Martin Domingo
Audience members gathered in front of the projector screen yell in awe as Darius swoops down with his axe crushing his foes one after another.
“Triple Kill” plastered across the screen, Jacob Millbury has helped his team claw back into the game despite a gold deficit through the intense pressure from his Darius play in a late game team fight.
Moments like this were scattered throughout at the League of Legends tournament hosted by the Esports Club on March 12.
“This is my first event like this,” said Eric Chen, a high school student who’s brother Kevin participated in the event. “It’s really overwhelming.”
Over 50 people showed up to the all day event, spectators and tournament entrants alike.
With eight teams participating in a double elimination bracket, the competition was fierce and didn’t let up until the final team’s nexus had exploded, as every participant had their eyes focused on the RP prizes provided by Riot totaling an estimated $750.
“But it’s exciting because if my brother wins I’ll get him to gift me,” said Chen with a smile and a laugh.
Kevin’s team ended up winning second prize by controlling team fights well but simply getting out-played in the best of three final.
The walls of E206 were lined with people tapping away at their keyboard incessantly but as the day went on and teams were eliminated the crowd began to whittle thin.
“I came really close to canceling the event,” said Chris Boettcher, president of the Esports Club and the sole Algonquin organizer of the event. “A friend of mine from Waterloo is helping me out.”
Boettcher says one of the major challenges of creating this type of event is “finding committed people.”
“I stayed up until 3 a.m. on Wednesday drafting these teams and then I show up in the morning and I have to draft them all again,” said Boettcher.
Players disappeared with or without notice. One even left after losing his first match, without notifying anyone at all, leaving his team scrambling to find a substitute.
However, not all was grim, once Team 3 found a substitute top laner, they ended up getting third place.
But the team that stayed whole and played under the guidance of a high elo diamond player took the victory in a 2-1 best of three over the Elohellers (Team 8).
Team 1, consisting of Jerick Lim, John Patrick, Joshua Ivens, Joseph Hanlon, and Angelo Pangilinan, had lost to the Elohellers previous but had earned their spot back to the finals by eliminating Team 3 in a full blown slaughter.
The Elohellers, however, displayed a lot more finesse by carving out a win through a sated Master Yi game in which the swordsman, armed by Samuel Martel, slashed his way to victory with his team in shambles riding on his back.
The positive vibes didn’t last too long though as Team 1 came storming back and stole back the victory through a splitpush Singed comp combined with a devastating Lee Sin jungle who kicked the team through the early game and allowed their comp to shine later.
“It was amazing. A crazy day,” said Jerick Lim. “We played the map and won.
We didn’t focus on the loss but went back to what won us the original game.”
“You could say we went back to the basics.” said Joseph Hanlon.