Student tournament turns into e-sport amid pandemic

Players and characters getting ready to go into battle

With physical activities being limited during the pandemic, the Sports and Recreation Unit of UTAR Department of Student Affairs (DSA), supported by UTAR E-Sport Club Sungai Long Campus, held UTAR E-Sport Carnival 2021 (Honor of Kings) Mobile on 20 June 2021. The one-day tournament was held online. The participants battled against one another from the comfort of their homes. They were cheered by audiences and supporters through Zoom and Facebook Live.

Teams were divided into four groups to match the eight bracket competition schedule

Eight teams with five members each went head-to-head in the tournament. The teams were NK TEAM, RAMPAGE, MIRACLE, UV, 4.0, 坑上王者, WINNERS, and AK 超会玩. After 10 matches, the tournament reached the finale where team MIRACLE and team WINNERS battled to secure the title as the champion. In the “best of three” matches, team MIRACLE emerged victorious by winning the last two rounds of the battle.

The complete result and prizes are as below:

Champion: MIRACLE Team (RM100 cash & medals)

Second place: WINNERS Team (medals)

Third place: RAMPAGE Team and UV Team (Medals)

Honor of Kings is a multiplayer online battle arena for the iOS and Android mobile platforms. The basic gameplay across all game modes involve controlling a character with unique abilities to kill non-player characters and opponents to gain experience and gold. The experience is used to unlock their character's abilities or further augment the ability's power, and gold is used to purchase items at the shop (which change specific attributes depending on the item bought). Players then coordinate to knock down enemy's defensive structures called turrets, and victory is achieved by destroying the core building, located within the enemy team’s base. Specific gameplay mechanics vary depending on the game mode chosen.

 

The tournament was streamed through Zoom, allowing spectators to watch the game and players simultaneously

 

Group photo of players and spectators