UBC’s eSports Club is hosting their biggest ever tournament May 8-10 in Richmond and at UBC.
The UBC Cup began as a tournament for the real-time strategy game Starcraft, but now encompasses five more games: Super Smash Bros., CS: GO, Dota 2, Hearthstone and League of Legends.
“Originally the club was just a Starcraft Club. Once it changed to the eSports Association in 2012 we just changed the Starcraft Tournament into a tournament that was inclusive of all the games,” said club president Hantao Yuan.
In light of the immense amount of games currently available online, the association has tried to include the most popular games that have the potential to be played in a competitive setting.
“Our system for deciding what games to include in the club is based on whether or not it can be competitive and the other factor is a possibility for a community or if there is already a community,” Yuan said.
The eSports Association anticipates that their most popular game this year will be CS: GO due to the influx of players from the LANcouver tournament. LANcouver, a CS: GO exclusive tournament, has yet to confirm the status of their event due to venue issues. As a result, scheduling changes may be made at the UBC Cup to accommodate all the incoming players.
This is also the first time Super Smash Bros. will be included as an official game in a UBC eSports Association event.
“We’re embracing the Smash Bros. community,“ said director of Super Smash Bros. Kevin Dhir. The UBC eSports Association hopes that this tournament will help promote the association in the gaming community.
“We just want to show that we can host a major tournament with a large prize pool and we want to get our name out there. We want be famous,” said Yuan.
Prizes for the tournament winners will include cash as well as hardware sponsored by Memory Express. The association also promises the possibility of taking home an adorable Poro as well as other goodies available to spectators enjoying the tournament from afar.