Illinois Esports

VaLANtine’s Day Spring LAN

This past weekend, over 200 people attended Illini Esports spring LAN, “VaLANtine’s Day”. This semester, it was hosted in the Digital Computer Laboratory, hearkening back to LAN’s of the past. Before the pandemic, LAN’s were hosted monthly in the DCL, more of a casual gathering than a big semester event. As in-person events returned, so did the LAN’s, and for a few semesters had great success in the Illini Union. As we’re gearing up for the Invitational at the end of March, Illini Esports decided to go smaller scale and return to the DCL.

The LAN ran from noon to late evening, and at its peak had around 50 people in the room. Some people came to the LAN to meet up with friends they hadn’t seen for a while, some came to participate in events or competitions, and some came just to play games on their PC. Even though the DCL was quite a distance from their living spaces, people brought their full PC setup to play. Our friends at Illini PC showed off their powerful PCs and talked to others about their PC setups. Because of the giveaways going on throughout the day, some lucky community members went home with new peripherals for their PC, like keyboards and headphones.

 

Some of the PCs at the LAN

A wide variety of events took place throughout the day, the biggest being the Guilty Gear Strive tournament that went on for a majority of the LAN. The League of Legends community had the finals for their in-house Teamfight Tactics tournament and a duos League of Legends tournament. On the casual side, Genshin Impact had a scavenger hunt where players searched for items and locations in the game. The Rainbow Six Siege community had a watch party for the Six Invitational this weekend. One of the members on the admin team, HPFishMarket, even brought his Beyblade collection to duel others during the LAN!

Beyblade duels, featuring HPFishMarket

The LAN was a great, casual event before Illini Esports gears up for the Illini Esports Invitational next month. We look forward to everybody coming out to the event to see panels, alumni, and great competition! 

Thanks to our sponsors for helping us run this event: Visit Champaign County, Atlona a Panduit Company, U of I Foundation, Andromeda Solutions, U of I Athletics, Cooler Master, HyperX, MSI, and Dell.

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