The “League of Legends” A and B teams advanced to quarterfinals at a Midwest esports tournament where they took seventh and eighth place, respectively. Photo courtesy of UTD Esports.
For the
first “League of Legends” tournament this year, UTD’s “League of Legends” A and
B teams advanced to quarterfinals in the Wichita Esports Convention during the
first weekend of February but ultimately lost to semi-professional teams.
WEC
features a range of different competitions and bills itself as a “Midwest
pipeline for collegiate and amateur video game players.” The team’s primary
focus was the “League of Legends” tournament with a $20,000 prize, head coach
Greg Adler said. The tournament hosted both semi-professional teams such as
BloodyGamers and Polar Ace as well as collegiate teams.
During
the tournament, 14 teams were divided into two groups, with one group
containing four teams and the other containing three teams. The “League of
Legends” A team competed with Polar Ace and Missouri Valley College in Group A
and the B team competed with BloodyGaming and Keepers of the Rift in Group B.
After
the A team lost a close match against Polar Ace, the team redeemed itself in a
sweeping victory against Missouri Valley College in a 25-minute match with a
score of 30-4. The match included highlights with freshman ADC Ryan Joslin “THE
Jons” as Kai’Sa and junior support Chris Yang “YHW” as Braum. The victory
landed them in the quarterfinals in a match against Azio, a North American
amateur semi-professional team, but the A team ultimately lost.
The
“League of Legends” B team lost in a 40-minute match to BloodyGaming, a North
American amateur semi-professional team who went on to win the entire
tournament. During the quarterfinals, the B team competed against Super Nova, a
North American amateur team, but ultimately lost.
Joslin
said he didn’t anticipate not making it past the quarter-stage but listed
communication, game mechanics and teamwork as some of the weaknesses they
identified from playing in the tournament.
“It was
a little surprising,” Joslin said. “I think we were pretty confident going into
it, but the level of competition was pretty intense. We just learned a lot
about our style, and it revealed a lot of our weaknesses as a team, more so
than other scrimmages or other things we do in-house, just because it is so
competitive.”
In
January 2019, ESPN released the first collegiate “League of Legends” Week 1
rankings for college esports teams across North America. Collaborating with
“Riot Games”, the maker of “League of Legends,” ESPN will release bi-weekly
rankings of collegiate “League of Legends.” Out of the 25 schools listed, UTD
was ranked eight.
In
addition to practicing for upcoming tournaments, the two UTD teams hope to
encourage all student gamers to connect.
“Obviously
we focus on the competitive side of esports, but we want to connect all the
gamers on campus,” Eric Aaberg, assistant coach, said.
Adler
said the tournament was a fun time and it highlighted their advantages as well
as disadvantages. As the students prepare for the next tournament, practicing
is going to be the central focus, Joslin said.
Additional reporting by Anjali Sundaram