Valpo Esports compete in cLOL tournament
Let the games begin at Valparaiso University. This time Valpo swaps the field for the lab with the launch of Esports in the fall of 2019. Saturday, January 25, marks an opportunity where the Valpo League of Legends team can prove themselves against tougher competition in the college League of Legends Championship (cLOL).
The cLOL tournament will be played from the Esports lab on campus, but if players make it to the top four then they go to the League of Legends Championship Series, the pro-scene stage, in California. They are eligible to play six games but if they lose just one, they are out.
League of Legends is one of the most popular titles in the Esports community. There are five different positions in League of Legends: top, mid, support, ADC, and jungler. The team works together to gain, group up and split the map to help conquer each enemy’s strategy.
Valpo Esports participated in many League of Legends scrimmages during the fall semester. They arranged competitions with other universities and have an overall positive record. This tournament will allow them to test themselves against higher-ranked teams, including their first tournament game against the University of Northern Kentucky.
“My thoughts going into this tournament are to go out there and perform at our peak, ignore the pressure, and be able to keep our mentality positive no matter the outcome,” team member, Lucas Strothoff ’23 said. “Everyone on the team has put in a lot of work going into this and being able to show how much time we have put in is going to be awesome.”
As a new team at Valpo, Esports has been working to build up the program. They practice Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and discuss what went well and new strategies that will help them improve. Before the tournament, they test their skills with scrimmages and have watched video reviews of their past games.
Stay tuned on their Twitch account, valpoesports, where fans can see updates and cheer for their favorite team. The game’s on!