Match Found : CS Week Valorant Tournament
Here comes the party! With the comeback of Computer Science Week, this year’s titled “Fantasia,” each CS organization hosted a series of events for the enjoyment of the students. For our organization, we came up with a CURSOR staple, a VALORANT tournament!
VALORANT is a 5v5 first-person tactical shooter that is taking the esports scene worldwide by storm. A popular game among the students, UP CURSOR adopted the tournament from our very own CWeek 2023 activities. The games were also streamed live on Twitch, so friends of the competitors, and even casual gamers, could enjoy watching. Best of all, the organization also hosted a face-to-face watch party of the finals match between Team FORDACSWeak, composed of different CS students, and Team Apakagaling kaya Nanerf, composed entirely of UP CURSOR members. Led by our Activities Committee Co-Head, Kier Patawaran, the team consisted of some of the highest ranked CURSOR members: Ray Nuñez, Jian Luteria, Chiron Cortez, Jeff Pecson, and Medwin Devilleres. They are also known to play together often in the competitive game mode of VALORANT itself, clearly displaying high levels of teamwork and cooperation in their games, which allowed them to clinch the championship.
Patawaran, who was also part of the team that won the CWeek 2023 Tournament, greatly expressed his appreciation for his team. “Having played the majority of my Valorant games this year with my team, the overall vibe was fun and comfortable. We are already aware of each others’ tendencies and could easily adjust our play accordingly, despite our infamous nerfs. I definitely think that, aside from our edge in game mechanics, having this degree of teamwork and trust was also a big part of our victory especially compared to teams composed of individual sign ups. Medwin, our latest addition, was definitely an unexpected surprise. He is proactive when it comes to his utilities and the game becomes easier with him around especially since he communicates consistently.”
With their high level of play and big-brained moves, everyone was already convinced from the onset that Patawaran’s team would sweep the tournament. And sweep, they did. However, to compensate for the skill gap between the teams, Patawaran’s team was barred from playing agents they were comfortable with and already used to playing, so they would be forced to play a different agent who may be out of their field of expertise. “The tournament was fun since there was no challenge at all. Imagine if we played our original roles, it would have been 10 times easier. Kidding aside, it was a fun learning experience. It was not that difficult since my team had experience in playing premier so it was not that difficult to lock in and actually use our brains in-game. The lag, however, was definitely a challenge. My packet loss reached as high as 50 in between gun fights. My goal going into the tournament, aside from winning, was to entertain and I think I achieved my goal especially with the two showmatches.” Patawaran says.
Speaking of Show Matches, we had two exciting show matches that were separate from the tournament format. The first, between members of the UP CURSOR Executive Committee and one of the competing teams, Team DILOY EZEKIEL JAMES, was full of high spirits and energy despite the UP CURSOR Exec team losing by a great margin. The Executive Committee team was composed of Jophiel Lucero, the tournament lead and our Finance Committee Head; France Calma, our Executive President; Chase Gonzaga, our Membership Committee Head; and Ishben Santos, one of our Activities Committee Co-Heads. Of course, Patawaran was also part of the team. On Team DILOY EZEKIEL JAMES, we even had a CURSOR member part of their line-up, Niko Reyes. For the second show match, we had UP CURSOR representatives against UP CSI and UP ACM representatives, other CS-based orgs.
Patawaran adds that the great production of the event also contributed greatly to the enjoyment of the players: “As someone who was present during the early pandemic Valorant tournaments(I won twice), the recently concluded tournament was leaps beyond what I experienced before and it is something I will continue to look forward to in the future. The production quality is at a really high level, perfect to match my high level play. On a more serious note, congratulations to the team especially to Joph for the successful tournament. I hope the organization could continue on hosting events like this in general since it’s also an avenue for our members to bond and interact.”
Of course, the live stream of the games would not be possible without the commentators who livened up the games for the audience. We even had some players, Lucero, Patawaran, and Nuñez, who offered their time to shoutcast some games. Additionally, our consistently present shoutcaster Brent Morales offered the perfect mix of exciting commentary on the games and his own play by play analysis of their moves, as he is a VALORANT player himself.
Congratulations to Team Apakagaling kaya Nanerf for bagging the championship and to the team behind this iteration of the CURSOR Valorant Tournament for a wonderful event! Let’s look forward to more CURSOR events where we can interact and bond with one another.
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