NEW YORK – The fall 2021 League of Legends™ BIG EAST Championship concluded on Sunday with DePaul capturing its second consecutive BIG EAST League of Legends^TM title.

 

Entering the event as the No. 2 seed, DePaul came from behind to top No. 1 seed and previously undefeated St. John’s, 2-1, to earn the victory.

 

Overall, DePaul capped the fall season with an 8-2 mark, while St. John’s fell to 9-1.

 

In the opening round of the BIG EAST Championship title match, St. John’s got off to a blazing start as teammates iHueco and FeelsBackPainMan both earned a round-high seven kills, with four different Johnnies posting at least nine assists.

 

DePaul quickly regrouped in game two, led by kingamazin dominating the stat sheet with nine kills and 15 assists to lead the Blue Demons’ attack. Kingamazin also inflicted 47 percent of the team’s damage, as the Blue Demons evened the tilt at 1-1.

 

In the deciding round, DePaul edged St. John’s to claim the 2021 BIG EAST Fall Championship. In the round, Ahjistair led the charge with an 11 KDA ratio, earning three kills and eight assists, without suffering a death. Meanwhile, kingmazin once again played a key role, landing 37 percent of the team’s damage in the deciding match.

 

Overall, kingmazin led the way with 20 kills for a combined 42 kills and assists, while Ahjistair posted an impressive 9.25 KDA ratio, only suffering four deaths in the competition compared to a combined 37 kills and assists.

 

In Saturday’s semifinal competitions, St. John’s and DePaul both earned sweeps. In the first semifinal game, the Red Storm moved past Marquette, 2-0, before the Blue Demons topped Butler, 2-0, in the later game.

 

The full 2021 fall slate consisted of a best-of-three round robin, with each team playing each other team once. After nine weeks and 36 completed regular-season matches, the top-four positions in the league standings were solidified on Dec. 4, with DePaul being crowned Champions on Dec. 12. This season, competitions were run by Battlefy and all results can be found HERE.

 

Last October, the BIG EAST and EGF announced a three-year agreement that enables all 11-member schools to compete in a year-long multigame season for the first time as official EGF Collegiate (EGFC) league members. EGFC is the national Division I Varsity Esports League with a growing number of schools bringing their own elite teams together to vie for National Championships across a number of game titles.

 

To follow updates on social media, follow #BIGEASTesports. For more on the BIG EAST Conference’s involvement in Esports visit www.BIGEAST.com/esports.

 

NEW YORK – Today, the BIG EAST and Metro Atlantic Athletic Conferences (MAAC) finalized broadcast and event plans for the 2021-22 EGFC MAAC-BIG EAST Challenge which will be held online on December 4th and January 28th. The Challenge will host 14 schools from the two athletic conferences competing head-to-head, one conference against the other. The matches for both events will be produced by the Electronic Gaming Federation, the governing body for Division I collegiate esports.

 

“Esports continue to grow nationally and certainly within the BIG EAST Conference”, said Chris Schneider, BIG EAST Executive Associate Commissioner for Sport Administration and Championships. “We are excited to continue our relationships with EGF and the MAAC in providing our esports programs with great competition.”

 

The first Challenge will begin with Rocket League on Saturday, December 4, with teams from each respective Conference competing against one another across 6 total matches with the Conference earning the most wins being crowned the Challenge Champion. The following month, the Conferences will meet once again in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on January 28.

 

Rocket League Challenge:

Saturday 12/4 on twitch.tv/officialEGF

6:30 PM ET – St. John’s University vs. Niagara University

7:15 PM ET – Butler University vs. Fairfield University

8:00 PM ET – Seton Hall University vs. Iona College

 

Saturday 12/4 on twitch.tv/BIGEASTesports

6:30 PM ET – DePaul University vs. Canisius College

7:15 PM ET – Xavier University vs. Siena College

8:00 PM ET – University of Connecticut vs. Marist College

 

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate:

               Saturday 1/29 @ 12 PM ET on twitch.tv/officialEGF

Saturday 1/29 @ 12 PM ET on twitch.tv/BIGEASTesports

Actual match schedule will be released at a later date.

 

“As the MAAC continues to work to provide more opportunities for our esports players, we are excited to see a second year of the BIG EAST-MAAC Challenge,” said Kiernan Ensor, MAAC Esports Consultant.

 

The MAAC-BIG EAST Challenge follows the Fall 2021 Split of EGFC Season 3, hosting 35+ Division I colleges over 6 game titles. The season resumes in February with the start of the EGFC Season 3 Spring Split with an expected 50+ Division I colleges and universities will continue on the path to the national championship in April.

