In the world of ASU esports, one game reigns supreme above all others — League of Legends.
To say League of Legends is one of the most popular video games in the world would be an understatement. With 115 million monthly players and a 2020 world championship that drew in 3.8 million viewers at its peak, Riot Games' flagship title is a staple of the larger gaming community and the esports landscape.
ASU fields its own League of Legends team that competes in various collegiate esports events around the country. The Sun Devils were ranked seventh nationally in the recent eFuse Collegiate Esports coaches' poll.
League of Legends is a free multiplayer online battle arena game where two teams of five players attempt to destroy each other's base to win. The game has more than 150 playable characters, numerous team compositions, strategies and a very steep difficulty curve.
One of the team members, Nathan "Firetheft" Harris, a freshman psychology major, said that the complexity is what makes League of Legends such a compelling game.
"The complexity plays into the appeal because it's kind of boring to have a game all figured out," Harris said. "Even though it can be overwhelming for new players, I feel like there's always some excitement in learning new things. When you're playing, there's just so much to pick up and figure out that there's always something new and interesting. People get really hooked because of that."
While they don't receive school funding, the League of Legends group at ASU is well-organized and are always busy.
"We actually have three different teams who all have their own separate coaches," ASU chemistry graduate and team manager Ben "Baepsae" Duan said. "We have a set schedule where we play in multiple tournaments a week; we also have scrimmages where we play against other teams for practice, and we'll also have the occasional team meeting where we come together to talk about the games and our communication."
Duan has seen a lot of growth in the collegiate League of Legends community over the last four years, with schools pouring money into collegiate esports programs. Although that support hasn't materialized at ASU, Duan believes his team can keep up.
"Four years ago, we wouldn't have had any structure or any real tournaments going on," Duan said. "But I think now that there's all these programs, there's all these universities that are funding their players and giving them a lot of structure in their lives, that bleeds over to us where we have to create a lot of structure for our own team and our own players."
Alejandro "Snoopsss" Espinosa, a senior computer science major, believes the growth of college esports has raised the level of play in collegiate competition.
"Collegiate is definitely growing in terms of the player base and skill, especially with coaches and money coming in," Espinosa said.
Either way, the team has high hopes for how they'll do in upcoming tournaments as the year continues. They aren't feeling the pressure of their ranking.
"I'm really confident in our team. And all those teams we get ranked above, we're there for a reason," Harris said. "I'm more focused about wanting to be better than those other teams so that when we face them in a big tournament that matters, we'll have the ability to beat them."
Reach the reporter at cvanligt@asu.edu and follow @Connor_VL on Twitter.
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