Ashton Proctur, sophomore accounting major, began to explore the jungle for his first kill of the day. Proctur, along with part of his team, soon took down the first group of beasts they encountered, gaining some gold and experience for himself.
Sitting in Webb Hall 2 in the Memorial Union, Proctur and his team, Chicks Love Big Crits, claimed victory over the Casual Gamers team in the semifinals of the League of Legends tournament, which began at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26, and didn’t conclude until after dark.
The gaming tournament, sponsored by the Memorial Union and the Gamer’s Guild, was brought to life by Carson Moore, head of the Gamer’s Guild junior psychology major.
“This tournament is a prototype for future events. It’s something neither IT nor any other club has ever done before,” Moore said, “If all goes well, it could lead to other tournaments like this.”
Four teams competed in League of Legends, a PC game described on its website as a “fast-paced, competitive online game that blends the speed and intensity of an RTS (real-time strategy) with RPG (role-playing game) elements.”
Moore said the Gamer’s Guild chose this game for the tournament because of the number of requests.
“We had a huge demand for a League tournament,” Moore said. “Lots of League players asked for one.”
In the popular online game, two teams of five “champions” battle in an arena to overcome each other and destroy each other’s base, or “nexus.” A player can move along three different paths called lanes, or leave the trail and fight monsters in the jungle the way Proctur did.
Each team tries to level up their champions by slaying enemy minions, monsters in the jungle, or the opponent’s champions and destroy the enemy nexus.
The four teams participating in the event were Chicks Love Big Crits, TNT, Casual Gamers and The Legion. The tournament began with seeding rounds to decide who would play whom first.
In the finals, top seed TNT got the first kill, but the second seed, Chicks Love Big Crits pulled through to win, with a score of 30 kills to 16 kills in 32-minute game.
Because this tournament was a prototype for future events of this kind, no prizes were given out. Moore said he would like to see other tournaments for Halo 4 or Call of Duty evolve from this now that they have the blueprints laid out.
After the tournament, Jordan Gobely, sophomore biology major and representative for TNT said he enjoyed the fact that ESU sponsored an event like this.
“I’ve been playing for a year and haven’t seen another school do this,” Gobely said.
More information about future events, like the tournament or information about the Gamer’s Guild can be found in BuzzIn announcements or at Gamer’s Guild meetings at 6 p.m. Wednesdays in Visser Hall, room 242.