 

About the BIG EAST

The BIG EAST Conference is an association of 11 nationally prominent colleges and universities that foster healthy athletic competition, community service and the pursuit of excellence in academic environments.  The athletic programs of BIG EAST institutions provide national-caliber participation opportunities for more than 4,100 student-athletes on over 200 men’s and women’s teams in 22 sports.  Established in 1979 and headquartered in New York City, the BIG EAST’s members are located in eight of the country’s top 36 largest media markets and include Butler University, University of Connecticut, Creighton University, DePaul University, Georgetown University, Marquette University, Providence College, St. John’s University, Seton Hall University, Villanova University and Xavier University.  For more information, visit www.bigeast.com.

 

About the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference:

With 11 institutions strongly bound by the sound principles of quality and integrity in academics and excellence in athletics, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) is in its 41st year of competition during the 2021-22 academic year. Current conference members include: Canisius College, Fairfield University, Iona College, Manhattan College, Marist College, Monmouth University, Niagara University, Quinnipiac University, Rider University, Saint Peter’s University, and Siena College.

 

ABOUT EGF

Founded in 2015, EGF is the national governing body for formalized collegiate D-I esports and high school level leagues. EGF’s youth, high school and D-I collegiate leagues are inspired by the best aspects of traditional sports to create opportunities for students and schools to engage and advance. For more information or to inquire about collegiate participation, please visit EGF.gg, follow @officialEGF on Twitter, Instagram and Twitch and Facebook or contact info@EGFederation.gg.

By: Jeremy Blye

Last week, I was given the opportunity to work with Lurie’s Children’s Hospital for their Game On event, and I was joined by some of the community as well. John Ucha and Joshua Zullo made the time to help support the another community that is near and dear to us. While at Lurie’s Children’s Hospital, we had a lot of fun interacting with the patients and crew on the set, and we were able to volunteer for a great cause. Let’s take a look into what we were doing and what we were supporting.

 

 

If you do not know, Lurie’s Children’s Hospital hosts monthly events through their Extra Life Program that allows the patients within the building to interact with one another and any staff/volunteers that may be on site. In this Extra Life Game On event, Lurie’s set up a whole production set with gaming consoles. It was an internal “Twitch Stream” where patients could dial in and speak with all of the people on set. I say it is an internal stream since it was only streamed to people within Lurie’s due to HIPA restrictions. They also had a whole OBS production team behind the camera and games while we played. During this stream, patients had the ability to call in to win free gear, and on top of that they were able to talk to us.

 

 

 

Now that you have an idea of what went on during this event, I thought I would go over how the event went. First of all, this was one of the best volunteer events I have ever been to. It was a lot of fun getting to interact with people within the community, an awesome production cast, and patients around Lurie’s. Considering that we are basically at finals for this quarter, this event was a great way to get some time to just relax, have fun, and entertain those around me. On top of trying to entertain those watching the show, we had our fun messing around with the cast members.

 

I think the best part of this event was when the host got involved with our conversations. John, Josh, and I were joking around that the host opened up a bunch more when he realized we weren’t just annoying kids. When we started discussing older video games on set, the host realized we were not only annoying kids, we were knowledgeable gamers. Although we were poking fun at one another, I had a great time getting to be a part of this event. I am so glad to see people like this put on such amazing events. I am super excited to be able to get back into Lurie’s to help out with future events, and I hope they do the same for us!

 

By: Jeremy Blye

 

Welcome back to this glorious blog as we wind down for this quarter. So much has gone on within the past 2 months, it is awesome to see. Our community has been revived for in-person events, and our online presence is still continuing to boom! I just thought I would give a little bit of insight into what we have planned and what I think of it. Since we have been able to get back in person, I have been trying to help create events that are catered towards our community. We want to be able to see everyone who is a part of our community find a place within what has been created here at DePaul. So what exactly does this mean?

 

EVENTS! As many of you may know, we are hosting our Fall Finals Bash next Thursday (November 11th) from 1-4PM. Come swing by the gaming center to check out some games, some cool people (like ME!), and even some free food! How can you say no to gaming and free food? On top of this, we are hosting another series like the Summer Showdown. Instead of the previous summer name, we have the Snowy Showdown. At the moment, we have two events planned for this. There is the Rainbow Six Siege vs. VALORANT Showdown and a huge Rocket League tourney. The R6 vs. VAL Showdown will feature our competitive teams playing each other in the respective teams. The RL tourney will feature many different schools and even possibly a special guest team! The R6 vs. VAL is happening on 12/4 time TBD and the RL tourney is happening on 12/18 at 12PM. We will hopefully plan more Snowy Showdown series, but only time will be able to tell as far as that goes. On top of this, we do have C2E2 coming right around the corner. It is from December 10th-12th and we have a timeslot from 645PM-745PM on December 11th.

