While the Emerson Lions continue trudging through conference competition, one campus organization is preparing for their own postseason—on the consoles instead of the courts.
Three Emerson Esports teams—“Hexcores” (“League of Legends”), “Vandals” (“Valorant”) and “Emerson College Smash” (“Super Smash Brothers”)—are set for playoff action after success in their respective regular seasons.
Vandals, however, lost 2-0 to VCU Valorant in their first-round matchup Tuesday night. They had finished the regular season with a 5-2 record, including a 2-1 win over Clemson Val Purple on Feb. 25. They are also nearly two years removed from a divisional Grand Champions title, a narrow 2-1 victory over CCNY JV.
“League of Legends” is a 5v5 game set in a “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena,” where players destroy enemy bases by taking down towers. “Valorant” is another 5v5 team game, where players are tasked with planting “spikes” at certain sites on maps or stopping opponents from doing so. And Super Smash Bros. is a classic platform fighter game featuring characters from the Super Mario franchise.
“Hexcores” and “Vandals” have been around long before Esports president, sophomore Aidan Scism, and competitive manager, sophomore Andrew Chen, joined the organization. The process begins by gauging interest for a team before groups are formed at the start of the semester.
“If we have enough people for literally any game—if we had enough people that wanted to play ‘Farming Simulator,’ we’d get a team going for that,” Scism said when discussing the formation of Vandals. He added that a volunteer coach helped establish the roster.
Hexcores “re-formed” last semester thanks to events manager and former co-president, junior Michael McMahon, who sent a message in the group’s Discord server.
“Seven people, including myself, were like, ‘Yeah, why not?’” Scism said. “I ran tryouts and then promptly benched myself last semester.”
Hexcores is coming off of a dominant 14-0 season, preparing for their semifinal matchup against Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) on April 8. Chen noted that Clemson University is one of their biggest competitors, citing a close match from earlier this year.
“Most likely, they will be the ones to join us in the championship game,” he added.
“Clemson is the only team to take a map off us so far, so we’ve got them checked off on the schedule, so to [speak], for championships,” Scism added.
Chen says Hexcores took several lessons from the regular season into the playoffs, the biggest being communication.
“Communicating, making sure we’re taking initiative, has been something we’ve been trying to prepare a lot more for, and learning any other essential skills to give us the advantage,” he added.
“We know we have the skill needed to beat [Clemson], it’s just ironing out our communication in the team and making sure we’re on the same page going into every map,” Scism said.
“It’s like any sport; the more you play the better you get,” junior team member Young Shu said.
Scism says Hexcore’s mentality going into playoffs is a reminder that, “We’ve beaten these teams before.”
“No need to overcomplicate anything. No need to get into our heads getting into [the] playoffs,” he added.
The Super Smash Bros. team, Emerson College Smash, won its first-round matchup against Panther Smash Team B, 2-1. They will face Malone University in the semifinals next week.
Smash team member, sophomore Samuel Ricot, credits extensive practice–specifically video-on-demand (VOD) reviews—for their victory.
“We have weekly practices that have gotten more intense in preparation for going into playoffs,” Ricot said. “We take our matches, we sit down with them, and we watch them together and we coach each other on mistakes that were made here or a play that would have been better there.”
The team also competes locally, outside of the collegiate sphere of esports, and takes what they learn from battling Boston-area players into the playoffs.
“While we’re aware that sometimes we’re not going to make it very far, because the best players in the world are here, it is really informative to watch [them] play and see what is popular and see how we can counter that when we get into our play,” Ricot said.
He added that almost everyone on the team is professionally ranked, due to their participation—and wins—in local tournaments.
Despite being the underdogs as the eighth-seed, Emerson College Smash is confident going into the next round and beyond.
“We had an almost unbroken record during the regular season, we’re hoping to keep it up,” Ricot said.
Two years ago, the team was forced to drop out of the A-level conference after struggling with recruiting members. The team has slowly been building back up each year with new Emersonians. If they win the Grand Finals this year, they have the ability to move back into the A conference and compete against the best of the best.
“We want to solidify a name for ourselves and graduate out of the B conference,” Ricot said. “That’s what our hope is for the Smash team.”
Scism and Chen hope to grow Emerson Esports’ recognition in the playoffs and beyond.
“These players are winning games, they’re dedicating hours and hours to getting better, they’re listening to their coaches,” Scism said. “They’re in such a professional environment—at least the best we can create of a professional environment—it’d just be nice to have a little more recognition from the school, from people outside of the org.”
“We’re winning more games than some of our sports teams,” Scism joked. “So, it’d be nice to just have a little bit of recognition from the school.”
“As the competitive manager, the reason why I joined was to create a space for people to really enjoy games and connect together and just have fun,” Chen said. “The more people we have, the more [opportunities] we have to create a better environment for our players and to increase the argument as a whole.”
Shu highlights the current leadership for the teams’ success.
“I think we’re improving a lot with Aidan being the president this term,” he said.
Shu recalls an internet cafe gaming party that Scism organized this semester as a team bonding event that Emerson Esports hadn’t seen much of before.
“He managed to have like [a] $500 budget for us to have fun there and get to know our teammates not only in games online, but actually in real life,” Shu said. “That’s big—when it comes to a team sport, you gotta have a personal connection/friendship with your teammates so you can play better.”
“I have faith in Aidan as the person to make more of that happen,” he added.
Scism said that Emerson Esports is looking for new board members, citing high turnover from previous semesters signaling a “new-ish era” for the group.
“Besides me, [vice president] Maggie [Nelson] and Mike, everyone else has been newer to the board,” he added. “So [we’re] just trying to get new blood in there, keep getting fresh, new ideas, and help push the org on.”
Scism added that increased word of mouth will hopefully erase a “misconception” that Emerson Esports is all about competitive teams.
“We have a lot of events—even just a social space that we provide in our Discord, anyone can just hop in and play whatever game they want,” he added. “[We are] doing a lot of stuff that appeals to both the competitive and non-competitive side of gaming as a whole.”
