OPSE Season Wrap-Up
With the end of the 2021 – 2022 OPSE (Ontario Post-Secondary Esports) season completed for the Conestoga Condors, what better time than now to review the season. The Condors, this past season, competed in four esports titles: Valorant, Overwatch, Rocket League, and League of Legends. Before the fall semester started, Conestoga Condors brought in new team leads to head the varsity teams. They got to work quickly, promoting, recruiting, and assembling a team for the upcoming season. Fortunately, nearly every team had some returning esports athletes who helped reduce the burden of building a team. However, Valorant is the exception as it is a brand new esports title for the season.
With the teams built and ready to go, the start of the season approached rapidly and officially kicked off on October 4th, 2021. The Valorant team was the first team up for the Condors, and they started the season off with a bang and a sweeping victory over the Windsor Lancers. Unfortunately, that was the only team to pick up a win on the opening week. The Rocket League team was the next team to find a series win the very next week over the Lambton Lions. However, it wasn't until a couple of weeks later where both the Overwatch and League of Legends teams picked up their first series win. After that, each team found pockets of success; however, the competition was formidable.
Within OPSE, the many powerhouse schools were too strong to overcome, though the Condors Esports teams still gave it their all. Moreover, the Condors overall were far from weak as we were a solid middle of the pack team across three of the titles, the exception being Overwatch, where we struggled the most.
As the fall semester finished and the winter semester loomed, the rosters were revisited and revamped, and we welcomed a couple of new team leads. The changes over the break could be either fortunate or unfortunate based on your outlook, as the teams stayed on a similar track. With the winter semester now underway, the playoff race for many began as there were few remaining matches left to play as every school jockeyed for seeding. Now seeding is vital because it can give you favourable match-ups but also, in Rocket League and League of Legends, the top four seeds are given byes to the quarterfinals of playoffs.
All too quickly, the regular season came to an end. Except in Valorant, as we were in a three-way tiebreaker. The Valorant team then swept the tiebreaker bracket and captured the 7th seed for ourselves. The Overwatch team just managed to get into playoffs as the 6th seed, and the Rocket League and League of Legends teams finished as the 7th and 8th seeds, respectively.
Missing the top four and the bye, the Rocket League and League of Legends teams had to go through a play-in group stage. The League of Legends team was the first to finish their double-elimination group with two straight series wins, one over the 9th seed Trent Excalibur and an upset victory over the 5th seed Durham Lords. The Rocket League team then took the scenic route, with their group needing to play three series total. Their first series was a loss to the 10th seed Trent Excalibur followed by wins over the 11th seed Wilfred Laurier Golden Hawks and then over Trent to advance in a revenge match.
Now that every team was into the bracket stage of playoffs, there was some relief. However, it was only a moment's reprieve as the powerhouse schools once more loomed in front of the Condors.
In Valorant's double-elimination format, the 2nd seed Carleton Ravens awaited us, where we received our first loss sending us to the lower bracket. We went against the York Lions next, and despite forcing overtime, we couldn't find the win eliminating us from the playoffs.
Overwatch's playoff bracket was quick and brutal, being a single-elimination where the 4th seed Carleton Ravens eliminated us.
After groups, Rocket League's playoff bracket was a single-elimination affair, and we had a tall order ahead of us as we needed to beat the 3rd seed Windsor Lancers to advance. However, that wasn't in the cards, and we ultimately lost our consolation match against the Carleton Ravens.
In their playoff bracket, the League of Legends team, also single-elimination after groups, drew the 1st seed Waterloo Warriors as their opponent. The Waterloo Warriors in the regular season had a record of 10 wins and 1 loss and looked nigh unstoppable. However, despite the disparity, the Conestoga Condors were competitive and able to take a game off the Warriors though it wasn't enough to win the series resulting in our elimination.
At the time of writing, playoffs rage across the four titles, but for the Condors, it's time to rest our weary wings as our OPSE battles are over.
To everyone, it was a fun and competitive season. Good games and well played.
If you are intrested in competing for one of our esports teams in the future join our Discord and get in contact with the respective team lead.
By: Alex Cruickshank