With Their Powers Combined

From 25 May to 29 May 2020, SIT held its first-ever e-Inter-Cluster Games (eICG) in place of the traditional sports-based ICG held every year.

SIT students and alumni formed teams together in their respective clusters and competed from the comfort of home in DOTA 2 and CS:GO. SITizen Buzz heard more about the experience from two alumni from the Engineering Cluster who led their teams to 2nd place in both games.

Dota 2

Karthigesan S/O Murukan, a Class of 2016 alumnus from the Engineering Cluster, was team lead for the Engineering team that took second place in DOTA 2. He shares his experience with us.

Q: What is your level of Dota 2 experience?

I used to play e-sports competitively during secondary school, when it was Dota 1. As for Dota 2, when I was playing more regularly around two years ago, I was playing at Divine rank.

Q: Describe your playstyle.

I like to keep myself as a very dynamic player and I don’t have a particular preference. Usually, I’m the one who plays support in a competitive setting but I’m comfortable with playing other roles and filling in if my team lacks a certain role. My favourite hero is Crystal Maiden.

Q: Were you and your team expecting that you would be able to take second place?

We joined with no expectations and just wanted to have fun and support the event. Getting second place was a bonus for us. Although I was initially looking forward to the traditional sports, this e-ICG event showed that the organisers were quite open-minded and had alternative solutions to dealing with the effects of COVID-19. They really put in a lot of effort to organise the game.

It was nice teaming up with my juniors to play too and they were cooperative and engaging as well. Dota can be quite a heated game but we were quite encouraging of each other and it was nice to see this rather than everyone getting heated up and being overly competitive.

CS:GO

Class of 2017 alumnus from the Engineering Cluster, Desmond Lee, was the team lead for his CS:GO team. He tells us more about his eICG experience.

Q: What is your level of CS:GO experience?

I’ve never played competitively before. My CS:GO rank is Distinguished Master Guardian.

Q: What do you think your team did better than others?

I’ve known my alumni teammates for around three to four years and played with them for a few years. I think we did better simply because we had more experience. We’ve played a long time together, although we’ve never practised playing competitively.

Q: What do you think is the fastest way to improve in CS:GO?

Watch more competitive players online, follow their strategies, and learn what to look out for from them.

Q: Do you think e-sports should be a regular feature for future ICGs?

 Games are popular anywhere, so if it’s a regular feature it’s not bad. But if it causes some people to have problems with studying or to focus too much on games then it’s not good. There are pros and cons.