 

Even though it seems we are focusing a whole bunch into what we are offering over winter break, we will be starting a bunch of new events and activities for the community to do going into winter quarter. Now that we all have a grip into what this community looks like while we are in person, we figured we should really interact with all of the awesome people that are here! Be on the lookout into what we will be announcing and what we will try to do for the community as time passes.

 

You know this wouldn’t be a blog without me giving some form of insight from my end. I honestly have been loving what this community has been able to do and the people that I have been able to meet. By far the Esports community is the most unique community I have ever been a part of. It is so cool to see how there are very few biases around this community. People are here because they want to game or socialize. This is something I want to help boost, and I hope with some of the things we are planning, we can accomplish this. As I have said before, this is something that only time will be able to tell!

 

 

By: Jeremy Blye

Throughout my time editing pictures, I have found that many people have been interested in the photo editing process. I thought within this blog I would give some room to explain how exactly I have edited the headshots for the program and why it was done in this fashion.

 

 

In this unedited picture, you can see that there is a stunning young lad. I wonder who he may be. With this picture, it may look good right off the bat. There are some key elements of the picture that I see that could be improved on. When it comes to my “philosophy” of editing, I tend to like to keep things as natural as possible. This is photography and not art. Before I get too off track, I’ll get into the editing process.

 

The first step is usually changing the levels of the picture. With this tool, you can manipulate the brightness of the pixels in the shadows, midtones, and highlights. The extremes of each end are the complete black pixels and the complete white pixels. Luckily in the histogram (graph of the pixels), you can see that the brightness of the picture is well balanced. I usually find that I just need to increase the brightness of the highlights and the white pixels. That is what I’m doing here.

 

 

The next step is to add a little bit of saturation to the photo. It already looks decent, but adding in +3 to +6 in saturation helps the photo look just a little bit more alive once it is done editing.

 

 

After this, I like to change the vibrance a little bit. Adding in these little details that changes to photo very insignificantly help make the photo look that much better. Now that I have added in a small change to the vibrance, there are just a few more things that must be done.

 

Because this photo will be used for different media platforms, it is important to clean up any knicks on the face. I know, I know I said I like to keep the photo looking natural, but no one likes looking at any of the oil or acne on my face. It is a super quick edit that can be done with the spot-healing brush. Take a look:

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

In order to get rid of some of the natural oils on my face, you can take the dodge and burn tool to darken the highlights on my face. Doing so helps the lighting look softer from the studio and the photo more crisp. In the end, the before and after photos have a decent difference and make it look that much better and more professional.

 

 

I bet you all thought it would be over from here. Funny thing, there is another step for the photos over here at DePaul. We need to cut out the bodies of each person and give them a transparent background. This allows us to use just the body of said person in any type of graphic with ease. It is also submitted into the league websites like EGF for their own use. 

 

In order to cut people out, you can use 2 different tools. Today, I’ll be using the color range tool. This allows us to select a specific color. In this case, we are selecting the green in the background. From here, we can cut out the green in the background and have a transparent background. Finally, I will save the image as a .png and go from there.

 

 

Overall, I hope you were able to enjoy this little walkthrough into the madness that helped get the picture days done here at DePaul Esports. I figured I may as well walk some people through it since many have asked me exactly what I do when I have been editing. Hopefully you got to learn something from this, and I hope to see you all in the center!

By: Jeremy Blye

 

As many of you know, we had our Welcome Back Bash last Tuesday. It was a way to help welcome back our community with a neat little kickback event. We had a bunch of Nintendo Switch setups, Sega Genesis setups, a Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl setup, pizza, free merch, and an amazing community to come support what we put on! Let’s take a look at what happened last Tuesday.

 

Throughout the 4 hour event, we had a pretty big audience show up that were both a part and not a part of the community. It was neat to see how we were able to attract people that were and were not a part of our community. Many people decided to stop on by because they heard all of the sick gaming music and sounds coming from the basement. We even had some Super Smash Bros. battles go on between our Varsity team and some fellow gamers that showed up to the event. There was some friendly banter between the competing parties, but it was fun to see both a competitive and casual scene come together and just have fun in the middle of the school year. On top of the banter in game, the concourse became flooded with everyone who was at the center once the pizza came in. How can you say no to free food?

 

That’s what I thought. It’s pretty hard to say no to free food, yet alone famous Chicago pizza.

