Feb 13, 2014 ... Adam Antor/Index. Louis Steuber-Rosche, left, and Tyler Small, right, chat
through a game of League of Legends Saturday, Feb. 1. The League ...
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2014
TRULife
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League of Legends brings Truman State students together to play BY LACEY RAPER
Staff Reporter
League of Legends, one of the fastest growing games the gorvernment recently recognized as an of�icial professional sport, has made its way to campus. League of Legends is an online combat game where two teams of players go head to head, using strategy and quick wit to defeat their opponents. According to leagueo�legends.com, each team is comprised of �ive members with an extra as a substitution. The League of Legends group on campus, while not of�icially recognized by the Center for Student Involvement, currently is hosting a tournament, the Truman Championship Series, where members of the group have been drafted into nine teams that compete during weekends.
Juniors Will Quarles and Justin Probst started the group during fall 2013. Probst said the group started with only a few members, but now has 107. Quarles said freshman Tyler Small was the �irst person to propose hosting a Championship Series. The League of Legends group was hosted during fall but didn’t have many members. The current series has seen a growth in participation and organization, Quarles said. “The �irst season, we didn’t really have a quarter �inals or anything because there wasn’t much organization,” Small said. “But now that we’ve brought in an actual team of organizers, it’s actually a lot more structured and the games so far have been really good.” Senior Jeremy King said he is responsible for scheduling matches. King said the nine teams are scheduled to play each other during games that last all semester, and the �inal match will take place Reading Day.
The tournament also has been enabled so it can be livestreamed. King said all of the matches will be shown on twitch.tv/TrumanSeries and will be hosted Saturdays at 8-9 p.m. and Sundays at 9 p.m. As the group continues to grow, the members said they hope they can become a club recognized by the CSI. Quarles said this would allow them to be considered a collegiate team by Riot Games, Inc., the company that created the game. Recognition from Riot would let them have access to certain prizes and upgrades for their teams, which would have to be paid for otherwise. “Since I’ve joined the group, we’ve multiplied by 10,” Quarles said. “The growth that we’ve had throughout proves that we can be sustainable. League of Legends is the fastest growing game so it’s probably going to be around for a very long time as well, so I think the group will kind of keep itself around because we keep recruiting new people, and then they keep recruiting new people, so really it’s going to keep itself rolling.”
SCREEN’CO
Adam Antor/Index Louis Steuber-Rosche, left, and Tyler Small, right, chat through a game of League of Legends Saturday, Feb. 1. The League of Legends group at Truman has been growing thoughout the year.
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