E-sports Overwatch team competes in Central Regional Championship, wins first round of Nationals

By Dylan Buechler

The Concordia E-Sports Overwatch team fought its way to success in the Central Regional Championship last week, winning the first round of the National Championship after a 0-3 start. The team entered the conference as the No. 8 seed.

Overwatch is a competitive, hero-based shooter game where players select different roles and characters with different abilities. Players compete in a team of five against an opposing team while trying to accomplish some sort of task. These tasks range from capturing an objective point and holding it against attacks to pushing a payload across the map.

Interim E-Sports Director Dr. Marcus Gubanyi said that this type of game takes a lot of communication among teammates to coordinate efforts.

“Because it’s such a fast-paced game, if you’re not on the same page as your team, at every single moment, there’s going to be opportunities for the other team to punish you, and then you’re going to lose the match,” said Gubanyi.

In the first round of nationals, one mistake from the opposing team secured a win for Concordia’s team. Team captain, junior Simon Wegener, was unable to play for the first match, and freshman Nathaniel Bull was called to substitute. Even with the challenge of adding a new player into the team, they were still able to pull through and win.

Bull had some experience with the team in practices and a couple times in previous matches. He said there was a little stress coming into the first nationals match. Trust and coordination were key elements to winning, despite the unusual team lineup, he said.

“I think what the team here does really well is they work as a team. They work as a unit and they all trust each other a lot,” Bull said. “And even though they didn’t have one of their key players, even with a sub, we were able to work well as a unit.”

The department’s theme this year is “Connected and United,” which Gubanyi said was vital to the team’s success this semester. The goal was winning as well as building a good community of students, he said.

“It’s not just from a success perspective, but just for our own flourishing as good students and good Christians and good people,” Gubanyi said. “It comes from that unity that we have in Christ to start.”

Wegener said that it was the team’s synergy and communication that brought them through the matches. The team prayed together before competing, and Wegener said it helped calm their nerves.

“PJ [Paul Maestas] prayed for us on our finals day, and that felt great,” said Wegener. “PJ’s prayer, I feel, brought us all together.”

The team is made up of five players and one substitute: captain senior Simon Wegener, senior Andrew Fynaardt, junior Samuel Martin, sophomore Paul (PJ) Maestas, sophomore Andrew Schlichting, and substitute freshman Nathaniel Bull.

The E-Sports department is always looking for students who are passionate about playing video games to consider joining a team. The department holds events once a month.