bag M was well-placed to start but faltered, and in-fighting as to how a CW should be run, or should a female be running Clan who was not the best player on the team led to 22 people out of 50 leaving to start their own team.

The loyal people stayed, the ones with heart and a willingness to grind and commit. We had a chip on our shoulder, something huge to prove. And by beginning of March 2014, Tag M n Bag M made it to Diamond Division, the highest one. The feeling of accomplishment was a new high. With the help of in-game strategist I3RONZE, we wrecked our way to the big leagues.

Team grew in size after that. Everyone wanted to play Diamond Division. But these players did not understand commitment, or strategy. Again, at the end of May, another purge had happened. This time 10 newer members were kicked out, including 2 Lt Generals who thought it’d be great fun to bring down the entire team and continued to go after team under different aliases till September. It didn’t affect us, and once again, we soared up the Leaderboard 100s of places to finally land 136 in Diamond Division by the time CWs were over for Ghosts. We didn’t break Top 100, but we gained so much in rep, and a voice on Twitter in the COD community, making contact with devs, getting ideas from other clans like TeamUK and TheYellow12 and chatting up YoyoClanNews. The 22 who originally broke away made it to Diamond by the last CW and then never showed up to it. Happy to say we are friendly now.

TGBG Gaming: Fall 2014, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare to present…

At this point in Fall 2014, with Advanced Warfare about to launch, we became more interested in being a contributing factor in the gaming community. It was the first time we hired a GFX Designer, Riiot, who came up with a beefy, military style text logo to be used on Twitter and on our brand new iclanswebsite. Eventually, we would be delving into Twitch and Youtube by August 2015, having been Top 10 in the Diamond Division, even 1^st for a time.

By Advanced Warfare, team was ready with skills and knowledge, and the balls to speak up on Twitter! We came roaring out of the gates coming in 1^st every CW(except 1 where we got 2nd that was so unfair the devs changed the rules due to it). By the first Diamond Division CW we had so many first places team felt bored. It was a challenge to stay motivated and committed. We bombed our first AW Battle Royale in Spring due to it being daytime and our team strictly plays nights. Recruiting a few last minute to play did not work and we probably should have sat it out. After that we dropped to the 5-10 Division to keep a presence and give team a break so not all had to commit to playing every CW. It worked. We made first place or hovered around Top 10. By the time Season 2 ended, we placed 8^th in our Division, very proud to have completed the entire year of CWs, got into YoyoClanNews Mentions, and made a lot of COD Community friends!

By October 2015, we saw our very first TGBG Charity Event. Thanks to the leadership of sillycrazmonkey, we held a 27hr Stream Event for ExtraLife.org which raised $2k from an underrated, very generous gaming community of friends.

Clan Wars sadly ended with the release of BlackOps3 in November 2015, which meant no more of the Pub-style competition the team had become used to. Instead, we sought to start an online comp team and division of TGBG Gaming called TGBG eSports which made a presence on Twitter as well. The team weathered many changes as it formed, working hard daily and grinding to front page UMGs, making playoffs in August.

In Winter of 2016, we won a Twitter header by Rule Designs.  We hired him and our GFX for every media we used jumped up to a new high!  He also designed our jerseys which have met with great success in sales! Rocking a new and improved Logo and look, our team gets many compliments thanks to Joerule_. He also brought his Filthy Casuals Destiny team to us to lead something new – TGBG_Destiny!

With the lack of COD Pub Comp, TGBG Gaming has formed more new teams. TGBG Vanguard in Battlefield 1 with Dijunian as Commander

Smokey and the Bandits on Rocket League led by I3RONZE

TGBG Gods in SMITE started by Savage_Reaper178, now led by Klooscap

For 2017 eSports, we brought in Lokes_wAo, to manage our new eSports teams:

Team NeXus, Captain Skater_Ade

Team Valor TBA

Proud to say we held many Tournaments and Charity Events over 2016, including benefits for Hire Heroes, ASAN, Flood Victims of Louisiana, Cancer Research Institute, and Marine Corp Toys for Tots. 2017 will bring more. Hyped to charge into our 6^th year together! Come along for the ride with a team that has heart, grit and grind!

With so much love,

Bullet