Esports | Photo by Wright State ESports Club | The Wright State Guardian
The Wright State University (WSU) eSports Club has continued to expand into new games this semester, announcing their varsity Call of Duty roster on Jan. 10.
The team competes in the Collegiate Call of Duty League (CCL) in its Midwest Division and currently sits at a 3-3 record, despite the team forming a short time ago and having almost no time to practice.
The team was picked to be at the bottom of their group before the season even started, but they have defied those expectations. Taking maps off of top teams like the University of Akron and almost taking an incredibly close match off of Bowling Green State University, they came down to the final round of the final map.
“I know we’re three and three right now. It’s not where we want to be, but with how well we played against [BGSU], we know what we have to work with,” Torey “Neptune” Carroll, the captain for WSU, said.
The Format
In the CCL, a match consists of a best-of-five format, with the first team to win three maps taking the match. The maps alternate between three modes, the first being Hardpoint, where teams fight over control of a point that constantly moves.
The second is Search and Destroy (S+D), where the attackers try to plant and detonate a bomb with the defenders trying to stop them. The third is control, where attackers try to take control of defense-controlled sites.
The Raiders have found the most success in S+D, with WSU undefeated in the game mode heading into their Week 3 matches against BGSU and The Ohio State University (OSU).
Cross “Youtzy” Youtsler is the master of S+D for WSU and has won multiple rounds while alone against multiple players to save his team.
“I do that all the time,” Youtzy said. “That’s what people know me for. I got all this knowledge from practicing with friends where we would play just competitive search and destroy over and over.”
WSU has also shown good results on Control, especially against BGSU, where Neptune had an incredible performance, ending that map with a 37-18 kill-death ratio (KD).
Off the Cuff
Because WSU hasn’t had much time to properly practice, their strategies haven’t been fully developed yet for competitive play. Still, the Raiders have been able to pull some incredible plays completely on the fly, allowing them to win maps in very stressful spots like their S+D win over BGSU, where they were able to pull a win on the final round 6-5.
“I was a little stressed, I’m not gonna lie,” Jeremy “Jerm” Delaberta, a player for WSU, said. “You can’t make any more mistakes … but we ended up winning three straight and taking them out.”
With more time to practice, WSU will look to make it to an in-person CCL tournament at the end of the year in Houston, Texas.
“I feel like once we’ve decided how we’re going to compete, we’ll play better,” Neptune said. “At the end of the year, 16 teams go to an in-person tournament, and we 100 percent want to be one of those teams.”
