“It’s melon time!”
The crowd cheered on Friday as MorningMelon — the avatar of Daniel Yun — charged into battle. This was the scene in the auditorium at the Earth Sciences Building as two teams clashed in a best of five game of League of Legends, the popular multiplayer battle arena online video game where two teams of player-controlled champions and AI minions duke it out on a map.
The tournament was jointly organized by the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) and the University of Toronto League Association (UTLA) as part of Frost Week 2015.
Preliminaries and semi-finals took place from December 16 to January 14.
JENNIFER SU/THE VARSITY
The finals were screened live in-person at the Earth Sciences Building and online through Twitch.tv, a video game streaming website. The stream garnered over 13,000 views during its nearly five-hour run.
The tournament is the brainchild of Zijian Yang, UTSU vice-president, campus life.
“I wanted to bring e-sports in general to campus,” Yang says when asked about why he wanted to organize the tournament.
He notes that, so far, there have been smaller e-sports events hosted by clubs at the university, but he hopes they will gain a higher profile.
Lawrence Zhang, UTLA vice-president, says that Yang approached him during a campus life commission meeting with the idea of hosting the tournament. They managed to secure Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends, as well as ASUS and Red Bull as sponsors for the event.
The tournament saw 14 teams compete against each other, leaving UofT Azure and UofT Frost as the final two.
JENNIFER SU/THE VARSITY
Both teams are considered to be the strongest in the university, and they have both competed in the North American Collegiate Championships, as well as against professional players.
Team Azure emerged as the victor of the match.
“It’s very interesting to see people get really excited,” says Enrico Baculinao, a third-year student in Cognitive Science and Linguistics who came to watch the finals.
The players themselves can be devoted to their avatars. For example, Yun says he stays true to his avatar’s name by eating a melon on the day of a match.
“It can be any variation of [a] melon,” he says. “I have [one] before the game.”
Yun said that teamwork is critical in this type of competition. “Before any game, we have a ‘washroom break’ — we go to the washroom as a group to discuss strategy,” he says.
Kevin Ma, a player from the winning team who goes by the avatar name ACEYY, echoes that teamwork is the key to success. “We practice for four hours, twice a week, and we need the whole team,” Ma says.
Yun believes that e-sports can no longer be ignored. “It’s not just a hobby anymore. It’s a lifestyle and even a career choice,” he says.
Ma agrees, calling it “a growing sport.”