 

As the event started to wrap up, we definitely had a lot of people help close out a wonderful day at the Esports Center. It was a day full of gaming, socializing, and fun times. We can’t wait to see you at more of our awesome DePaul Esports events. Be sure to stay caught up in our Discord servers and social media!

By: Jeremy Blye

 

Throughout the past couple of weeks, we have been able to knock out photo days, DeSmash Tournaments, Jerm on the Street filming, and just interacting with the community. It has been quite fun having everything back in person and putting names to people’s faces. One thing I want to mention is an interesting experience I have had in recent days. I fully understand the pain of trying to learn everyone’s name in an organization/team/classroom setting.

 

When I was younger, I never put too much thought into the amount of work leaders/teachers have to put in to be able to know everyone who they deal with. As I have gotten more and more involved with the Esports program, I am slowly starting to see just how difficult it can be to learn everyone who is in this community. I mean there are just about 1300 students and alumni that exist with us, so you can imagine how many people I can see on a daily basis.

 

During the first photo day, I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of new faces I was seeing. I got to a point where I was sometimes unable to realize someone that came in was someone I already knew. For example, Joey from the Rocket League team came in to get his pictures taken, and I had no clue that it was him who was in front of me. It was extremely weird to not even be able to recognize some of my friends due to the sheer number people I was meeting.

 

After the first couple of photo days and many days working as an employee, I think the coolest revelation I have had is my knowledge of names and faces. It is so cool to be able to know and recognize the many different faces that make up DePaul Esports. I know at this point you are all probably wondering why I am even talking about this subject. I just want you to think about this next point.

 

I may think it is fantastic that I am able to recognize the many faces of DePaul Esports. You may think that as well. In the grand scheme of things, I’m starting to realize how many people DePaul Esports affects. DePaul is a big school to begin with. We have over 23,000 students. The fact that our organization is over 1300 people is stunning. Within just a few weeks, I have been able to become introduced to virtually our whole competitive group(s) of gamers. I’m at a point where I can truly recognize and establish relationships with most of them. Considering we keep having a big influx of gamers every week, I am even more excited to see the amount of people that join our program. It is awesome to be able to see these types of things happening in my time here at DePaul. It only helps further my passion to be a part of this program and help it succeed each and every day. Each day, I hope I can continue to help out with this program, but until then, I’m here for the ride!

(Chicago, IL and Hamburg, Germany) I Play Games! (IPG) is hosting an international Esports Event at the Reeperbahn Festival of Hamburg Germany and DePaul University at both locations on September 24th and 25th! This is an international Esports Tournament hosted in collaboration with I Play Games! and Sister Cities of Chicago International. Both events will host simultaneous FIFA21 tournaments that will be broadcasted live in Chicago and Hamburg, Germany.

Chicago Location: 11:00 a.m. CST, DePaul University, 1 E Jackson St. ,Chicago, IL
How to watch: Twitch.tv/ipg_Esports. Europe Location: 6:00:p.m. GMT, Neuer Pferdemarkt 1,, 20359 Hamburg Festival Tel.: +49-40-431 79 59-17.

 

Approached by the Sister Cities of Chicago International on how to bring more Esports opportunities to Germany, Kevin Fair CEO of I Play Games! set forth a plan that will meet the needs of players in both countries for them to have a great time. Not letting the metric system or difference in appliances and voltage stop him from creating an international Esports tournament, Fair designed both events. IPG is proud to be the backbone of the first Esports tournament to ever be hosted at the Reeperbahn Festival.

Founded in 2009 by Kevin Fair, at the age of 23, I Play Games is a nationwide leader in event planning, providing gaming rooms, and gaming-related entertainment. This company offers a wide range of products and services designed to enhance guests’ gaming experience .. Fair is a native Chicagoan and entrepreneur who believes in helping his community. Pre-covid, Fair hosted a multitude of in-person Esports tournaments like Rocket League.Street Fighter, Super Smash Brothers, Overwatch, and much more. Currently, he hosts these tournaments virtually. Recently, he has also hosted a variety of Esports and Gaming Events with the Chicago Urban League. He’s been featured in major media including the Chicago Tribune and Chicago SunTimes.

 

The Reeperbahn Festival is based in Hamburg, Germany and filled with a wide range of music, visual art, and virtual reality, films, and literature. Reeperbahn Festival has become one of the most important meeting places for the world of music and demonstrates how an exuberant music program can be combined with music industry interests and social initiatives since its debut in 2006. DePaul University: In accordance with current regulations in Illinois, all attendees need to wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.

