Esports

The Largest Digital Festival: DreamHack 2020

USC’s Varsity League of Legends team will be going down to Anaheim tomorrow to compete in Dreamhack’s college tournament, playing their first round against Arizona State University

DreamHack 2020. (Courtesy of DreamHack)

By Kim Do

Tomorrow, the world’s largest digital festival will be making its way to the Anaheim Convention Center. For over 25 years, Dreamhack has been a host to the largest LAN party offering live concerts, cosplay shows, visits from streamers and influencers, and most importantly, their esports community. Their goal is “to create the most engaging and interactive events for gaming fans possible,” according to their website.

The USC Esports community will also be a part of this fantastic journey as Varsity League of Legends players will be attending the event to compete in a tournament. Coach Joe Jacko, has been training and guiding the team to play against other schools at Dreamhack.

“Qualifying for Dreamhack validates everything we’ve been working on. I couldn’t be more proud to support the players I have right now. For the program, it’s a measurable level of success to be featured at an event like Dreamhack and is something that fans of USC and USCGames can recognize as outstanding regardless of their understanding of esports and League of Legends because of the event’s stand-alone title as a gaming event,” he said.

The Varsity team will be competing against three other university teams by playing through 2 online qualifier events. Below is a tournament bracket of the universities that will be competing against each other on Friday, February 21st.

Tournament Bracket for 4 Universities Competing Against Each Other at DreamHack, Including USC

The team has gone through quite the journey competing against many other universities, including their rival school of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in multiple events in the past. Jacko says that “ASU is our toughest opponent. But I’m confident it will be a competitive match”.

Their current record in Riot’s College league (CLoL) is 3-1, losing their most recent game 0-2 last weekend to University of California, Irvine.

Dreamhack brings together more than 350,000 visitors across nine countries to celebrate the gaming culture and compete. In Anaheim, they are going to include activities for students where they offer collegiate and high school tournaments. Featured speakers will be at panels and workshops to help develop one’s skill or excite an interest. Other community events like cosplay championships, speed-running marathons, meet & greets, free-plays and much more will occur as well.

Gallery of Photos of DreamHack (Courtesy of DreamHack)

Dreamhack has partnerships with the world’s most popular games, like Fortnite, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Magic: The Gathering Arena, and more.

They also partnered with Riot Games to present the Nordic Championship for Spring 2020. Nordic Championship features the League of Legends tournament that contains eight teams competing against each other for six weeks from five Nordic countries.

DreamHack will also be organizing the UK League Championship this year as well. Just like the Nordic Championships, the eight teams and prize money will be featured in the UKLC 2020 Spring Split. The eight teams will be competing in a double best-of-1 round-robin. A round-robin tournament is essentially styled into a competition where each player plays each other twice. They have had a great relationship and have been cooperating more and more every year to bring creative and exciting ideas to support the Nordic market.

Current Standings as of 02/16/20 for the Nordic Championship (Courtesy of DreamHack)

Nordic Championship Spring 2020 had started already with two weeks in. Above you can see the current standings for this week! You can read more about their tweets and game plays here.

  • 200,000 SEK (approximately $20,416.78 USD) Prize Pool
  • Competing teams from 5 Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden
  • 7 Weeks of League Play from February 2nd through March 16th, 2020
  • Semifinals is March 22nd while Grand Final is March 29th
  • Broadcast Live Every Sunday and Monday

Current Standings as of 02/17/20 for UKLC (Courtesy of DreamHack)

UKLC Spring 2020 has also started with two weeks in. Above you can see the current standings for this week! You can read more about their tweets and game plays here.

  • £60,000 (approximately $20,146.78 USD) Prize Pool
  • Competing teams include: Fnatic Rising, Excel UK, and more.
  • 7 weeks of League Play from February 4th through March 18th, 2020
  • Semifinals is March 23rd and Grand Final is March 29th
  • Broadcast Live Every Tuesday and Wednesday

While unfortunately, I am not able to go to DreamHack, some of our fellow USC students will be going this upcoming Friday in Anaheim and will report on the experience when they come back.