Independence Community College is no stranger to dramatic and scintillating results across its athletic programs. Conference titles, national tournament appearances, and a lot of wins are common for the ICC Pirates.
The ICC Esports program is no exception. On Tuesday, March 29th, the Pirates upset the number 6 seed Westcliff University Warriors in the CCL (College Call of Duty League) to move on to the regional tournament. The underdog was an 11 seed and every match of the night was close, right down to the wire.
“We played against Westcliff University,” Chris Kumke, ICC Esports Director, said. “We beat them in a map 5 (last game of the match), in the final moments. We won 6-5 on the last map. That’s how close the games were. Every game was a couple of seconds apart, which is pretty ridiculous for COD.”
Call of Duty Vanguard, a militaristic shooter set in the World War 2 era, was released last November. Always one of the most popular and most played video games every year, the Call of Duty franchise attracts talented gamers from across the nation.
A CCL match consists of a best of 5 set up. The first team to win 3 of the 5 rounds wins the match. Each round is a different game mode. They are played on a rotation, and each game mode comes with its own strategies and ways to win. The Pirates had to go through each of the game modes to finish with the win. It can seem complicated at first, but it shows the concentration and flexible skillset the ICC Esports team is cultivating.
“There are three different modes, Hard Point, Control, and Search and Destroy,” Kumke explained. “For Hard Point, every second you’re in the zone, you get a point. The first team to 250 points wins. Control is a mix of Search and Destroy and Hard Point. You have to capture these two points, usually hills. One team is on defense, one team is on attack. Search and Destroy is a limited number of lives, and you try to plant a device on a spot vs another team. If you die, you’re out. First to complete the objectives wins.”
Leaping back and forth between game modes against a very talented Westcliff University team, the Pirates were able to come away with a huge victory against a high level of competition. “It's a lot more competitive than if we were competing at a lower tier,” Kumke pointed out. “If you’re tier 4 you’re playing bottom of the barrel. If you’re playing tier 1, like we are, you’re playing the top competition. It's similar to a Division 1 team and a Division 3 team in football. This victory puts us in the top 3 seeds of the west. The top 4 seeds of the west and Midwest make it to a LAN event with a $25,000 prize payout.”
It's been a fantastic year so far for INDY Esports. Their new facility was recently officially opened, their teams have spent a lot of their time winning, and people across the nation have taken notice.
“We stream our events so that parents and friends back home can watch, just like they do for other sports,” Kumke said. “It brings in numbers. If you’ve got a winning program, people reach out to you, wanting to come to compete. It gives you a chance for new players, a new level of competing.”