SEMO’s esports Club held tryouts for their Super Smash Bros. team Tuesday, Feb. 1. These tryouts occur twice per year, at the beginning of each semester.

Super Smash Bros. is a crossover fighting game series published by Nintendo and features characters from various Nintendo franchises. In this game, the player controls these characters, and players must use different attacks to weaken their opponents and knock them out of an arena.

Southeast’s Smash Bros. team is composed of 16 players, and the top eight participate in tournaments.

The esports community at Southeast welcomes gamers of any level to play, whether to try out for one of their nine teams or to play games casually.

Senior Cody Bunger has played for SEMO since the beginning of esports, when they opened three and a half years ago. To best prepare himself for tournaments and tryouts, he said he practices a lot, looks up who he’s going to play beforehand and makes sure his game sense and in-game knowledge are on-point.

“Find a game you like and what you’re good at and focus on getting better, but don’t fixate on that,” Bunger said. “Just try to have fun.”

Junior Reece Wehmeyer started esports two years ago and said he prepares for tryouts by playing frequently beforehand and drinking a lot of caffeine to get himself wired.

“It doesn’t matter what game you’re playing, people will always be here to play with you and are always here to get better,” Wehmeyer said. “Show up, and don’t be intimidated. Even if you’ve never played before, people are always here to help.”

Esports coordinator Ricky Reed moved to Southeast from out of state to take up his position in December. Reed said he’s looking forward to seeing students finally get to compete and get chances to win prize money. Esports has been a huge passion of his, and he’s been into it since 2010. Reed is ranked in World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike: Global Offense and more in competitions.

Reed said so far, the community here has been nothing but positive and friendly. Approximately 75 students this semester showed up for Smash Bros. tryouts, one of the team’s biggest turnouts.

Currently, there are more than 800 members in the esports Discord. Through the server, those interested can also gain access to the esports arena at their leisure.

To stay up-to-date on all of SEMO’s esports activities and matches, join their Discord server or find them on Twitch.