Despite a number of technical difficulties and poor turnout rates, the two best StarCraft 2 players in KAIST were decided in this year’s “e-Sports Wars” competition, held in Taewulgwan’s Mirae Hall on April 21. The champion, after the seventh and final set, was NEXSeron, a Zerg player who managed to use superior macro to defeat KaiStarMvP, his Protoss opponent. KaiStarMvP relied heavily on seven-gate all-ins, which only worked when Seron failed to scout the map adequately, leaving the Protoss unable to play consistently enough to win.

▲ A Starcraft match is displayed on the projection screen | Igor Chertkov

While the StarCraft matches proceeded smoothly, the final for the League of Legends competition was forced to reschedule after a server error prevented the match from being broadcasted to the audience. Viewers were left to wait for over an hour as organizers attempted to find and fix the cause of the problem to no avail. Such events transpired in unfortunate circumstances, as the audience had been eager to watch the “Summer Triangle” team in action as they had chosen Hecarim, a champion that had only been released to the general public the day before. The organizers announced that details of a rematch will be posted on ARA as soon as possible.

The e-sports competition, which was held as a part of KAIST’s annual Spring Festival, had been ongoing since April 9 through closed online matches. This year’s tournament featured a new competition for League of Legends in addition to the main StarCraft event. All events were jointly organized by Imagination Effect and KAIST’s new e-sports club, OPTeamus.

OPTeamus is a new club that has only started activities this semester, but has already helped organize events such as last week’s e-Sports Wars and a friendly team game between KAIST and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. KAIST won the friendly exchange by taking four sets to three, and Dukjin “NEXSeron” Yoon, the club president, expects that there will be more events in the future. OPTeamus is aiming to participate in the Collegiate Starleague, a StarCraft league held between US universities.

Electronic sports, or “e-sports,” has always been popular in Korea, where crowds of people watch professional gamers compete for cash prizes. Popular leagues in Korea are watched by enthusiasts all over the globe, such as the Onegamenet Starleague. 

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