This is the full text of cstarleague, 10/12/2017.

Lineup: Toy, food, 4sh0t, Yudickmeister, versace

Matches: 

16-1 vs Rochester Institute of Technology
16-3 vs University of Rochester
FFW vs Carnegie Mellon
FFW vs Pennsylvania Institute of Technology
16-9 vs State University of New York - Binghamton
16-11 vs Pennsylvania State University
16-4 vs New York University

Overview: Baruch College finishes the fall season undefeated, as expected from last year’s champions.  With some very convincing wins over the other top teams in this division (16-4 against NYU and 16-1 against RIT), this team is still looking strong.  However, they’re not unstoppable as they’ve had closer games against the weaker opponents in their group (16-11 vs PSU, 16-9 vs Binghamton).  It’s hard to say whether they were taking these games seriously or just sandbagging a little bit, but regardless it shows that there is potential for another top team to challenge them as the year progresses.

Why are they in 1st? With their results in this group, they haven’t shown any real signs of slowing down.  The  amount of high level experience on this team still makes me believe they’re the favourite.

Lineup: SPERMY, LeNnox, Welshy, AwoL, Reality

Matches: 

16-4 vs University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
16-4 vs University of Kentucky
16-2 vs Northern Kentucky University
16-0 vs Dakota State University
16-1 vs Trine University
FFW vs Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Overview: Robert Morris University finishes the fall season undefeated, and with a roster of this amount of skill, it doesn’t surprise me at all.  With extremely solid 16-4 wins against UIUC and Kentucky, who finished 2nd and 3rd in this group, this team is looking scary.  

Why are they in 2nd? Although this team is extremely strong, they don’t practice very much together.  In terms of individual skill, they have all the right pieces but not enough to rival the amount of skill on Baruch. If they practice together, they have a great chance of giving Baruch a run for their money.

Lineup: richie, strata, hero, Impetuous, Derpachu, Zer0_0

Matches: 

16-3 vs Simon Fraser University
16-9 vs St. Clair College
16-5 vs University of Ontario Institute of Technology 
16-0 vs Sheridan College
16-2 vs Wilfrid Laurier University
16-5 vs Lambton College

Overview: The University of British Columbia finishes the fall season undefeated.  Although now with only richie and strata being the only starters from last year’s team, the team is still on route to repeating much of their success.  With no teams getting over 9 rounds over them, they’re looking sharp.

Why are they in 3rd? Despite their great success in this fall season, this squad hasn’t truly been tested yet.  They don’t seem to practice very much at all together which may hurt them when they end up facing a team with stronger individual skill.  If they start putting time in together, they could very well have the edge against a team like RMU or Baruch (teams that barely put any time together practicing.)

Lineup: iHiro, Schooled, -RoYaL, cullican, Reecha

Matches:

14-16 vs University of California: Irvine
16-4 vs Concordia University
16-0 vs University of California: Berkeley
16-4 vs University of California: Los Angeles
16-7 vs University of California: Santa Cruz
16-12 vs University of California: Riverside

Overview: In arguably one of the toughest groups for this first Fall semester, UCSD have had the most consistent results against the likes of UCI and UCLA, and finishing with a 6-1 record.  With a 14-16 loss against UCI and a 16-4 victory against UCLA, they’ve had the most convincing results in this weird UCI-UCLA-UCSD triangle.  (UCI > UCSD 16-14, UCLA > UCI 16-11, UCSD > UCLA 16-4)

Why are they in 4th? UCSD, much like the other teams above them in this ranking, also haven’t practiced very much at all together.  In one of my previous articles, I mentioned that much of the core has played together in ESEA.  I believe this will be one of their strongest points heading into the Spring season, as Hiro also told me that they will be putting in more time together as a team.  

Lineup: Strawberry, ROKURO, maRk0, Raan, Alliar, XinKong

Matches:

16-14 vs University of California: San Diego
11-16 vs University of California: Los Angeles
16-8 vs University of California: Santa Cruz
16-7 vs University of California: Riverside
16-3 vs University of California: Berkeley
FFW vs Concordia University

Overview: UCI had great results in arguably one of the toughest regions for this Fall semester, as they were able to achieve a 6-1 record.  UCI was part of this weird UCI-UCLA-UCSD triangle (UCI > UCSD 16-14, UCLA > UCI 16-11, UCSD > UCLA 16-4), but were able to take it against UCSD in their week 1 match.  Outside of the triangle, their results have been very convincing, as UCSD and UCLA definitely had their struggles (UCSD dropping 12 rounds against UCR, UCLA dropping 14 rounds against UCR).  

Why are they in 5th? Although UCI is only in 5th, there are many reasons why they likely won’t stay at 5th for a long time. They compete together on an ESEA-Intermediate team together and finished with a 9-7 record in Season 26.  With a great leader in Strawberry and a mostly overhauled roster from last year, they still have lots of room to improve.  At the same time, will their individual skill be enough to rival the individual skill of all the teams above them?

