USC ESPORTS WRAP-UP #19
By: Alivia Alva
Hey, USC Esports! For this edition, we have a post-match interview from Varsity LoL’s NECC loss against Winthrop University. Seeing as Winthrop University has one of the best rosters in the country, featuring tier 1 and tier 2 professional players, we expected to be the underdogs of the matchup. What we didn’t expect was that the NECC staff would decide to stream it on Twitch, calling it a “battle of the titans”. Said battle ended in a 0-2 loss for USC, but hey, at least there weren’t that many people watching, right…?
After the match, (which we were finally able to play in-person in the Leavey Gaming Lab!) I pulled Jin ke si aside for a quick interview. Jin ke si, or Mike, is an MS student in Business Analytics and the AD carry for our team. His favorite pro player is Uzi, and that can be seen in his gameplay: Mike is our team’s late-game win condition, the hypercarry who isn’t afraid to flash forward and be the hero of the fight.
1. You came into this matchup knowing it was going to be a difficult one. Having played the match, was it about what you expected?
There’s some mistakes we made early game, I would say. So… I feel like our laning can be better, and I feel like if we survive the laning phase, our team will definitely play better. We’re gonna have a better result if we do that better.
2. What do you do to prepare for a match?
I didn’t do, like, anything.
(sounds of laughter from the team)
3. What’s one thing you think went well for you guys this match?
I would say we had good control of the early drakes, it’s just that we made too many mistakes and we died too many times. I feel like if we can just be more patient, we’ll be fine.
4. What’s something another team member did that you’d like to shout out?
Maybe… Nutty’s laning, yeah.
5. You played with both supports today. What’s the biggest difference between playing with Nutty and playing with Yunjia?
I feel like for today, Nutty… he’s too, like, too scared to make something happen, but like, Gabe is too—he’s trying so hard to make something happen.
6. We have our CLOL match on Saturday—are you feeling confident about winning that one?
Yeah.
Author’s note: We won that CLOL match in one of our fastest series yet, a 2-0 sweep in which Mike recorded an overall K/D/A of 30/7/17. That confidence definitely wasn’t misplaced!
