Battle of The Border: UI vs WSU

Amelia Green

Announcing the first-ever UI versus WSU LAN Event in Esports, our program is excited to welcome our neighbors for a new tradition between our programs. Various games are being hosted at the Vandal Esports lab, cast by both WSU and our own UI casters. Here are the announcements of the games and their results.

With a starting game of Counter-Strike 2, our Vandals went 2-1 and took the first event point of the day. There was much back and forth as we burst through maps: Ruin, Ancient, and Mirage. Ultimately, our Vandals fought to the top, and we had Rocket League matches with similar results. JV Rocket League went against Team Black from WSU, their third-string team. The series quickly ended with a brutal 3-0 series score, and one match had an astounding 0-12. Varsity, put against the Crimson Team, was a bit closer, but only in points per match. The final series score was 3-0 as well. The match was full of grand strategy, technical skill, and communication.

Alongside these games, a few games were not streamed but are still a part of the event. Apex Legends was a tough win for the Vandals, taking us up to 4-0 in the event. WSU had the opportunity to turn things around with League of Legends Varsity and JV. The Cougars took both games and began their accumulation of event acclaim through the day, but the Vandals aren’t letting them walk all over our teams.

The Overwatch game was cut short and lost to the Cougars in a forfeit as the Captain had to leave. It’s an unfortunate happening that has the score to 5-3. So close to the final results, but this was certainly not the end for WSU. With Splatoon Varsity and JV being taken down by WSU’s team, this pushes the event score to 5-4 with only two games left.

A cascade of losses doesn’t stop the Vandals from making a comeback. Call of Duty Modern Warfare was a win for the Vandals, even as we had to hodge-podge our team from other FPS games paired with two of our usual COD Warfare team members. With this, there was a vigorous intensity for the final two events: a second Apex Legends game for the Varsity team was a very close 3-1 win for the Vandals. Even as Apex takes the official win for the Vandals at 6-5, the Valorant team was unaware of this success, and both schools put their all. The score for the final event of the first annual Battle of the Border event in both esports programs’ histories was two very close games ending in Vandals favor.

The final note to the event was that the first win goes to the Vandals, and we are excited to build this tradition with our neighbors, the Cougars.

Thanks to all the players that came during their weekend, the staff that donated their time, and, of course, our wonderful fans that watched the stream!