When Skyler Hoke heard Carl Sandburg College was starting a competitive esports program, he didn’t need anyone to convince him to sign up.
“I believe I joined esports the first day it was available,” said Hoke, a sophomore who graduated from United High School.
After becoming one of the first players in the history of Sandburg esports, Hoke is now on the verge of becoming its first national champion. Hoke will play in the semifinals of the NJCAA Esports Hearthstone spring championship at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The championship match is scheduled for 8 p.m. that evening.
Hoke is unbeaten this year, going 9-0 during the regular season and earning the No. 2 seed in the playoffs. He won his quarterfinal match last week against the No. 7 seed from Bryant & Stratton, and with the tournament’s top seed getting eliminated in the quarterfinals, Hoke is the top-ranked player remaining.
“I would say I’m definitely surprising myself,” Hoke said, “but I had some confidence in myself coming in.”
While most other competitive esports games, such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or Rocket League, require players to have quick reaction times, Hearthstone is a strategy-based card game that Hoke said bears some similarities to Magic: The Gathering and chess. In it, players amass a collection of unique cards to build four decks of 30. Ahead of each one-on-one match, both players can protect one of their decks and ban one of their opponent’s decks. Then they play a best-of-five series.
“You truly think about if I played this card to my opponent, then they play a better card that will counter my current turn and maybe my future turns as well,” Hoke said. “You have to think three or four moves ahead. It’s more of a mental game, a strategy game, and really think about what moves you’re going to do.”
If players aren’t careful, the cards and decks they’ve spent the entire season building and fine-tuning can get “nerfed,” or changed to become less effective or powerful, by their opponent.
“With card games like this there’s a lot of balance changes,” Hoke said. “Just recently, there were some really powerful decks that people have built that basically got nerfed to where they are not really playable anymore. I’m always constantly adjusting to nerfs and balance changes in general, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how my newly built decks perform in the playoffs.”
While Hoke is one of the premier NJCAAE players in the country in Hearthstone, he hadn’t played the game much until he came to Sandburg. Once he saw the team offered it, he started practicing more and studying the YouTube videos and streams of top players. His hard work is paying off this year, as he has spent most of the season near the top of the rankings. Two of Hoke’s victories came against opponents whose only loss was to him.
“Once I started practicing more and started rising through the ranking system,” Hoke said, “I realized how much stress was involved and how much of a mental challenge was involved.”
Hoke, who will transfer to Northern Illinois University after this semester and study computer science, said he had already planned to enroll at Sandburg after high school. Being part of the Chargers’ first esports team and building new relationships through it eased his transition to college.
“Playing esports,” Hoke said, “definitely helped me feel like I fit in at Sandburg and like I belonged more.”
***Report Courtesy of Carl Sandburg College***
