February 2023 Newsletter
Contents
A Word from the League
State Championship Recap
Coach Feedback: Fall 2022
Spring ‘23 Season Introduction
MNVL Youtube Video of the Month
A Word from the League
Hey all,
What a Fall ‘22 season that was, huh? The intensity and passion was felt at our recent state finals and is what the teams battle for the whole season. It’s always great to see everyone again and meet new faces! To all the friends and family that came to support and the competitors giving it their all, MNVL wants to thank you again for attending and making it an unforgettable event and ending to the season!
In the sections below you can find the results from the Fall ‘22 state finals, summaries from our end of season coaches survey, and information about the new titles coming to MNVL for the upcoming season and important dates to know.
With another season ending means we say goodbye to our talented student interns from the Fall ‘22 season. The amount of growth we saw in them in such a short time span is incredible. We hope they can take the experience with them to bigger and better opportunities, and we’ll always be rooting them on. Student internships for the Spring ‘23 season will be posted in the MNVL Discord in the coming weeks! These will include positions for casting, production and social media so keep an eye out for those messages in Discord to learn how to apply.
With the quick turnaround time from the Fall to Spring season, the whole MNVL team is busy getting things prepped. We’re excited to turn it up a notch this spring with new titles and formats being introduced, resources to be added throughout the season and more. With how insane the Fall season and finals were, we can’t wait for what’s in store this Spring.
Minnesota Varsity League
State Championship Recap
MNVL held it’s Fall ‘22 State Finals LAN this past month that ran from Friday, January 13th through Sunday, January 15th. The weekend was full of exciting action with our SSBU double elimination tournament Friday night, followed by Minecraft Saturday morning and Valorant capping off the first full day of the state finals. Sunday morning welcomed Rocket League and then League of Legends to wrap up the MNVL State Finals weekend.
Teams met in person to compete for the Fall ‘22 state finals at Wisdom Gaming Studios in the Mall of America for a second season. We’re proud to show that across all leagues over the weekend. We had 184 competitors participate from 38 different schools, an increase from the 29 schools that were represented last spring season. It’s evident that each season will continue to be more and more competitive with all the skill developing across the state.
Each team and player should feel proud of their season, regardless of the standings. A long season takes a lot commitment, and working with your team to be ready week to week isn’t an easy feat. With that said, your MNVL Fall ‘22 champions are listed below. A HUGE congratulations to them and their incredible season!
SSBU: Roseville LazyZach
Minecraft 2v2: South Minneapolis Dos Tigres
Varsity Valorant: Minnetonka
Rocket League 2v2: Rogers RL - Black
League of Legends: Minnetonka
The state finals are always a blast and MNVL always looks forward to seeing everyone in person. There’s nothing quite like enjoying an intense series in-person cheering with those around you compared to our typical online format during the regular season. We hope everyone was able to find some excitement and enjoyed their time competing and/or cheering.
You can find all of the captured moments of the weekend HERE in the photo gallery. They’re free to download! You can also find the stream recap of each tournament on the MNVL YouTube.
We want to strive to continue making this an enjoyable event and welcome any feedback for future improvements.
Coach Feedback: Fall 2022
We’ve gathered all of the feedback from the form we shared after our end of year coaches meeting. The feedback given is greatly appreciated and is how MNVL can continue to make this a league your program wants to compete in. We’ll break it down, question by question for you below.
Q: Should tactical pauses (limited to 5 min total and not during gameplay) be allowed in select game titles?
A large portion of programs would like to allow tactical pauses. These will be introduced for the upcoming ‘23 Spring season and have already been included in the spring rulebook. You can find the rules surrounding tactical pauses in the last section of the rules for that specific game. It’s important to note they’re not all the same for each game, so please read for each title.
Q: Should we DISABLE profile pictures on Leaguespot for student accounts?
We will be keeping profile pictures for students on Leaguespot. It’s an all or nothing switch since we can’t disable only a few with the abilities we have on our end. This was asked because it was brought to our attention a few times that a student had an inappropriate profile picture. They will remain enabled, but please contact an admin if you notice someone not following the MNVL guidelines.
Q: For the Spring 2023 Season, which would you prefer in regards to divisions/sections for Varsity leagues. Check your top consideration
For this question we have some answers all over the board, but the school population size category has the most votes. There’s not a clear winner based off this chart and will be doing a hybrid of school population size, location, and skill balance to try to get the most equal distribution of teams we can per division.
Q: For the Spring 2023 Season, which would you prefer in regards to groups in swiss competitions. Check your top consideration
Votes are again across the board, but separating teams into groups based on skill balance had the most votes. We’ll do our best to follow that and create even groups based on skill and previous placements in MNVL. School size and location will be considered as well, since one of the only exceptions for reschedules is to play in-person against each other.
Q: Should all Swiss leagues be moved to a queue system?
Benefit: Extremely low FF rate
Drawbacks: Do not know your schedule, cannot reschedule for any reason (playing in person or school holiday)
With a split vote and a low turnout (only 15 votes), we will apply the queue system to some Swiss leagues where it makes the most sense. Due to the queue system limiting our ability to reschedule games for any reason, we may leave some leagues as a regular swiss to encourage in-person play.
Q: What programs should MNVL focus on first? (Check 3)
Where MNVL should focus:
1. Assisting in finding esports devices (pcs, peripherals) for schools to build their labs.
2. Working with existing esports labs to be official game locations schools can use/book for matches.
3. Fundraising Initiatives
4. Expanding the league with more schools
4. Providing more “out of classroom” opportunities (fieldtrips, etc.)
This helps us know where coaches would like us to help and the top two answers involve helping programs with equipment/having a lab to play at. These are huge because the more we can help with getting programs a place to play at, the more kids could become involved and won’t need their own gear to participate. That is one of esports’ biggest obstacles and barriers to entry. We will be looking into partnerships and resources that help our programs acquire this equipment.
Q: Of the following games which would you like to see MNVL add based on student interest (Note, some games cannot be added due to exclusive contracts or lack of custom lobbies. Those are: Blizzard titles, EA titles)
No new titles have enough interest to support an entire league. We will continue to poll programs on our titles each season.
Feedback
We can’t thank the coaches enough who took the time and completed the end of year coaches survey. We want to hear every opinion and critique so we can continue to make this a better league for you all. This is valid during the season as well and not just at the end of year coaches meeting. If at any point you have feedback for MNVL, please share it with us! This is your league and without you all it wouldn’t be the community it is today.
Spring ‘23 Season Introduction
The MNVL crew will be working hard to make improvements to the league accordingly based on our coaches feedback. Although we’re still chipping away at those, we want to let you know of some early title additions and important dates for this season.
Important Spring ‘23 Dates:
Spring Registration Opens: January 30th
Spring Registration Closes: February 15th
Start of The Season All Coaches Meeting: February 15th
Preseason Begins: February 20th
Regular Season Begins: March 6th
Regular Season Ends: April 30th
State Finals: TBA
*Another newsletter will be sent out before spring registrations close. It will be more informational about spring and help coaches and players make sure they’re prepped for the season!
NEW TITLES:
SMITE:
Game Mode: 5v5 MOBA
Signup Bonuses (From Hi-Rez): Free god pack, free premium skin, and 100k gems to top 8 teams ($1000+ Value).
FORTNITE:
Game Mode: 2v2 Box Fights, Zone Wars, and Realistics
MNVL Youtube
View our new YouTube channel where we will highlight our players in weekly content!