Esports is not the first thing you would associate with Oxford and Cambridge, two of the UK’s most prestigious Universities, but today saw the two clash in their second annual “Esports Varsity Challenge.” Many titles were played across the day, but kicking off early at 10.30 am was the CS:GO matchup across a three map series. Cambridge went on to win the match 2-1, after which we caught up with one of their players, “lil jon“:

First of all, could you introduce yourself a little bit and tell us about your history in gaming, eSports and Counter-Strike in general?

My name’s Scott, 19 years old, currently a first year at Cambridge studying maths. I’ve been playing games for most of my life, starting with goldeneye and perfect dark on the N64 before moving on to playing a bit of the original counter strike of various patches. I’ve played a lot of games to various levels since, such as SC2 to masters, Dota to 5k mmr, WoW to duelist, LoL for a bit so to a high level but never the top. With Counter-Strike in particular, I’ve done a lot of hours on source doing pugs, scrims, bhopping surf etc but never anything league-related or to a high level.

Have you also played in any of the uni league DotA or other games as well? Also could you explain what exactly is the Esports Varsity challenge and what it includes?

Nah, Counter-Strike is the only game I’ve played in. Since I’ve gotten to uni I can only maintain my level of skill in one of the games. So the Varsity match is a continuation of the long rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge into one of the newer competitive fields, i.e. esports, and the games played are those with mainstream interest such as dota, league cs, starcraft and hearthstone.

The Cambridge, Oxford rivalry is not one often considered on the esports landscape. How did the Varsity initially come to life?

There’s always been interest in single game competitions between the two universities, but the growth of university competitions such as nuel etc led to increased interest in uni esports and the first Varsity match was organised last year.

You yourself have just played in the CS:GO element of the challenge, how did it feel to represent your University in something as untraditional as an esport?

So it’s always nice to win something for my university, but honestly at the time it didn’t feel that spectacular. With all the technical issues that arose, it was very obvious that esports is still in its infancy. However that being said, it is quite exciting that these events occur and I was able to participate in one of the first matches that happened. With the huge growth that esports is currently experiencing, i.e. 5m The International 2015 after just a few days, these events can only get bigger and maybe in a decade or so esports will be just as traditional as other games like chess etc.

Map 1 was apparently the favourite pick for both teams, what happened with your performance on that map compared to the later ones where it seemed more like an even game?

I think the first game was mainly just a few of our less experienced players getting used to the shorter round timers and bomb timers that are used in competitive matches, esea, etc compared to mm, so rotations were often not quick enough to have a proper attempt at recapturing sites. Once people were more on top of the time, the teamwork came together and the games became more exciting.

Do you guys typically play together outside of varsity, or did you pull together just for this one event?

I can’t speak for the other guys who I think may play together casually, but for me I got back into shape just for varsity.

So as you just said you’re not too sure about the other guys, how did you yourself get into shape for this, and did you have any tactics planned for the day?

So it was mainly regaining the aim and getting up to date with the current patches and meta. I knew there would be some variation in skill, i.e. I’m supreme compared to our standin who was gold nova 4, so having set strats wouldn’t be beneficial, so it was mainly gaining a feel for the game and being able to read the game and call shots on the fly.

Where do you guys place yourselves in terms of a skill level within the UK scene? Do you actively participate elsewhere also?

It’s not like other sports where top uni level is a decent level relative to national whereas with esports in general, you have a few unis with 1 or 2 top level people and the rest are average at best. In answer to the question, I have no idea, I’m not that active in the UK scene and don’t do anything in particular outside of matchmaking.

What can we see next from the Cambridge members?

A lot of beating Oxford and nobel-prize winning gamers.

Final words?