Bronco Esports teams CPP Blue and CPP Cyan both qualified for the Collegiate Esports Association’s Fall Valorant tournament playoffs, with Blue and Cyan ranking fourth and fifth in divisions two and one, respectively. CPP Aqua did not qualify as the team placed 11th in division three.
Week six of the tournament, played on Oct. 23, was the last week of the tournament before the playoffs. After this week, the top eight teams in each of the four divisions will move on to the next round. The details of the playoffs format have not yet been announced, but the overall prize still stands at a pool of $1,500. CPP Blue was set to play against ASU Gold from Arizona State University; however, CPP Blue forfeited the match.
“We were burned out, and we are guaranteed playoffs,” said Tony Nguyen, a second-year accounting student and player for CPP Blue.
CPP Cyan played against Arizona Esports Red from the University of Arizona. Cyan lost the first round on map Haven 10-13. Haven is stylized after a palace with three bomb sites down the center of the map. Mobalytics, an online guide for games like Valorant, identifies the map as one of the easier ones to play on.
The two teams tied on the second map Ascent, which is specifically set in Venice, Italy, with two bomb sites and is identified as both easy and medium difficulty by Mobalytics.
“I always made it a point that a game is always winnable as long as we took it one round at a time,” said Jason Kison, second-year chemical engineering student and captain for CPP Cyan. “We almost beat University of Arizona today, even though they outranked us pretty heavily, but we made a few more mistakes than them which ended up being the cause for our loss.”
CPP Aqua was slated to play against IIT Scarlet Hawks C from Illinois Institute of Technology. IIT Scarlet Hawks C reportedly forfeited the match on Oct. 23, giving the win for the week to Aqua. The Poly Post reached out to players from CPP Aqua but did not receive any responses. The previous two weeks of the tournament played out differently than week six.
During week five of the tournament, CPP Aqua was scheduled to play against WPI Insurgents from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. This was the second match of the entire tournament Aqua played.
According to Chris Truong, third-year international business student and captain of CPP Blue, CPP Aqua was finally able to recruit players following three consecutive forfeits due to lack of team members.
On the first map, Ascent, CPP Aqua lost 2-13.
On the second map, Bind, Aqua also lost 1-13. The two-bomb site map is set on a beach and has two one-way teleporters that make game play more difficult due to the noise. Mobalytics identifies this map with both easy and medium difficulty.
CPP Blue and CPP Cyan both took bye weeks during week 5 as scheduled by CEA. A bye week is a scheduled break for a certain team that a given organization sets in advance.
Week four of the tournament saw CPP Aqua set to play against RIT Orange from Rochester Institute of Technology. Aqua, however, forfeited the match on Oct. 8 due to a lack of players.
That same week, CPP Blue competed against OU from the University of Oklahoma and won both rounds on the Ascent and Haven maps with scores of 13-10 and 13-7.
CPP Cyan faced off against ASU Maroon from Arizona State University. After the two teams came to a draw in the first round on map Ascent, Cyan was able to pull a 13-9 win in the second round on map Haven.
At the end of the first six weeks of matches, CPP Blue finished with 11 points and in fourth place of division two. CPP Cyan also finished with 11 points but in fifth place in division one. The two teams qualified for the playoffs that start next week.