By: Jeremy Blye
As you all know, we had our second DePaul Summer Showdown last night from 7:30PM all the way to 1:30AM. What a night is one way to describe this event. Even though it was much longer than anticipated, I was extremely happy with how this event went. We were able to include a variety of teams, include a decent amount of casters, and work through any technological bugs that decided to pop up out of nowhere. Let’s take a deeper dive into each of the series I watched and my perspective as running the production and some of the casting throughout last nig
Round 1: Butler vs. Oklahoma State (0-3)
Within this series, you could tell who was hungry to compete. This team was Oklahoma State. They played so aggressively it posed some difficulty for Butler to keep up with them. Going into this game, I heard about how strong Butler was and how they outplay their opponents with ease. It seemed the Oklahoma State was the one who came out with the victory no problem. They took out Butler within the first 3 games and they did not let them win a single one. Two players that really stuck out to me within this series was Royal on OKST and Plasma on Butler. They definitely led their teams on each game with kills and set the pace. Even though Butler was unable to come out victorious in this series, they were able to prove how strong they were by their attitude within the game.
Semifinals: DePaul vs. Oklahoma State (3-0)
After watching Oklahoma State play spectacularly, I was a little nervous to see how our DePaul squad would play against them. This should not have been a worry for myself since DePaul came out hot and absolutely showed Oklahoma what it means to be a part of our program. The synergy between players such as Krizzy and Vennitt helped prove why this squad works together so well. I do have to say that Oklahoma State ran DePaul for their money. Just within the first game of Hardpoint, the end score was 250-228. Each game put me on the edge of my seat, but I was glad to see my squad continue on to the finals.
Losers Finals: Oklahoma State vs. Kennesaw State University (3-2)
Throughout the whole night, this series was my favorite to watch. If the last series had me on my toes, I have no clue what to even consider this one. It was like a game of cat and mouse between these two teams. It was amazing to watch the events of this series happen. Oklahoma and Kennesaw were the perfect match for one another. Each had their own strengths and weaknesses, and I think Oklahoma’s aggression is what helped them take the win over Kennesaw.
Grand Finals: DePaul vs. Oklahoma State (3-0)
NO WAY THERE WAS A REMATCH!!!!?!?!??!?!? So it looked like there was going to be a rematch from the semifinals between these two teams. It was very similar to the previous series except you could tell that fatigue was settling into all of the players. At this point, the event was going on for about 5 hours, and I knew that these players were just ready to end it all. Obviously, DePaul wanted to win and end it so we were able to see some spectacular performances from the whole squad. Even though there was a little bit of some back and forth between round wins, DePaul was able to figure out how to get around Oklahoma State to take home the victory.
My Perspective:
As the main producer for this event, I was quite nervous. I was nervous since I had never done this before. There is a lot that goes into making sure the event and the transitions go and look smoothly. Luckily, I got it all figured out relatively quickly, and I was happy with the result. Even though things did go smoothly (for the most part), I was surprised how well I handled the mishaps. Of course there were issues with lag and connection so there had to be different hosts of the game internally. I kept having issues where my mic would be muted and the casters did not hear when I was going to transition. That was a lot of fun to deal with. There was even a point when Kevin’s PC stopped functioning, and I had to step in as a caster. I have no clue how to play COD. I have no clue how I was able to cast a whole game. Did I do a good job with it? I have no clue. Yet, I was able to get the production complete on top of casting for about 20 minutes. Overall, I felt this event went extremely well even though it went on much longer than I intended. I for sure am looking forward to what we have in store next for DePaul Esports.
I hope you all enjoyed this read and have a great weekend!