Finance junior Edward Liu “A Good Sir” and computer science freshman Andrew Fu “A Bad Sir” play as support and ADC on the League of Legends team. Photo by Pavan Tauh | Mercury Staff.
The UTD esports program is wrapping up its inaugural year and ramping up fall recruitment with a new “Super Smash Bros.” team and overall good records for “League of Legends” and “Overwatch.”
The
esports program was launched in August and now has teams for three different
games. Esports director and head coach Greg Adler said the team has had a
successful first year.
“I think
it went pretty smoothly for our first year.” Adler said. “I think it’s a good
sign going into the future.”
The
teams have participated in several competitions throughout the year including
the first-ever Texas Clash, a “League of Legends” tournament hosted by the
University of North Texas. UTD competed against seven other teams and won both
the first and second place spots. The team has also competed in a tournament at
the Tulsa Pop Culture Expo in which the “League of Legends” team placed second
and third.
ATEC
junior and “Overwatch” support Blake Day said the team’s cooperation and
performance have improved over the course of the semester.
“I feel
I’ve gotten a lot better. One of the main things is that our teamwork has
gotten a lot better as the year’s gone by. As a team we look so much better
than we did at the beginning of the semester,” Day said. “Even if individually
we haven’t all gotten better, which we probably have, our teamwork has come the
furthest and it shows, and it’s what makes us as good as we are.”
The team
trains three times a week for two hours at a time, Monday through Wednesday.
Sunday is reserved for matches.
Mechanical
engineering freshman and “League of Legends” jungler Ryan Joslin said the team
introduced him to new people who shared his passion for video games.
“I’ve
been playing this game for a really long time, and it was really nice to know that there’s a
community that played “League of Legends” and it was a good experience
overall,” Joslin said. “I learned a lot of new things, I met some
good people, and I just had a really good time.”
New members are being
recruited through the team’s Discord server and through the UTD esports
website. The positions being offered are not limited to just those who play
video games competitively: Analysts, coaches, video editors and streamers are
encouraged to join.
“A lot of it just gets down
to word of mouth. Really just try to put the word out there that we’re having
tryouts and everyone’s encouraged to join and just showing what the benefits
are of being a part of the program,” Adler said. “I think we’ll definitely
expand to more games, and I think we just up everything a little bit now that
we’ve had a year of experience under our belt.
I think we know how things
are supposed to go and kind of have the flow going right into the year. I think
everything is going to be a little better next year and it’ll show in our
results.”