Hosted by CSULB eSports, Beachcon 2017 featured gaming tournaments, an artist alley, cosplay contest, and many more activities. Students from UCLA, CSULB, UCSD, and UCI were all in attendance and ready to compete for first place in their respective games.
Competitors from UCI included Griffin “Captain Faceroll” Williams for Super Smash Bros. Melee, UCI’s CS:GO Gold team, and the Overwatch team led by Victor “ZiggyD” Lin.
Due to unforeseen technical difficulties and delays, our CS:GO and Overwatch teams were unable to complete their matches and will be scheduled to play their opponents in the near future.
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Without dropping a single set throughout the tournament, Griffin Williams took first place in Super Smash Bros. Melee. After facing and defeating Captain Smuckers in winners and grand finals, Griffin shared his thoughts on the Sheik vs. Falcon matchup, attending local events, and Beachcon overall in an interview with the tournament organizer.
On the Sheik-Falcon matchup, what was going through your mind? What did you have to change?
“In general I’m always very swing heavy. I’m always moving forward. Even if I get hit, I’m crouch cancelling and moving forward. You don’t need to approach Falcon. He has better grounded mobility. What was happening a lot was that he would be dash dancing and I would just try to attack him. I would whiff and then lose my stock. It’s a problem I used to have when I wasn’t being smart in neutral. I would just throw out an attack for no reason.”
You haven’t been attending as many local events recently. Where have you been?
“I’ve been trying to focus more on school. I still go to about 3 tournaments a week. I’m limited to UCI events and weekend events. If I was amazing at time management I’d be able to do everything.”
How was Beachcon 2017 overall?
“I was a big fan of the overall atmosphere. It felt like one big communal event rather than everyone being separated into their own little rooms. It got me really excited for UCI’s LAN event, Zotcade, which is happening April 15-16th.”
Overwatch
Roster/Roles[UCI] Victor Lin ZiggyD – Captain, Off-tank, DPS
[UCI] Isaac Birdie IzakBirdie – Off-tank
[UCI] John Rey FlynTortoise – Support
[IVC] Kevin Rey Espio – Support
[UCI] Josh Sohn Sohn – DPS
[UCLA] Sehee Jeong Kabosui – Main tank, DPS
With some help from John’s brother Kevin “Espio” Rey and Sehee “Kabosui” Jeong to fill the roster, the UCI squad was prepared to take on UCSD at Beachcon. Due to technical difficulties and delays the team wasn’t able to complete their matches. Later, statements were made as to how they had prepared, how they felt about their performance so far, and what their thoughts were for approaching their upcoming matches.
How did the team prepare for the tournament?
“We had little time to practice due to conflicting schedules. We prepared by scrimming against other teams and focused on improving our overall teamwork. We are all fairly good at our roles, which allowed us to focus on learning each other’s play styles and build synergy.”
How did you guys feel about your performance at Beachcon?
“It was a shaky start. To be honest, we weren’t expecting the team composition that UCSD was running. The team needed more time to warm up and get into the right mindset. After we got warmed up everyone was playing a lot better, and it showed in map 2 of Nepal.”
What’s the plan for the upcoming matches?
“Same as before. Focus on one game at a time. It’s also important for everyone to remember to play as a team. We were able to learn from the few matches we played against UCSD, and hopefully we can play our best and adapt to anything thrown at us.”
CSGO
Roster/RolesJames Pirelli Strawberry – In Game Leader
Kevon Nguyen Jabodey – Lurker
Zhouxing Cai XinKoiNg – Main Rifler
Alex Ng ROKURO – Secondary Rifler/ Entry Fragger
Adrian Sanchez Spaz – AWPer
James “Strawberry” Pirelli made a statement in regards to the delays at Beachcon.
“We made it to the finals. However, since semifinals finished at 1AM, the match between UCI and UCLA will be played online sometime this week.”
How did the team prepare for the tournament?
“We practice about 30 hours per week which includes practice at UCI’s eSports Arena and playing online. A majority of the team’s preparation is done through league matches. Playing in CSL Division 1, AVGL, ESEA-OPEN, and tournaments held at Winter Games Fest and eSports Arena in Santa Ana provide us quality practice.”
How did you guys feel about your performance at Beachcon?
“We felt confident coming into this tournament. We felt that we would definitely make it to the finals and expect to face off against UCLA. As expected, both teams made it to the finals. We have some history with UCLA losing to them back in December. We played against them in a CSL match on Cobblestone results being 16-14. We’re looking forward to this rematch and taking 1st place for Beachcon.”
What are your thoughts as you guys approach the finals against UCLA?
“We believe that we’ll beat UCLA 2-0 through our teamwork and strategies. Our map pool is definitely larger than UCLA’s so we’re going to use their weakness to our advantage.”
Thank you, everyone, for all of your hard work. It takes sacrifice and dedication to be able to compete at such a competitive level. Stay motivated, stay strong, and keep playing your absolute best. UCI eSports acknowledges and supports all of your efforts. Zot on!
