Liggett's First Esports Tournament

Wednesday, November 13 marked a monumental day for esports at Liggett. Brendan Jones put on the first ever esports tournament. The game was Super Smash Bros Ultimate. There were three different brackets happening throughout the four hour tournament: a free for all, 2v2, and 1v1. According to Jones, there was a maximum of about 30 people present at one time, with 21 of them playing and about 8 spectating.

This event drew people from all social groups and each person there got into the action. There were football stars, actors from the play, shy kids, and more. There were also all four grades represented, freshmen through seniors. One freshmen, Lucas De Almeida, said he was surprised by the amount of people there. There were always games going on and always people actively watching the games.

Jack Nicholson, when asked about the event said, "it was honestly really fun. Sure it takes up time but it’s worth it." Based on everyone else's response that I talked to, they felt the same way. Everyone really liked that something like this was at their school. Every one of them also said that they would like to see another esports tournament, possibly with a different game.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate is a fast paced Nintendo PvP game, with many unique characters all relating to the Nintendo franchise, such as Mario, Link, and more. I was able to observe the 2v2 tournament and then the 1v1 tournament. 2v2 was a lot harder to determine which team was winning since there weren't any visual markers that you could see. Also with the small map it made the game much more conducive to the 1v1 bracket. The 1v1 games were very easy to understand and interesting to watch, coming from someone that knew very little about the game.

As the tournament went on, it got pretty intense. This came to a peak in the grand finals of the 2v2 tournament. It came down to a game five with Drew Zelenak and Brendan Jones against EJ Service and Marcus Wiegel. Wiegel ended up losing all three of his lives, leaving Service in a 1v2 against a team that both had two lives while he had two. In an epic comeback, Service was able to come back and take out each of the opponents one at a time and allow his team to be crowned the champions.

The tournament was an overall huge success for Jones, and I hope there are more in the future whether it's Super Smash Bros Ultimate or a different game. Many basketball or football tournaments happen at Liggett, but never an esports tournament. Normally these tournaments are fundraisers for prom, however this esports tournament wasn't. It would be interesting to see how the turnout would be affected if there was an entry fee as a fundraiser for prom.