Assistant Sports Editor
2017 ended with a bang as League of Legends and CS:GO held their end of season championships.
Now with 2018 coming into fruition, excitement for the new seasons of LOL and CS:GO are at an all time high, all while bringing another world renowned game to the Esports world, Overwatch.
Eports according to dictionary.com is defined as, “Competitive tournaments of video games, especially among professional gamers.”
To end 2017, League of Legends saw an upset at the world championship as SSG “Samsung Galaxy” dethroned the 2-time defending champions SKT “SK Telecoms” with a dominant 3-0 sweep.
The loss has caused a major shakeup in the beginning weeks of season 8. SKT is currently ninth out of ten teams, according to espn.com, in the LCK “League Champions Korea.”
Meanwhile in North America, the household names such as Cloud9, Team Liquid are atop the standings, with other teams such as Echo Fox and 100 Thieves vying for the top position.
There is currently a three-way tie for first place in the NALCS with Cloud9, Team Liquid and Echo Fox, each with a 5-1 record after three weeks.
One can attribute Echo Fox success to the addition of former SKT member, Seung-hoon “Huni” Heo. Echo Fox, not known for its success, shook its roster before the season and it seems to be working.
“League is pretty much capture the flag except you beat the crap out of the flag,” said Josue Cruz a member of the Campus Gamers club.
Only three weeks into the spring season, Teams will still have to endure 6 more weeks of the spring season and then endure another summer season of League of Legends.
The North American League Champion Series is being held in Battle Arena located in Los Angeles, Cal.
Counter-Strike Global Offensive has begun 2018 with a major within the first month of competition. Group stage was held in Atlanta, Georgia, while the playoffs were held in Boston, Massachusetts.
For the first time ever, a North American team won a major, as Cloud9 outlasted Faze Clan. Many analysts called the major final, one of the best if not the best final ever.
The only other time a North American team made a final was in 2016 when Team Liquid lost in the ESL One: Cologne, losing to SK gaming, 2-0.
Cloud9, in the previous 4 years had only made it out of the group stage once. You would have to go all the way back to 2014 to when it made it out of the group stage.
In order to win the first major of the year, Cloud9 had to go through the top three teams in the CS:GO community: G2 Sports, SK Gaming and Faze Clan.
In the final against Faze clan, the teams went into two overtimes. Being down 4 match points in regulation, Cloud9 came back to tie the match at 15 rounds a piece.
In the first overtime, C9 held a two match points lead but ultimately dropped two straight rounds and Faze Clan tied it at 18 to 18.
In the second overtime, Faze Clan took the first round and went ahead 19-18. C9 would answer back with 4 straight rounds and taking the major 22-19. Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.
The 2018 new year, brought a brand new competitive Esport with the arrival of Overwatch.
In its first season, competition is taking place at the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California. It will consist of 4 stages, each lasting 5 weeks.
At the end of each stage there will be title games between the top three teams. The winner of the title games earn a total winning of $125 thousand dollars.
After the 4 stages, the top six teams will enter the playoffs for a chance to be crowned the first ever champions of Overwatch and win a cash prize of $1 million dollars.
Through the first 4 weeks of the first stage, there is a tie atop of the standings between New York Excelsior and London Spitfire, each at 7-1, according to overwatchleague.com.
You can watch all the excitement of Esports on Twitch.tv or the Twitch app and also on YouTube.
Look in future issues and online at therunneronline.com for where CSUB is at in the Esports world and the possibility of CSUB adding Esports to its athletics.
