UCC’s Rebels: An Overview of Esports in UCC

By Jack ColemanUniversity College Cork is a place of many hobbies, there are societies and clubs that cater to the majority of interests. One that is near and dear to my heart is the esports scene in UCC, which currently operates under the banner of the Networking and Gaming society (Netsoc). I’m using my Byline piece this week to chronicle the history of esports in UCC as well as speak about the present and future of the scene. The esports scene in UCC came to life in 2017 with the founding of Irish Collegiate Esports (ICE), formerly the national body of collegiate esports in Ireland. One of our current players on the League of Legends team Aaron “Manixous” Manning participated on the first-ever UCC League of Legends team back in 2017. 1,500+ days later, he would play again for UCC as they won their first-ever collegiate League tournament, but we’ll get to that. The collegiate esports scene in Ireland has certainly grown since those first few tournaments in late 2017. Though, participation does not always increase from split to split as people tend to be more enthusiastic about playing in September versus in February. Since ICE became defunct in 2021, the online marketplace GamerStore has sponsored collegiate esports and are financially backing Legion Collegiate, the governing body of Irish collegiate esports.UCC teams generally compete under the banner of the UCC Netsoc Rebels since esports became an official part of Netsoc in 2019. However, there have also been UCC teams that operate independently of Netsoc such as the successful UCC ZEN Valorant team. Though UCC has had a lot of very successful teams, the college’s trophy case is quite sparse. UCC recorded their first collegiate victory during the 2019 ICE Winter Siege where the Rebels saw off local rivals CIT in a hard-fought final. They wouldn’t be able to replicate this success going into 2020, where they finished runners-up in both Siege tournaments that year. Siege was retired after the final tournament in 2020 but will be returning this split. Perhaps UCC will make a comeback?UCC has been less successful in Counter-Strike, with the team’s career-best being the quarter-finals on three separate occasions. The first instance came in 2019 when the Rebels’ first and second teams, captained by A1DO and Otter respectively, both escaped group stages in second place only to fall to UCD and TUD in the quarter-finals. Otter’s Rebels lineup once again made it through groups in Spring 2021, defeating UCD in the Ro16 before falling to the DCU Titans in the quarters. In the most recent collegiate split, Legion Collegiate Winter, the UCC Netsoc Rebels (under the new leadership of AnkleJoints) fell to Maynooth in the quarters. Hopefully, UCC CS:GO can kick on and break the quarter-final curse this Spring. Rocket League in UCC has always been very active (hell, even I played a split on the third team last year). The team had a rocky start, failing to make it out of groups in their first two splits. However, with the addition of players like DLynch and Finbarr the team has improved greatly. In Rocket League Winter in 2020, UCC Netsoc Rebels Epsilon narrowly lost out to WIT in the quarter-finals. In Spring 2021, Epsilon would once again be eliminated in the quarters, this time by eventual champions NUIG. In the most recent split, Winter 2021, Epsilon would defeat QUB and NUIG in the playoffs before a heartbreaking 4-3 loss to old rivals WIT in the semi-finals. They would go on to handily defeat DCU in the third-place playoff to confirm their status as the third-best team collegiate Rocket League team. Hopefully DLynch, Finbarr and Anthony can kick on this split and bring home a trophy for UCC. Valorant is the youngest game in the Irish collegiate lineup, having only had two splits so far. The big rivalry in Irish collegiate Valorant is between our own UCC ZEN and the NUIG Griffins. NUIG got the best of UCC most recently in Legion Collegiate Winter, winning the finals 2-1 in a very hard-fought game. Unfortunately, UCC ZEN will not be competing in Legion Collegiate Spring so we may never see the rematch. However, UCC will continue to be represented by Ethi’s UCC Netsoc Rebels who were knocked out in the Ro16 in Winter but are looking to improve upon that performance this Spring. Finally, we come to my beloved League of Legends. League of Legends has long been the most popular Irish collegiate game. With tournaments going all the way back to 2017, Irish collegiate League has a rich history. It took two years for a UCC lineup to make it out of the group stage amidst the Dublin dominance led by Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and Technological University Dublin. Coincidentally, this was also my first split on the roster. The team fell to eventual runners-up TUD Apes T1 in the semi-finals. The team would not be able to replicate this success for the next two splits. However, with the addition of Erasmus student Rok “Gtrik” Fiser in Winter 2021, UCC were able to win League of Legends collegiate for the first time in the team’s history. The finals versus the dominant Technological University Dublin went all the way to five games and ended in a dramatic fashion with UCC coming out on top. As an added bonus, we will now be able to compete in the Amazon University Esports Masters next month against the best collegiate teams Europe has to offer. Exciting times. The future of esports in UCC looks bright with all of our teams becoming more dedicated and competitive. With wins in Siege and now League, it’s proof that Cork can compete with dominant mega-colleges like TUD. Often, as is the case in Rocket League, it’s a matter of a few games that separate UCC from another trophy. As it is my final year in UCC, I hope to leave League of Legends in UCC in a good spot with an active community. This split, we have our first League of Legends B team in over two years. We have teams competing in every main game and each of them is competitive. The only thing that’s really lacking within UCC esports is a cohesive community, communities tend to exist within their own game but they don’t tend to spread across games. I believe some kind of restructuring of our community is necessary but the specifics are complicated. Should the UCC esports community be pursuing their own separate society or club for awareness purposes? This is a complicated question as the community has been relatively successful under Netsoc, albeit with a lack of actual communal spirit as I mentioned earlier. I firmly believe there are more players interested in esports in UCC than there are current players, but it can be difficult to find where the esports community is housed in UCC. It’s an interesting debate to have and people have different valid opinions on it. I personally am just happy to have won a collegiate tournament before I finish my undergraduate, here’s hoping we can win another split before I leave and make Ireland proud in Europe.