Yellow Jackets Beat Missouri Science and Tech 3-0 in Marvel Rivals Matchup 

By Balen Allain

On Tuesday night, October 7, Cedarville’s Marvel Rivals team clashed against Missouri Science and Tech, ultimately coming out victorious, 3-0.  

Marvel Rivals is a third-person hero shooter, where six-player teams select from a large roster of Marvel characters, like Iron Man and Doctor Strange. The matches are best of five, cycling between three game types – Domination, Convoy, and Convergence. In Domination, players must capture a zone before the other team does in a best-of-three matchup. In Convoy, the teams take a turn defending and escorting a moving payload; whichever team progresses the most, wins. 

Convergence is a mix of Domination and Convoy – after capturing a zone, players then must escort a payload to another zone, where the number of repetitions depends on the map played on. 

Matches start on Domination, change to Convoy, and then Convergence, and then to Domination and so on. 

Cedarville’s team was confident going forward but not assured of victory. 

“The team we beat 3-2 two weeks ago beat this team 3-0, so by extension of that we should win,” Logan “log_hoffman” Hoffman said, “but I’m not going to become complacent because of that.”  

His counterpart, Logan “H3RSCH” Herschberger, agreed. 

“I feel like we’re going to win,” Herschberger said. “We’re 2-0 this season.” 

The Domination game was close. In the first round, Cedarville stopped Missouri when they were at 99% zone control, then managed to fight them off and capture the zone. They handily won the second round. 

Hoffman says that their opponents weren’t holding formation. Teams are typically split into a front and a back line, where healers support damage dealers, dps or damage, as they’re called, and the tanks, a role where a character who can take a lot of hits draws the attention of the opposing team, up front. 

“They weren’t really coordinating themselves,” Hoffman said. “Their front line was not existent, so ours had a much easier time walking into their back line.” 

Hoffman noted that while they had won the Domination game, he wasn’t satisfied with their performance. 

“The reason that game was so disappointing in my eyes was that even though we won, we should be better at communicating,” Hoffman said. “That’s one of the things we’ve been hammering in as a core concept.” 

During the rest of the night’s match, the team encouraged each other to talk more. 

Convoy went smoothly. Cedarville was able to prevent Missouri from gaining a lot of ground while defending and pushed the payload significantly farther, putting them farther ahead at 2-0. 

Ryan “D3VX1SE” Mitchell was feeling confident going into Cedarville’s match point.  

“A single loss at this point wouldn’t really bother me,” Mitchell said. “I genuinely just enjoy playing with everyone.” 

The Convergence match didn’t last long. Cedarville crushed Missouri, preventing their progress and prevailing against them in offense. 

Herschberger was critical of his performance, though it wasn’t without improvement. 

“The best way to get out value out of a character is positioning well and using skills well, and I did neither of those things,” Herschberger said. “But I think we’ve gotten a lot better at communication.” 

Nathan “Booshenwaffen” Gavelin was pleased with the night. There was one thing on his mind: 

“My aim,” Gavelin said. “I play the characters where I can turn my brain off and then click away.” 

Gavelin noted that his aim was improving, but that the focus kept him silent and thus not communicating. Like the rest of the team, he felt that his callouts had improved. 

Cedarville’s Marvel Rivals team plays every Tuesday at 8 pm. Their games can be viewed on Cedarville University Esports’ YouTube and Twitch channels. 

Balen Allain is a junior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major focusing on Audio and Journalism. He enjoys gaming, writing fiction and making music.