The sun is shining, flowers are blooming, and collegiate esports playoff season is here! In the next week, both Call of Duty and Rainbow Six teams will begin playoffs for their respective leagues.
Butler’s Call of Duty team is competing this spring in the College CoD league, the premier collegiate Call of Duty league, for the third season in a row. Each year the team has made playoffs, finishing top 12 in 2018 and top 32 in 2019. This year, on the edge of a #25 poll rating in the 180-team field for weeks on end, the Bulldogs enter the 64-team double-elimination playoff bracket a #4 regional seed. “Our team has been able to create a real name for Butler University in the collegiate CoD community; last year for unforeseen circumstances, our playoffs were cut short. This year, we have put in more time and effort into getting things right to make up for last year,” says Jack “Vortex” Glynn ’21, senior Marketing & MIS major and team manager. A win in Butler’s (11-3) first-round matchup against Bethany College Blue (10-4) will likely mean a second-round challenge against league front-runner University of Ottawa Gold (17-0), but Vortex is not deterred. “Out of 170+ universities, we have managed to be one of the 32 to auto-qualify, and I cannot thank the guys enough for being willing to put up with the time commitment this season has been… the losers bracket run looks promising for us.”
Bulldog Rainbow Six has also had an explosive year. After playing in the CR6 league for several seasons with mixed results, Butler made their NECC debut in the R6 Challengers Division this spring, and proceeded to sweep the field and finish the regular season with a 9-0 record, dropping only two maps. The team’s co-captain, junior computer science and music composition major Alex “ZerynAstra” McGrath ’22, can tell the difference: “the past three years of our Siege team on campus have been a steady climb in experience and skill for all of us,” he says. Playoffs begin on Thursday night, but the Bulldogs have a first-round bye and will not compete until the semifinals early next week. “A win in this league would legitimize our team to students that play R6, and the wider Butler community, as a competitive team worth putting time into,” says Max “Bonbon” Casson ’23, sophomore Business major, co-captain and team manager. #1 Butler’s semifinal opponent will be the winner of Thursday night’s match between #4 Concordia University Wisconsin and #5 Arcadia University, but “we have beaten every team we’ve faced and we are ready to do it again,” says Bonbon.
Catch #ButlerCoD against Bethany College Blue on Friday 4/16 at 10pm, live at twitch.tv/vortex_na, with the second tournament round immediately following. #ButlerR6 will play Concordia/Arcadia next week (details TBD).
