Ben MillerFor the first time ever, Ole Miss and Mississippi State faced off in an E-Sports “Egg Bowl” this Saturday. The event took place at the Pavilion all day as the teams of gamers rotated through their strongest events.
The Egg Bowl was formatted as a seven-part competition where each event was a different game played on the PC, and the final event was played on the Wii U. Each event was a seven-game series in and of itself.
The competition kicked off at 11 a.m. Saturday with a round of CS:GO. Mississippi State was dominant in the series, taking the event four games to one. CS:GO was followed by League of Legends, Ole Miss’s strongest event according to Rebel Super Smash Bros gamer Jacob Robinson.
“We’ve got them in League (of Legends),” he said. “They’re better at Overwatch and Rocket League, but we’re really good at (Rainbow Six: Siege) and (Call of Duty), so it’s probably going to come down to Smash, which is my event.”
Robinson’s prediction was correct as Ole Miss won handily in League of Legends, returning the total score to 1-1. State went on to take the series in Overwatch immediately following the League of Legends loss. As the advantage returned to State at 2-1, Rainbow Six: Siege was postponed and swapped with Rocket League.
Rocket League was by far the most intense and spirited contest of the day. The crowd was in it for the entirety of the series as it came down to an intense game seven. Mississippi State’s “Ziyor” crushed the noise in the Pavilion with a sudden-death overtime goal to seal the event and give State a 3-1 overall lead.
Following the loss in Rocket League, Ole Miss’s Rainbow Six: Siege team prepared to take the stage for what was thought to be the strongest event for Rebel E-Sports. The Rebels suffered a 4-2 loss, moving the overall score to 4-1 and sealing the Egg Bowl victory for the Bulldogs.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, which was released worldwide only a day before the competition, followed the Rebel loss in Siege. The emotions and excitement were at their height for the day during this event. Ole Miss ultimately took the victory in an intense game 7 comeback that went down to the wire, moving the overall score to 4-2 heading into the final event of the day.
As most of the crowd filed out with the overall result of the Egg Bowl decided, the two teams took the stage one final time to face off in Super Smash Bros for the Wii U. Mississippi State won the event to take the final total to 5-2.
