Game on! CONEL Cyphers reach British Esports Student Champs national finals

Gamers from the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London (CONEL) have reached the British Esports Student Champs finals.

Five students from the CONEL Cyphers team at the college’s Esports Academy will face Exeter Academy in the national finals of the tournament at Confetti X in Nottingham on 24 June.

CONEL entered A, B and C teams in the Valorant competition with the A team going all the way to the final having played 16 matches and lost only once this season.

The competition format meant the A team previously played and beat Exeter Academy to reach the final having defeated Cheshire College South & West, South Gloucestershire and Stroud College and Cambridge Regional College in the play-offs.

Valorant is a team-based tactical first-person shooter where the attacking team aim to plant a ‘spike’ or eliminate the defending team before a timer runs out. In a typical game there are 25 rounds each lasting 100 seconds with the first to win 13 rounds crowned the victors.

Ahead of the final the A team, comprising Sefa Mankaloglu, Danial Ra, Emil Lusuvaliev, Cyrus Sullivan and Ermir Frashni, showed off their new Esports Academy jerseys.

Team captain Sefa, 23, said: “We are very excited to go to Nottingham. Our first match was way back in September and the team has changed a lot since then. It’s been a good year and I’m sure our hard work will pay off.”

Daniel, 16, said: “Although Cyrus, Ermir and myself joined the team later in the season, it’s been a lot of fun! Playing and working in a team is so much more interesting than solo-queue. The final is going to be tough since they’ll be out for revenge, but we’ll take it for sure.”

CONEL offers Esports Diploma courses at Levels 2 and 3 along with many other IT and Computing and Digital Media and Creative Computing courses at its Tottenham and Enfield Centres.

The Esports Academy, located at the college’s Enfield Centre, is open to all full-time students at CONEL and features 20 powerful gaming PCs along with training from a professional coach.

The British Esports Student Champs is open to students at secondary schools, colleges and alternative provision schools in the UK. This year teams have competed against each other in Valorant, League of Legends, Rocket League and Overwatch 2.

Esports Coach Finlay Stewart said: “It’s been an incredible year for the Esports Academy. We’ve had more than 30 students take part from day one with more joining as the year went on.

“All our teams did great, but the Valorant A team have been outstanding. Sefa and Emil have been the core of the team since the start and been a consistent rock that we’ve relied on all year. The addition of Cyrus, Daniel and Ermir really took the team to the next level.

“Over the last couple months they have practised hard and their team play has improved drastically. They definitely deserve to be in the finals, there can be no doubt about that. They just need to do it one more time at Nottingham to be champions of the UK.”

Find out more about the Esports Academy here.

Apply for IT and Computing courses including Esports here. For Digital Media and Creative Computing courses click here.

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