History

Peter Lam, Creator Strategist & CEO of Hansei GG, and Winnie Chen, Creative Director of Hansei GG, founded RIT Esports in 2016. The RIT Dota 2 team won the club its first national championship, and working with RIT Intramurals helped a lot with boosting RIT Esports growth and their great relationship with Electronic Gaming Society during the start of RIT Esports’ development from 2015 to 2016.

Visions of the Founders

I wanted a place for kids to live out their dreams and maybe one day be professionals at the game.

We had a lot of students who were really cracked at the games that they played, and we also wanted to try to find common ground with people who liked what we liked. EGS (Electronic Gaming Society, another student-run club at RIT for gamers) wasn’t similar enough, and finding people who were like-minded in a safe-space who wanted to do what I wanted to do was super important to me. One of my other dreams was to build an environment within the school to create a place for students to be able to do something big. We wanted to make sure that we had that opportunity after we left to prepare us for the world to come - our “Training Arc'' per say! At the end of the day, we wanted to play games. We wanted to bring that experience that I felt going to majors, and other large tournaments, to this school.

Peter Lam, first president of RIT Esports
Winnie Chen, Graphic Design

I initially joined because a lot of my friends joined, I thought to myself “I like video games, I’ll join!”

I wanted to become president because when I was in the club, I first got started as a community team member (what the Operations Branch was back then). My friend, Ron Dodge, was the person who made the old RIT Tiger logo (shoutout Ron!) and Jacob Marcovecchio was one of the many people who believed that I would make a good president. At the time that I had joined the club, there was someone on the Eboard who I thought wasn’t doing everything they could, and I wanted to help the club reach the heights that I knew it could. There was a lot in those early years that we didn’t have, like a fleshed-out constitution, which I oversaw the rewriting of. I had the confidence that I knew I could do a better job than the previous E-board members before me, and thought I could make the club succeed and grow more so than it was already. I’d like to believe that I was very influential in my roles as treasurer and secretary. I got a lot of stuff done, and planned on doing more as president, but unfortunately covid stopped a lot of that. The club for me was very socially-oriented and was something that I wanted to foster further than what I had seen in my time there. I believe and wish I could’ve done more while being president, but being so involved in RIT Esports and being so involved in the club was something that I had not originally thought I would be involved in during my time at RIT but having been through the experience, I’m very glad I did. For anyone looking to join RIT Esports, there’s various ways to get involved, even if you’re not competitive! Being involved in club life, specifically RIT Esports, heightened my college experience and I would heavily recommend it to anyone looking to join!

Hillary Li, fourth president of RIT Esports

Achievements

Apex Legends

[2021] AVGL Collegiate Champions League 2021 2nd and 3rd Place
[2019] AVGL Collegiate 2019 2nd Place

Chess

[2024] NACE Collegiate Chess League D19 U1275 - Quarterfinals (D1)
[2023] NACE Collegiate Chess League D6 U1400 - Quarterfinals (D2)

Counter-Strike 2

[2023] Spring Finalists - NACE Varsity Premier Division
[2023] Fall National Champions - NACE Varsity Premier Division
[2022] Spring National Champions - Faceit Collegiate
[2021] CSL Challenger 2021 (RIT White - D2) Champions
[2021] NACCS Contenders (RIT White - D2) CSGO Winners 2021
[2020] CSGO META LAN 2020 2nd Place
[2019] CSL GameStop Weekly 2019 2nd Place
[2019] NACL 2019 Placed 3rd
[2019] NACCS 2019 Summer Top 8
[2018] ESEA CSGO Winter Invitational 2018 Champions as well as 3rd Placed

Dota 2

[2019] CSL Spring 2019 Champions
[2018] CSL Fall 2018 Champions

Dropzone

[2017] Dropzone Champions

Halo

[2024] 3rd Place - NECC College Halo (D1)

Hearthstone

[2024] NACE Hearthstone Champion - Ryan “KahootDudeRyan” Kolecki
[2024] NACE Top 8 - JD “Jiddle” Bartholomew
[2022] Champions - Hearthstone Collegiate Championship Spring 2022
[2021] Tespa 2021
[2020] HCC Fall 1st Split Winners 2020 Fall
[2020] 2nd - Hearthstone Varsity Collegiate Championship Spring 2020
[2020] 1st - Hearthstone Collegiate Championship Fall 2020
[2020] Tespa 2020
[2019] 3rd - Hearthstone Collegiate Championship Spring 2019
[2019] HUE Invitationals Fall 2019 Semifinalists
[2019] Tespa 2019 Fall Champions
[2019] Tespa 2019 Spring Placed 2nd
[2019] 1st - Hearthstone Collegiate Championship Fall 2019
[2018] Tespa 2018 National Champions

HOTS

[2020] NA Season 4 (2020)HeroesLounge Epic Cup Champions
[2019] Tespa Collegiate Series Fall 2019 Top 8

League of Legends

[2024] Top 2 Finish CLOL Open Division (D2)
[2024] NECC East Champion Division - Eastern Conference Champions (D1)

MTGA

[2020] 7th place - CSL Magic the Gathering Arena Winter 1v1 2020
[2019] The Watchers Brawl 2019 Top 8

osu!

[2023] Osu!standard Tier 1 - RIT A (#5) - top 5 finish
[2023] Osu!standard Tier 1 - RIT A (#3) - top 4 finish
[2020] Collegiate League Fall 2020 Top 16

Overwatch

[2024] GMU Lan Champions (D1)
[2024] NACE Top 2 finish (D3)
[2020] Tespa OW Collegiate Championship 2020
[2019] OW HUE Invitational 2019 Semifinalists

PUBG

[2019] Collegiate Battleground Association placed 5th 2019 Fall
[2019] Collegiate Battleground Association 2019 Spring Champions
[2018] CBA 2018 Fall 3rd Place

Rainbow Six Siege

[2019] 2019 Spring Nittany Invite Winners
[2018] 2018 Spring Season 1 North American University Siege League Champions

Rocket League

[2024] Orange - EGF 3rd in ECF playoffs
[2024] Black - 1st in HWS invitational
[2022] Orange Qualified for CRL fall 2022 and ended up placing 13-16th with a record of 4-11
[2021] NACE Spring 2021 top ???
[2021] Summer Series 2021 qualified and placed 26th in east playoffs
[2020] CSL Rocket League 2020 Top 3
[2019] Orange Qualified for CRL fall 2019 and ended up placing 13th with a record of 6-9

Smite

[2020] AVGL 2020 Top 16
[2020] Spring 2020: 5th Place, AVGL
[2019] AVGL 2019 Top 16
[2019] NACE 2019 Spring 5th place
[2018] NACE 2018 Fall 3rd Place
[2018] AVGL 2018 Spring 4th Place
[2018] Fall 2018: 3rd Place, NACE
[2017] Fall 2017: 4th Place, AVGL

Starcraft

[2024] Top 2 Finish - CEA Spring 2024 Collegiate Playoffs

Team Fortress 2

[2023] Collegiate TF2 Spring 2023 4th
[2022] Collegiate TF2 Summer 2022 1st

Valorant

[2024] EGFC Champions
[2024] Top 8 Finish - CVAL East Spring
[2024] Finalists at SUNY Brockport Invite GLG LAN
[2023] Top 8 Finish - CVAL East Fall
[2022] Redbull Campus Clutch Top 4
[2020] Prometheus Cup Tournament 2020 2nd place