A wild weekend in esports

André González Rodríguez, Contributor

A jam-packed weekend of esports will start on Friday with events in the new Call of Duty League (CDL),  the 7th installation of the Super Smash Bros. Super Major (Genesis), and the new League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Spring split. Here’s what each event is and how to watch.

The CDL world tour begins on Friday and is hosted by the Minnesota RØKKR, Minnesota’s CDL team. The first matchup of the season features two of the biggest organization owners in Call of Duty esports: Hector “Hecz” Rodriguez, owner of the Chicago Huntsmen, vs. Mike “Hastr0” Rufail, owner of the Dallas Empire. This first match will begin on Friday at 5:30 p.m. EST, streamed on Call of Duty’s official Twitch channel and on the Major League Gaming (MLG) channel. Each team hosts a “Home Series” weekend, with all 12 teams attending the opening Launch Weekend. All matches will be a best-of-five series and will last approximately one hour and 15 minutes. 

From the 12 teams attending the inaugural CDL season, one of them will be the Florida Mutineers. The Mutineers will face off against the Seattle Surge for the second match of the day. They will also have their own home series in Florida on March 11 and 12  – with an exact location to be announced in the future. 

Genesis, Super Smash Bros.’ largest grassroots smash event, is returning for its 7th installation this weekend. The three-day series will include Singles and Doubles for Super Smash Bros. Melee, Ultimate, and 64 with other side games as well. The event will be held at the Oakland Convention Center with Sunday’s Top 8 Finals being held at the Paramount Theater. 

Genesis 7 begins at 10 a.m. EST on Friday and will be streamed on multiple channels by the Beyond The Summit staff who have hosted, ran and streamed tournaments before on their Twitch.tv channel.

The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) spring split begins this weekend. League of Legends’ seasons are divided into two halves called splits; they play at the start of the year in the spring, with a one month break to begin the second split in the summer, the summer split. Apart from the usual haul of new players and the exchanging of players between teams, there will be new organizations – yet familiar faces – joining the LCS for this upcoming spring season. The old guards of TSM, CLG, Cloud 9, and 4-time LCS champions, Team Liquid, still remain – as well as 100 Thieves, FlyQuest, and Golden Guardians – but they will be joined by Immortals, Dignitas, and Evil Geniuses. These three teams have been in the LCS before and are looking to make a mark in their return. 

During this split, the LCS is introducing a new format where the games will be played on Friday through Monday as opposed to only Saturday and Sunday, and they will continue the same format as last year, with, the exception of having one Academy game to end the day. Friday will have multiple Academy matches at once. On Monday there will be 3 Academy games and 2 LCS games, dubbed “Monday Night League.”

The first LCS match will begin approximately at 5 p.m. EST on Saturday. Current LCS champions, Team Liquid, will face runner-up Cloud9. Team Liquid will look to continue their dominance with new jungler Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen. The jungle position in League of Legends is comparable to the point guard position in the NBA – they call the shots and point where things are on the court, in this case, the map. 

All of the matches will be streamed on the LCS Twitch.tv channel and teams will co-stream their own Academy matches.