The CPP Esports Club hosted an in-house League of Legends tournament on Sept. 26 with the goal of connecting participants via the world’s most popular esport.
Coordinators Daniel Che, a third-year landscape architecture student and Kevin Lam, a third-year finance student, created the tournament for students to come together during online instruction while playing League of Legends.
“We wanted students to meet and become friends since many people feel disconnected during COVID-19,” said Che.
The competition featured a total of eight teams with five players per team. Like the club’s previous in-house Valorant tournament, the teams were numbered one through eight. When deciding teams, each student could select one or two players to be on their team, with the remaining teammates chosen by the coordinators.
“We wanted the teams to be balanced,” Che said. “Since League of Legends is a skill-oriented game, we wanted to balance out teams based on their rank in game.”
The format of the tournament was single elimination, meaning each team played only one game to determine who advanced. To win, a team must reach the opposing team’s base, known as the nexus, and destroy it.
The finals were between Team 5 and Team 7. Team 7 led for most of the game, but Team 5 was able to come back and win. What mounted the comeback was when Team 5 was able to win a shorthanded two vs. four fight, ultimately giving them the momentum to win. The players of the winning team were each awarded a Hyper X Revolver headset.
In League of Legends, there are five different roles with varying tasks for the team. A top lane is a bruiser who absorbs the damage from the enemy team, a middle lane is a magic character who deals high burst damage, a jungler roams around the map and helps other lanes, an attack damage carry is a marksman who deals the majority of the damage on the opposing team and the support role provides the team map vision and helps engage fights.
Team 5 included Ryan Huang, a first-year civil engineering student who played top lane, Chris Pei, a first-year music student who played middle lane, Simon Kho, a first-year computer science student who played jungler, Mikel Dubenion a third-year economics student who played support and Sylvia Phung, a second-year nursing student who played attack damage carry.
Although the members of the winning team play the game regularly, this was their first time competing in a tournament. While the players did not have much time to practice together since the teams were picked the day of the tournament, most team members were confident heading into the game. Kho, however, had different mindset.
“Throughout the whole tournament I was nervous, and I think I negatively impacted my team that way,” said Kho. According to Kho, he had multiple mishaps during the tournament such as being outplayed by the opposing team’s jungler.
Pei, Huang and Kho have known each other since high school, but they only met Dubenion and Phung when the coordinators assigned them to the same team. The team walked away with more than a win and new headsets that weekend. Since they worked so well with each other, the team plans to play together again in other tournaments or for future Bronco Esport League games. “Honestly meeting my other two teammates was my favorite part of this tournament,” Pei said. “They were enjoyable to play with and I definitely made two friends out of this.”
