On Saturday, Nov. 9, the eSports club competed against Francis Howell Central in the Microsoft League of Legends tournament , located at the Galleria mall. Senior Asher Buckner, junior Zane Stemler, freshmen Noam Birka, Angel Aquino, and Tyrelle Henley all competed.
Although the team lost zero-to-three, they saw positive aspects to their competition.
“[One thing that I felt the team did well during the last competition was] communication. We talked about where the enemy was, so that we would avoid that location,” said Stemler.
In addition to having thorough communication, a teammate played a role in the game that they did not play initially, requiring them to adapt to new situations.
“[One teammate who I thought did especially well was] Asher. He played a role that he wasn’t very good at for the team,” said Stemler.
The role that Buckner played was called Attack Damage Carry (ADC). The role consists of playing as a “champion” (one of the characters a player can use in the game, each with unique abilities) that deals strong, continuous damage with their basic attacks. Each champion that a player uses will fight the enemy team in order to destroy towers guarding the enemy base, and then destroy the enemy base.
This isn’t the first time members of the team participated in a competition. In a highlight competition that took place on Oct. 12 and 13, senior Asher Buckner and junior Zane Stemler competed in the League of Legends, Laclede LAN (Local Area Network) competition. Despite several setbacks, including a shortage of players, the team was able to score second place.
“Not enough players from the club could go to the tournament to make a team of 5,” said Buckner.
As a result, Buckner had to make a new team through outside sources.
“I asked the SLU eSports team if any of them could go to it, and enough could go that we had a team. We did scrimmages on Friday and they went well,” said Buckner.
Although the brand new team successfully worked together during practice scrimmage matches, another change occurred, which would make the team unable to compete on Saturday.
“At the last minute, two of the players from SLU said they couldn’t make it. So, all Saturday morning I was scrambling to find two more players,” said Buckner.
After eventually finding these two players, Buckner and Stemler were set to compete. However, one more setback would soon come their way. These changes would force Buckner and Stemler to change from their comfortable roles in the game.
“The first two matches did not go well. We started 0-2. We went out in the hallway to review the matches and decided to make some big role changes. I went from playing top lane to support and Zane went from support to jungle,” said Buckner.
As it turned out, these were the essential changes that allowed Buckner and the team to win the last four of their games, bringing the team to the finals that would take place the following day.
“The finals were close and really intense, but we lost 0-2 and got second. It was a lot of fun and quite the comeback story,” said Buckner.
Their next tournament will be a Microsoft rematch against FHC on Dec. 14. They meet on Mondays after school in Ms. Ollinger’s room.
“I’m looking forward to the rematch in December,” said Buckner.