{"id":50256,"date":"2017-01-31T16:39:12","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T22:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=50256"},"modified":"2017-01-31T16:39:12","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T22:39:12","slug":"the-number-cruncher-behind-the-bama-of-college-e-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-number-cruncher-behind-the-bama-of-college-e-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"The number-cruncher behind the ‘Bama of college e-sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Yifan Wu<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a season-opener against an unranked and little-known opponent, a college powerhouse fell behind by one point for less than two minutes. However, the head coach, who just came off a brief stint in the pros, buried his face in his hands and sighed in disbelief before rifling through the team analyst\u2019s notepads.<\/p>\n

No, it was not Alabama football but rather Robert Morris\u2019 varsity team playing \u201cLeague of Legends,\u201d a free-to-play computer game, against Missouri Baptist. Like the Crimson Tide, who list six analysts on its staff directory, RMU e-sports leads the collegiate scene in support staff, starting with Mykolas \u201cMykieMause\u201d Saulis, a full-time analyst.<\/p>\n

Up to six hours a day, five days a week, Saulis hovers behind the varsity team\u2019s gaming chairs during practice, taking notes and making observations. Sometimes, the computer network major joins the post-game huddle to discuss his findings. Often, Saulis finds a working station at the arena\u2019s corner and records his notes into a Google Docs spreadsheet.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of right now, the notes are very broad,\u201d Saulis said. \u201cThe spreadsheet has specific points we want to see the team work on, like specific timing to be aggressive. We try to get some sort of quantified result, and then you can track their progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Drake Porter came to RMU as the head coach last October, he suggested the addition of a student-analyst, citing his experience working at Frank Gang Gaming, a professional team.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the pro teams have someone breaking down gameplays for them, and now the college scene is catching up,\u201d Porter said. \u201cThey can put it in numbers and let us know how the opponents play under different circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

The search process started the week before Campus Series kicked off in mid-January, when Porter sent an email to RMU players not on the top two varsity teams, but also announced the position was open to any RMU student. Almost 40 applications were in his inbox the next day.<\/p>\n

Saulis impressed Porter with experience as a player on the third team and his in-depth knowledge for the game. Between classes and spreadsheets, the Oak Lawn native also led his own team, \u201cMykie Mause Club House,\u201d in the RMU intramural \u201cLeague of Legends\u201d tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am still fresh, still testing the waters and figuring out what to do,\u201d Saulis said. \u201cWith the team, we have really good communication and synergy, so I enjoy working with every one of them individually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immediately after Riot Games, developer of \u201cLeague of Legends,\u201d released an update, Saulis added game-testing to his responsibilities.<\/p>\n

For hours, Saulis, Porter and starter Derek \u201cWest Coast Carry\u201d Micheau, have explored all the possible scenarios where the slight three seconds of change-in-game mechanics could affect the team. Soon after, Saulis started some scouting work on Maryville, the team RMU would later dismantle in three quick scrimmage games.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaryville is really the only team we have to look out for in this division,\u201d Porter said. \u201cThey are not the same team that beat us last year, but we still think that\u2019s our main rival.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cLeague of Legends,\u201d five players on each side can choose to play as one of the 134 champions. But a pick-and-ban system allows both sides to take the opponent\u2019s favorite chess pieces off the board.<\/p>\n

For Saulis, the opposition research includes looking up the other team\u2019s entire roster, studying its favorite champions, predicting the likelihood of picks and making ban recommendations to the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe scouted Maryville for about an hour before the matches, and that wasn\u2019t too hard,\u201d Saulis said. \u201cWe noticed trends of champions they are picking. But sometimes they \u2018smurf,\u2019 like how they might hide the champion they are playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously numbers can\u2019t tell us everything about our opponents,\u201d said Micheau. \u201cBut now we have a better idea about their habits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like most e-sports athletes at RMU, Saulis had a difficult time explaining his scholarship to family and friends, but his new role is harder to describe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told my mom [about my job] just yesterday, and she asked what any of this means,\u201d Saulis said. \u201cI tried to tell her as broadly as I could, but really it is like being an analyst for any traditional sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Student analyst Mykolas Saulis works on a spreadsheet for Robert Morris University’s “League of Legends” team. (Yifan Wu\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Yifan Wu In a season-opener against an unranked and little-known opponent, a college powerhouse fell behind by one point for less than two minutes. However, the head coach, who just came off a brief stint in the pros, buried his face in his hands and sighed in disbelief before rifling through the team analyst\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":356,"featured_media":50266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,3516],"tags":[3647,3648,3649,3575,1286,329,3646],"class_list":["post-50256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-winter-2017","tag-campus-series","tag-crimson-tide","tag-drake-porter","tag-e-sports","tag-league-of-legends","tag-medill","tag-robert-morris"],"yoast_head":"\nThe number-cruncher behind the 'Bama of college e-sports - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-number-cruncher-behind-the-bama-of-college-e-sports\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The number-cruncher behind the 'Bama of college e-sports - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Yifan Wu In a season-opener against an unranked and little-known opponent, a college powerhouse fell behind by one point for less than two minutes. 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