High school League of Legends esports teams from Carmel, Avon, South Bend and three other communities will battle head-to-head Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 19 and 20, at IUPUI as they vie for $30,000 in IUPUI scholarships.
The six teams emerged victorious from an intense monthlong online tournament of the popular game League of Legends that was organized by Gamers Hall, an IUPUI student group.
The winning team will walk away with $15,000 in scholarships; $10,000 goes to the second-place team, and third place gets the remaining $5,000.
League of Legends teams consist of five players who control unique champions, each with their own design and abilities. Team members work together to take down the opposing team’s base.
The teams playing in this competition are from the following schools:
- Avon High School, Avon, Indiana
- Carmel High School, Carmel, Indiana
- East Noble High School, Kendallville, Indiana
- Northwestern High School, Kokomo, Indiana
- John Adams High School, South Bend, Indiana
- AlWood High School, Woodhull, Illinois
The tournament will be played in the theater on the lower level of the IUPUI Campus Center, 420 University Blvd. Admission is free and open to the public. Gameplay will also be streamed on Oct. 19 and Oct. 20 via Twitch. Teams will be seated on the theater stage, with gameplay projected onto a screen behind them.
Esports is online, team-based video gaming that is surging in popularity at IUPUI, in Indianapolis and around the world. The five-year-old IUPUI student group Gamers Hall gathers hundreds of esports-loving students to compete against each other, and against other universities, in a variety of games weekly.
“College campuses are recognizing that the top esports players are often also our top students and top young-professional earners in STEM-related fields,” said Zebulun Wood, a co-director of the undergraduate media arts and science program in the School of Informatics and Computing at IUPUI. “IUPUI faculty, parents and alumni are valuing gaming like never before.”
The tournament was organized by Gamers Hall in partnership with the School of Engineering and Technology, School of Health and Human Sciences, School of Informatics and Computing and its Department of Media Arts and Science, and School of Science at IUPUI; the IUPUI Division of Enrollment Management; and local Indianapolis esports stakeholders Challonge, Indy Indies, the Sports Innovation Institute at IUPUI and Video Game Palooza.
In addition to live tournament play, attendees can also compete in a Smash Brothers tournament from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. Local nonprofit Indy Indies will host several independent developer games for people to play, try and discuss from 6 to 10 p.m. that day.
