UPIKE Esports begins year, adds new game
0Written by David Chapman
As the new school year begins, teams are starting to compete. One that continues to catch everyone’s eye is the ever growing Esports program. Still in its infancy, the Esports program is still changing with adding a new team this year, the Hearthstone team. Hearthstone, a free-to-play online game in which players choose one of nine heroes to play, and then use custom decks to try and defeat their opponents, will be contested along with League of Legends in the Collegiate Star League and the National Association of Collegiate Esports leagues. “We created the Hearthstone team after quite a few students let us know they would be interested in trying out for the team. After we announced the team, we also had a lot of interest from students from local high schools. The Hearthstone team will also be another way for us to offer opportunities to new students as well as current students on campus,” said Coach Eric Vanhoose. With nearly all of the new recruits to both teams this year being from local high schools, the team is in the middle of tryouts, and Vanhoose has very high hopes for this year. “We have a lot of very good players, and nearly all of them are from the local area. We have also been working with a lot of other schools as well as the NAIA over this summer. They will be starting a new league that we will be competing in this year in addition to the Collegiate Star League,” Vanhoose said. Clearly, the Esports team, under the helm of Vanhoose, is one of the many teams that everyone should be watching out for this year, both at UPIKE and around the CSL and NAC leagues.