Esports Weekly Wrap-Up: Jan 29 – Feb 3
Amelia Green Feb 4th, 2024
Well, Vandals, we have the first week of official season on our hands. We started strong on Monday with ECAC FC, Smash, and R6. Then moving through the week, we had wins in Apex, Smash, Valorant, and Street Fighter 6. Wednesday may have been slow, but we still had successes in Valorant followed by a win on Thursday in Smash. Friday was also busy with Omega Strikers, LoL JV, and CS2. We concluded the week on Saturday with a monthly tournament conducted by Palouse Gaming, but held in the Esports lab.
We streamed R6, our Vandals against the Iona University Gaels, on Monday. The final score was 2-0 with each match being 7-2. This is a great showing for our first match of the season. Led by Synth3tic, our team had serious support from the audience as went passed rounds. R6 Siege is a game comparable to Counter Strike or Valorant where the goal is to either protect or diffuse a bomb. There are 12 rounds and the first 7 wins. Significant technical skill was demonstrated by our player, Akeno, as they were even able to make shots upside-down through a small gap of a doorway. A great many other plays also contributed to the win by our Vandals. Other than R6, Smash also had a crushing victory against Rogers State! It was 2-0 for the win. In ECAC, the scoring is a bit different. Stock points are counted by how many are taken rather than how many are left as they are in NACE. The final score of both games in the match was 9-4. This victory for the Smash is a promising start to the season. The final game played on Monday was FC against Thomas Esports FC, the first game being round lost at 1-3. However, our players were able to pick up the energy and take the game with the remaining rounds being 5-2 and 6-2! A promising start all around.
Tuesday was a full lab day. Apex had their first match of the season and got 3rd place out of 20 in the first round. How Apex works is a cumulative score over a series of three rounds. The Vandals achieved 66 points, taking 3rd twice and 8th once. On the Nintendo, we had another Smash Weekly being held! This was still under Palouse Gaming management with assistance from our Vandal Esports staff. Valorant JV against Rio Grande University was won by forfeit, placing the first Valorant win of the season under the JV’s belt. Due to the forfeit, Overwatch was given the opportunity to play on stream for the second week. This wasn’t an official match, though, only scrims. Street Fighter 6 also had much success as well!
Contrary to Tuesday, Wednesday was a relatively quiet night with only the first official ECAC Valorant Varsity match. This was an amazing showing of our Vandals, but it unfortunately cut short when our opponents, the California State University of Monterey Bay, were unable to find a substitute for the second round and had to forfeit. However, there was impressive gameplay on the singular round, won 13-2 by the Vandals. Held on the Icebox map, we had a strategic agent line-up of Sage, Jett, Kay-O, Sova, and Viper against the Sea Otter’s line-up of Sova, Viper, Neon, Omen, and KJ. The first of three fantastic rounds was the Team Ace early game, which means that all team members picked off one of the opponents. There was also the first Ace – a single player takes out the entire team – headed by SomeCheese, the IGL, playing Jett. The other Ace was achieved by Blud playing Viper. Overall, a great start to the Valorant Varsity season!
Thursday was another day of streaming Smash, an ever-popular game played in the lab. Our Varsity competed against Kilgore College in Texas! As per ECAC point system, the first game ended 12-11 in our favor, and the second was 12-7. This means that we took off 12 stocks while they took 11 and 7 each game respectively. Overall, a very impressive performance from both teams!
Nearing the end of our week, Friday began with the first ever Vandal Esports Omega Strikers stream against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. This was a rousing success as our team took consecutive wins, concluding the series 2-0 for the Vandals. the first game was won 3-0, with only one point made in an individual round. Their Asher Striker was a formidable goalie that achieved 42 saves in the second game! However, Tig, playing June in the first game and duplicating Asher in the second, kept up some aggressive offense alongside Shinyshoes playing Ai.Mi before duplicating Vyce in the second. Pizza kept back and held strong as the goalie playing Drek’ar for both games. Following Omega Striker, LoL JV was streamed as they went against University of Alaska Fairbanks, he top team in the league. Overall, JV may have lost, but they showed impressive adaptability and resilience in the face of these tough opponents. The final event of Friday was an energetic game of CS2 against University of Hawaii. The first game was a loss for the Vandals at 7-13, this was also the case for the second game, leaving the series at 0-2 for University of Hawaii.
Saturday was the Palouse Smash Monthly tournament and brought a great many amazing players! Please check out the stream for this event on Palouse_Gaming – Twitch!
We now have a Foundation link available for people who wish to give continued support to the Esports Program! University of Idaho ยท GiveCampus
Thank you for reading! Be sure to join us on Twitch – UIdahoEsports -, YouTube – UIdahoEsports -, or come in person to the basement of the Pitman Center!