 

Reeperbahn Festival: In accordance with the current regulations in Hamburg, this means that access to the festival can only be granted to those people who are either fully vaccinated, tested, or recovered.

By: Jeremy Blye

 

After a little bit of a hiatus from the blogs, I am glad to be able to talk about what has happened in the past two weeks. Honestly, it has been a packed couple of weeks. This has allowed me to share a decent amount of information with updates to the organization. Let’s get started.

 

DeSmash Tourneys: Almost every week, the Super Smash Bros. Club has been holding Smash tournaments that bring around a huge crowd. So far they have been on Saturdays and they start at around 1PM usually. I have to say it has been quite amazing seeing the types of turnouts we have for these types of events. Before the tournament today, there was about 38 people signed up. That number could very much vary and be bigger now that it is the day of the tournament.

 

Tryouts: Like I said in the previous post, we had virtually all of our tryouts over the majority of the gaming titles we offer. Most of the teams have finally solidified their rosters and many of them will be competing within many different leagues. The most important of those leagues comes down to EGF and the Big East section. Hopefully our teams will have solid seasons this fall and will bring home some dubs for DePaul. After seeing the amount of interest in Esports this year, I am interested to see how many people we actually have on our rosters. I know this organization is growing rapidly, and it will be amazing to see the sheer number of competitive players going into this school year. Not only that, the graphics that are being put together for some of our announcements are awesome! Check out this roster announcement from Matt Beach:

 

 

This Week in DePaul: I am glad to announce that Kevin and I will be starting this show up again. We have a few things we need to iron out as far as production goes, but we will be starting all of that up again. That also means there is possibly some Jerm on the Streets in the works for these episodes. You will just have to stay tuned in the future to see what we have to offer for you all.

 

In Person Events: If you did not know, we had a gaming night with the Student Center. It had an amazing turnout. I believe we had over 200 people show up for it. Unfortunately, I was on duty as an RA so I could not attend, but I heard amazing things about the event. Our friends Matt and Kevin were taking the lead on this event and it worked extremely well.

 

Every little event we are holding this year only shows to me the possibilities that this year holds. Like I have said before, Esports has so much potential to become something greater, and I am able to see that even though the school year has just started. I am excited to see what else we are able to accomplish and what communities we are able to facilitate. Only time will be able to tell what can happen, and I am ready for the ride!

By Jeremy Blye:

 

I just wanted to wish everyone the best of luck if they are trying out for any of our teams this week. I understand that for many the start of the school year is an extremely chaotic point in the year, and I hope a community such as Esports can help facilitate a calm environment for those to feel just at home. I am so grateful that DePaul has such resources to allow such a community to exist especially in a day and age where Esports is still becoming popularized and accepted nationally and globally. So let’s take a look at the titles we will be providing opportunities for all students:

 

Rainbow Six Siege – in R6, players will compete in 5v5 situations which involve intense teamwork and strategical routes. Personally, I do not enjoy this game that much, but I understand the appeal for those who are active within the community.

 

Counter Strike: Global Offensive – in CSGO, players will compete over a variety of maps in a 5v5 manner in which teams must compete to either plant or defuse an explosive. One of my personal favorites from throughout the years, yet I am not too good at it.

 

Rocket League – car soccer. Nothing more, nothing less. Just kidding, it’s a game that takes teams of 3 against each other to see who has the superior mechanical and mental skill.

 

Super Smash Bros. – these are 1v1 situations in which the characters fight one another to try and take the crown for the game. I’m awful at this game, but one of our players Matt Beach is pretty good with both MegaMan and Kazuya.

 

VALORANT – As a newer shooter, VALORANT has been taking the public over with its new twist on the formula CSGO established throughout the years. Basically a 5v5 game where the characters have special abilities.

 

League of Legends – I have never understood this game. There is way too much going on in MOBA’s for me to figure out what to do. Our League players are quite phenomenal with the game and it is mind boggling watching them do their thing.

 

COD – one of the most classic shooters that has ever existed. It has been around for close to 20 years now. It is amazing to see that a formula so simple in gaming is still so prevalent within Esports.

 

Overwatch – one of the most unique shooters that takes a 6v6 approach and tries to twist it by allowing characters to have never before seen abilities.

 

Over this weekend (today and tomorrow), I hope every single person gets the chance to find their place within our community. Whether it is through a competitive form or a casual one, I hope those who are interested in being a part can have a piece. So I do not hold you all too much longer, I wish everyone the best of luck. Unfortunately I am unable to show up for any of the tryouts due to other commitments, but I am excited to see everyone throughout the year!