uLoL Semifinals Preview: RMU vs. Maryland

It's time to bust out those fight songs as the 2016 uLoL Campus Series Playoffs are over and the Semifinals are right around the corner!

Robert Morris University and the University of Maryland will meet each other as the representatives of the North and the East respectively. The winner heads to the Finals, where they will be one step away from the uLoL Championship.

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Robert Morris University has consistently been at the top of the pack when it comes to competitive League of Legends in North America. The only other team that has matched RMU's level of dominance this year has been The University of British Columbia, who upset RMU in the 2015 NACC FInals 3-0.

RMU’s bot lane easily has the biggest reputation of any team in the uLoL Campus Series. They’re considered by many to be nearly unstoppable, as they combine RMU’s meticulous strategies with Minibestia, who is well known as one of the most aggressive supports in North America.

As Minibestia puts it “I can tell when an enemy player is making a mistake, and I can immediately punish it.” Minibestia’s fearsome play style, combined with EvanRL’s savvy mechanics, has cemented RMU as one of the top teams in North America. They haven’t even dropped a single game in the entire Campus Series, no doubt in part to this “no mercy” playstyle the team has adopted.

You can be sure that RMU are chomping at the bit for a chance of redemption against UBC. They're not there yet though, and while UBC may be staring them down from across the bracket, they've still got to break through the shell of one of the best breakout teams of the uLoL season: Maryland.

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Maryland might be young, both in terms of the players and the organization, but they're hardly inexperienced. Five members of the team, including four starters, all attended Thomas S. Wootton High School. Wootton isn't just any high school either, they're the 2015 High School StarLeague Champions, giving them about as good a competitive LoL pedigree as any collection of freshman could possibly hope to achieve.

"For prep and practice, everyone on the team follows the competitive scene pretty closely," says Andy Zhang, Maryland’s coach. "We try to mirror what champions are being used competitively and implement them into our gameplay. When we prep against other teams we try to play around what we think is strongest in the meta," Zhang explains.

Even with this experience on a the new team, the squad struggled early in the season trying to find their university level footing, and ended up role-swapping several times before landing back on the positions they held in HSL. It was more than testing out new roles though, explains Lutano. "We are all fairly greedy players in game so it was important to figure out who to give the resources to. After we figured that out, we have only dropped one game which was in our best of five against Stony Brook."

Maryland has a lot to prove in the upcoming match against Robert Morris, but they are well equipped to handle anything thrown at them. One thing is for sure though, Maryland is going to be one of the best teams to watch in the years to come.

Viewing the uLoL Finals

The uLoL Finals will be hosted at PAX East this year and the four best collegiate teams will duke it out for the Campus Series trophy! You can catch the games broadcasted live on April 23rd-24th over on watch.lolesports.com and on our new Facebook page! Need to catch up on all the action so far? Subscribe to uLoL’s YouTube page and follow us on Twitter for more collegiate League of Legends!