Lineup: N3XT, MASOR, atc, s0ggy, Doofus

Matches:

22-18 vs University of Ottawa
16-13 vs University of Montreal
16-1 vs ETS
16-1 vs McMaster University
16-10 vs Carleton University
16-4 vs University of Toronto

Overview: Ryerson was able to pull together an impressive undefeated Fall season.  With their closest games being a 22-18 victory over the University of Ottawa (a top 8 team last year that oddly went 2-5 this Fall season) and a 16-13 victory over the Universite de Montreal, Ryerson has definitely made their presence known.  N3XT and MASOR have definitely been huge in the fragging department for this team and are a big reason for their success.  These guys also scrimmed together on ESEA from time to time, which is more than what some of the other teams in the top 10 can say.

Why are they in 6th? Ryerson has all the right pieces to go beyond the 6th position in this ranking.  They have the skills and they’ve shown that they have more commitment than some of the other teams here.  The question is how far do they want to take it?

Lineup: Montee, SolGoat, efrentheroker, FlakesLmao, hDhK

Matches:

16-1 vs University of Utah
16-5 vs University of Washington
16-0 vs Michigan State University
16-11 vs University of Minnesota
16-1 vs University of Wisconsin Madison
16-8 vs University of Nevada, Reno
16-4 vs Maryville University

Overview: University of Colorado Boulder had an extremely strong showing this Fall season, going undefeated with the only double digit game against the University of Minnesota.  The work is definitely paying off as they were able to easily dispatch Maryville University by a score of 16-4 as well.  This Boulder team also competed in ESEA-Intermediate this season, and finished with a 9-7 record.

Why are they in 7th? Boulder is in a very similar situation as UCI; they have many of the pieces to go far this year.  Their results have been impressive this fall semester, and they competed in ESEA-Intermediate Season 26, finishing with a 9-7 record.  They’ve been putting in the work, but will their individual skill be enough to match the other top teams in the league?

Lineup: cdub, Jeremyy, freaL, armon, vlash, cocabuttuh, d0m^K, omniscient

Matches:

16-2 vs California Poly Pomona
FFW vs California State University: Long Beach
16-2 vs Grand Canyon University
16-6 vs University of Arizona
19-15 vs Arizona State University
16-4 vs San Diego State University

Overview: San Jose State University has definitely shown some of their vintage 2015-2016 form, going undefeated in this division.  With big wins over University of Arizona (although a little bit skewed due to the ping situation in that game) and Arizona State University, combined with the fact that many of them compete on the same ESEA-Intermediate team, it’s all starting to come together.

Why are they in 8th? Although SJSU seems to have found form, the competition in their group, apart from UofA and ASU, isn’t very representative of where this team is relative to all of the other top teams in the league.  Hopefully when the Spring rolls around, we’ll be able to see what SJSU is truly capable of.

Lineup: Chaz_, Akathevirus, CEGUSVTW, blurray, SacredDoughnut1

Matches: 

16-4 vs Stevens Institute of Technology
16-12 vs Rutgers University
16-1 vs West Virginia University
16-0 vs Averett University
16-5 vs Clemson University
16-3 vs Rutgers University
16-14 vs Virginia Tech
16-9 vs West Virginia University

Overview: Virginia Commonwealth University has broken into the top 10 after having an extremely convincing Fall semester, going undefeated.  One of their closest games was against Virginia Tech, one of the most highly anticipated match-ups of the season in my opinion, where they came out on top in 16-14 fashion.  VCU competed in ESEA-Open in Season 26, going 10-6 and losing in the first round of playoffs.

Why are they in 9th? The biggest things that VCU has going for them is that they have experienced players in Chaz and Akathevirus, who have played in ESEA-Main, and as well as the fact that they compete together on an ESEA-Open team.  They went 11-5 in the regular season, but 0-1 in playoffs.  Regardless, this is a team I’m expecting to see good things from, but they will have to prove it against the bigger competition in the league first. 

Lineup: HEROXOR, Gh0st, malF, sm00vy, spher

Matches:

16-0 vs University of Tennessee, Knoxville
16-10 vs Texas Tech University
FFL vs University of North Texas
16-14 vs University of Houston
16-3 vs University of Texas Dallas
16-14 vs University of Texas at Arlington
16-8 vs University of Texas at Austin 

Overview: Texas A&M University break into the top 10 after having fought in one of the weirdest groups in CSL this year.  With so many mixed results among so many of the teams, A&M was able to win all the matches they played, as they suffered one FFL against North Texas.  To get an idea of who they are as players, Gh0st has competed in ESEA-MDL before, HEROXOR and malF have competed in ESEA-Intermediate, and sm00vy has competed in ESEA-Open.  Additionally,  much of this core of A&M was able to reach the top 16 last year, until falling to the University of Ottawa playing 4v5. 

Why are they in 10th? A&M definitely has potential to make it far in this league, but they don’t seem to practice together at all.  Many of these players still play the game individually and have shown that they’re capable players outside of the CSL, but can they put it all together against the top teams in the league?