Mountaineers are Among Us: WVU vs Marshall eSports Tournament

A battle of wits, tasking, and being the better imposter: the competition was fierce during the WVU Among Us eSports Tournament.

The evening of February 17 was the first match of the WVU vs Marshall eSports Tournament. However, due to inclement weather in the Huntington, West Virginia area, Marshall University was closed, leaving only the WVU players. Nonetheless, our Mountaineers were up to the task.

In a two-hour tournament held over Zoom, five WVU students worked as Crewmates to fix their deteriorating spaceship through a series of tasks like fixing lights and downloading important data. This sounds simple, but the truth is that not all were who they said they were. An imposter lurked among the Crewmates, attempting to sabotage their work and killing them off one by one. When someone reported a dead body or had important information, a meeting was called and they all worked together to root out who the Imposter is. Who seemed the most sus?

One minute a student was working hard to stay alive, finish their tasks, and vote the right person out of the ship. The next minute that same student was cornering a Crewmate and taking them out of the equation, all the while proclaiming their innocence in meetings and trying to get someone else voted off in their place. Instead of the game chat, student’s used their microphones during the meetings so that each could really hear what everyone was saying and try to sense the deception in another’s voice. As can be imagined, it was an endless amount of fun.

Travis Jecks, the host of the tournament, described how entertaining it was. “Each player was very determined to make the case as to why they were not imposters,” he explained. “As someone who could see who really was the imposter, it was interesting to see how deceptive people could be. Imposters would convince people to kick others out!”

In the end, a winner emerged based on a scoring system of who voted correctly versus incorrectly: Damien Cummings. Cummings ended the match with 14 points total. With only a four-point lead over the runner-up, Kevin Myers, it ended up being a close game. Both will receive Intramural Sports Champion t-shirts.

The second match-up of the WVU vs Marshall eSports Tournament will take place Wednesday, March 10 from 7:00pm-9:00pm. Currently, Marshall students are expected to participate. This time, students will be going to war in Call of Duty, with four-player teams randomly assigned so that the Thundering Herd and Mountaineers could possibly work together. The highest finishing players overall will be declared champions.

Registration for the upcoming WVU vs Marshall Call of Duty event is still open, so sign up to show them what Mountaineers are made of: https://wvugo.wvu.edu/DivisionRegistration. If you are not ready to help carry the team to victory yourself, then make sure to watch this legendary matchup live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/wvurecsports.

In the meantime, make sure to tune in through the same Twitch link above to the WVU eSports Rocket League season each Sunday, with the next match taking place Sunday, February 21 from 6:00pm-8:00pm. There are still some spots available to join fellow Mountaineers on the soccer field, so sign up through the same WVUGo link above if you think you have what it takes to score the next goal!

About the Author

Alexandria is a senior at WVU with a passion for writing. She is an English major with a dual emphasis in creative writing and professional writing and editing. Alex is and has always been obsessed with reading and writing and is hoping to become an editor and a published author one day. Since coming to WVU, she has been involved each year in the Calliope Undergraduate Literary Magazine, and recently has begun focusing on writing about the wildness and wonder of West Virginia.