Championship Bound: The Return to Glory


by | May 16, 2019, 11:00AM PDT

With the conclusion of the Group Stage, UCI Esports’ varsity League of Legends (LoL) team—the defending national champions—is moving onto the live finals in Los Angeles, CA for the second consecutive year!

The 2019 West Conference semifinal match against Cal (UC Berkeley) could have been a thrilling match to watch, but unfortunately a family emergency for one of their starting players forced the team to forfeit for failing to field a full roster. (Wish our sister campus luck in the Pacific Esports (PAC-E) League of Legends Invitational, hosted by UCLA Esports!) The final match against Cal Poly Pomona resulted in another UCI win, taking the top spot in the West conference.

As the West is one of the top four conferences, we receive an auto-berth into the College Championship where eight teams will play a three-round single elimination tournament. The first round is best-of-three and all other rounds are best-of-five. So a UCI repeat championship could entail as few as eight more matches, or as many as thirteen!

Maryville University, University of Ontario, and University of Illinois also won their conferences and joined us in the auto-berths. University of Waterloo, Michigan State University, Columbia College, and North Carolina State University battled their way through the remaining teams to complete the “great eight” of the Championship Finals. (You can see the Round 1 brackets here.)

Our Round 1 bout will be an intensely noteworthy rematch against Columbia College, our grand final match opponents from last year whom we defeated 3-0 to become the 2018 League of Legends College Champions. Tune in to catch our quarterfinals match on Friday, May 24th at 6pm Pacific Time on Riot’s Twitch channel.

Once again, your 2018-2019 UCI LoL varsity team is:

Evan “Captain Nuke” Phu (Top Laner),
Avi “Im Avi” Behar (Jungle),
Jeffrey “Descraton” Du (Mid Laner),
Youngbin “Youngbin” Chung (Bot Laner)
Lyubomir “BloodWater” Spasov (Support),
and Ethan “Kim Down” Song (Support, Substitute).

We must not forget the amazing support staff behind the team:

James “Coachman” Bates (Head Coach),
James “Lattman” Lattman (Assistant Coach),
Allison “Shoogle” Le (Team Manager),
Milo “PhDodson” Dodson (Team Psychologist),
Haylesh “Haylo” Patel (Team Physiologist),
and Hillary “Hillabeans” Phan (Player Support Coordinator).

Don’t forget to tune in May 23rd – May 26th for the College Championship matches!

Follow UCIEsports and College League of Legends on Twitter for updates.

Update: Riot recently posted an official announcement and information page with the schedule of matches.

UCI Esports Player Rosters For 2022-2023


by | Dec 14, 2022, 10:13PM PDT

Between big roster changes and the addition of an entirely new varsity team, UCI Esports is hyped to present the collegiate players that will represent our organization in the coming tournaments this year! If you’ve been following us on social media, our teams have been teased in multiple posts over the past few months. In preparation for their respective national championships in January, we are excited to officially introduce our team rosters for the 2022-2023 academic year!


LEAGUE OF LEGENDS:

  • Coach – David “HermesTheTurtle” Tu 

VARSITY:

  • TOP – Minh “Elated” Pham
  • JUNGLE – Mike “MikeYeung” Yeung
  • MID – Ben “CinnamonBread” Chang
  • ADC – Alex “Gorica” Gorica
  • SUPPORT – Brett “Lightpulse” Narkiewicz

JUNIOR VARSITY:

  • TOP- Long “Gino” Do
  • JUNGLE – Sam “Glorias” Chen
  • MID – Donovin “Debounair” Boun
  • ADC –  Andrew “Misterdot” Liu
  • SUPPORT – Ryan “Sliggins” Gilson

OVERWATCH 2:

  • COACH – Michael “TheRealThe” Kuhns
  • DPS – Michael “Excal” Kim
  • DPS – Cyrus “cyy” Buffington
  • DPS – Zuhair “Zeerocious” Taleb
  • TANK – Jonathan “Light” Chao
  • TANK – Sean “Romani” Cook
  • SUPPORT – Mitsutoshi “Supreme” Sato
  • SUPPORT – Dimitrios “Otters” Karanikas
  • SUPPORT – Bruno “KapGod” Moebest

VALORANT: 

  • COACH – Vishal Rohit “CurryShot” Nathani
  • DUELIST / IGL – Munkhdul “plat1num” Baterdene
  • INITIATOR – Ivan “Sylph” Tran
  • INITIATOR – Richie “Richie” Tran
  • INITIATOR – Fiona “fifi” Lin
  • SENTINEL – Bradley “Cowpie865” Lacy
  • CONTROLLER – Kyle “kyle” Tyni
  • FLEX – Kyle “fwlo” Van

The University of California Esports Initiative (UCEI)  is an ongoing esports partnership between the different UC campuses, and their biggest annual event is coming soon! The UCEI Invitationals presented by Xfinity is right around the corner- set for January 13th-15th- and will feature all the rosters you see above in their respective games! Be sure to tune in on our Twitch channel at twitch.tv/uciesports when the time comes to watch our players duke it out against their rivaling UC counterparts!

