UC Irvine ‘zot zot’ to the top in League of Legends Winter Champs Finals

Time after time in 2021, Winthrop University showed up big when it mattered most, taking last year’s League of Legends College Championship before eventually reaching last weekend’s Winter Champs Finals. This last weekend, a new champion rose to the top: UC Irvine. Winthrop University came in with expectations to win, but UC Irvine proved that they deserved to be champions.

UC Irvine entered the grand final as underdogs, especially after playing two three-game sets against Trance’s Tyrants and New Trevor. Not only were Winthrop favored, but the Anteaters were bound to be fatigued. It looked like that would be the case when Winthrop took the first game of the series, stifling most of UC Irvine’s aggressive playmaking, but the latter struck back with an even faster pace of play, taking the following two games to become champions with ease.

“The story of the underdog. Winthrop University, we fell in love with them and now there is a new underdog rising to the top,” caster Kari “SpaceGhost” Keone said during the series’ final moments. “UCI Varsity, if I do not see you at Summer Proving Grounds, I will come over there myself.”

UC Irvine’s play was far from a masterclass in team coordination and macro play but was clearly evident of the unit’s individual skill, as well as their willingness to play to their strengths. Despite starting the series 0-1, UC Irvine opted to overload on their playstyle rather than compromise it, and there’s hardly anything more charming than a team willing to accept its flaws and push forward with a style all its own.

After winning the series, with a large amount of the team’s domination centered around the bottom lane, UC Irvine’s AD carry John “Sahori” Vu was excited to come out with the win, but after a long day, it was plain how the team was feeling.

“I’m super tired. It’s a long day,” he said with a grin in a post-broadcast interview. “Honestly, I was super hungry.”

UC Irvine’s win was inspiring and exciting for fans of the collegiate scene, but after a long day, Sahori & Co. were just happy to finish it all as champions. Maintaining their high-octane pace of play takes a lot of energy and, unsurprisingly, it was the team’s jungler Duong “duong pro” Tran who was behind most of the antics.

“I think the energy just comes from my jungler,” Sahori said. “He just keeps screaming all the time and makes everyone happy.”

Duong pro is aggressive as junglers come. No matter the situation, duong pro wasn’t scared to run up and challenge Winthrop University and their slower, macro-focused playstyle. It didn’t always work out for him, but more often than not, he tipped the scales in favor of his team and never shied away from a fight that he had a chance of winning. It kept the team hyped and ready to play to the best of their ability.

“We go ape mode,” Sahori said about the team’s atmosphere in response to duong pro’s plays. “It’s really funny.”

Funnily enough, the shotcalling during UC Irvine’s play was more democratic than anything. Everyone “takes turns” when it comes to calling plays, but Sahori largely credited Benjamin “Cinnamon Bread” Chang and Ethan “Kim Down” Song for leading the charge during their run. UC Irvine is still working on becoming a well-oiled machine, but everyone seems to believe in each other, and that’s essential for any kind of progress. This victory in particular is a sign of that synergy and future progress.

“[This victory] just means a lot to us because it shows how much we improved since we formed the team around October,” Sahori explained. “We were really just a brand new collegiate team. Four of us were an amateur team beforehand, so we built this roster on UCI with a new jungler and it really shows how we’ve improved drastically.”

Between solo queue, studies and actual competitive play, it can get a bit overwhelming competing for a collegiate team, but UC Irvine’s latest squad is already producing excellent results. As recently as 2020, UC Irvine was at the top of the Western Conference in Collegiate League of Legends. Current positional coach Jung “Youngbin” Young-bin even won the CLoL 2018 Championship with UC Irvine. So even though the roster lacks experience, they had plenty of support and experience behind them.

For Sahori, it was a few people in particular that made last weekend’s magic happen.

“Shoutout to my mom. She said I was gonna win today, and she was right,” he said with a smile. “Shoutout to my coach and Youngbin -- this guy is my personal coach, and he’s been my positional coach so he’s been really helpful with my mechanics. Shoutout to Hermes, my head coach too.”

With this win, Sahori and the rest of UC Irvine took home the first-place prize of $6,000 and the glory of being Nerd Street Winter Champs. The team was exciting to watch and will certainly be around for future competitions as they continue to prove why they might be some of North America’s most talented amateur players in 2022.