UCI Esports Introduces Valorant Head Coach: CurryShot!


by | Nov 22, 2022, 11:37PM PDT

This year UCI Esports is proud to announce our very own Valorant team, the latest addition to our existing esports scholarship program! As excited as we were to venture into the inaugural collegiate Valorant season, we knew we needed a coach to do it right. Hence why we proudly present Rohit “CurryShot” Nathani as our latest hire as Valorant Head Coach! 

You may recognize CurryShot for his time coaching Overwatch as the former Strategic Coach from Mayhem Academy, Guangzhou Charge, and the Los Angeles Gladiators. More recently, CurryShot has been embracing Valorant and worked with multiple teams to find their footing in the fresh title.

“I’m very excited for the opportunity to coach the UCI Valorant team. Valorant is a game I’m really passionate about and I think our team can go far this season. I can’t wait to get started and I want to cultivate a culture that’s healthy and brings wins. I want us to work hard to surpass expectations and thrive in this title like UCI does in all their titles.”

Rohit “CurryShot” Nathani

The season has already started and the UCI Esports’ Valorant team currently stands in the Top 16 in the Western Conference. Make sure to support Curryshot and the players by tuning in to our UCI Esports Twitch to watch our Valorant games on Saturdays at 3:00pm PT!

Community Engagement Coordinator: Jamel Hopkins!


by | Aug 1, 2022, 12:18PM PDT

Whether you’re sieging towers, rushing sites, or pushing payloads, it’s your teammates that largely determine the course of the game. The community with which you surround yourself with is central to the gaming experience, in-game and out. Therefore, it is with great excitement that we announce Jamel “Aespirin” Hopkins, former shoutcaster and student staffer, will be joining the program full-time as our first-ever Community Engagement Coordinator.

Jamel will play an essential role for the program by connecting UCI Esports to the greater gaming community. As a primary liaison of the program, they will help to encourage and foster relations with other gaming spaces of all scopes, high school students, local UCI clubs, UCI alumni, and the national college esports community as a whole.

“As we have evolved as a program and adjusted to a world with COVID-19, we see a tremendous opportunity to use games and esports to re-engage our communities as we come back together in person. Our new Community Coordinator will play a vital role, connecting us more closely with UCI clubs, high school students, and our local community.”

– Mark Deppe, UCI Esports Director

“I’m ecstatic for this opportunity to give back to UCI Esports and the gaming community! In stepping into the role, my goal is to make our program a central hub on campus for students to call home like I have for years. I want our arena to brighten campus. Every student should feel safe and welcome here. I want everyone on campus to come here and get to know us, know each other.”

– Jamel Hopkins, Community Engagement Coordinator

The establishment of this new position at UCI Esports marks an exciting venture in the program’s ongoing commitment to building bridges between our local campus community and beyond. We are more than excited to have Jamel on board once more and look forward to witnessing his continued impact on the program!

First Ever Pokimane Scholarship Recipient: Nyah Beck!


by | Jul 22, 2022, 12:30PM PDT

Two years ago, UCI Esports was excited to announce the upcoming launch of the Pokimane Scholarship. A generous donation of $50,000 was given to the program by the famous gaming personality Imane “Pokimane” Anys herself to fund tuition and fees for student gamers for years to come via accrued interest. Over this summer, the program has chosen one lucky undergraduate to receive $2500 for the 2022 school year ahead, officially beginning the Pokimane Scholarship! 

The first ever recipient of this scholarship will be Nyah Beck, a founder of the Black Gxming Society as well as a Community Leader of The Association of Gamers, both being local campus organizations at UCI. Beck emphasizes the importance of gaming in her life as a conduit for making life-lasting connections and fostering community. 

“I believe the greatest thing [about gaming] has been being able to connect with others who live all over the world and have diverse backgrounds that differ from my own. Even times that the community has not been so great or positive to be around, this often serves as a learning experience, but also makes the great friendships stand out even more. Finding these peers has allowed me to grow and embrace my geekiness and be my most authentic self.”

– Nyah Beck

UCI Esports would like to extend a joyful congratulations to Beck! We are excited to see her impact on the gaming community moving forward!

Welcome Tildae!


by | Dec 9, 2021, 4:17PM PDT

A New Challenger Has Arrived

We are incredibly excited to share that Brenden “Tildae” Alvarez has come back home to UCI and will be joining UCI Esports as our new Arena Coordinator.  Brenden graduated from UCI in 2019 with a degree in Computer Science.  Tildae also played on our Overwatch team for two years, leading the squad to the Fiesta Bowl in 2018 and a berth in the National Championship match.

Since graduating, Brenden has been working as a counselor for Connected Camps and a coach for NASEF.  We are thrilled to have him back on campus and to help us engage the UCI gaming community as we return to campus.

Please join us in welcoming back home and congratulating him on his new position.