'Berg Esports player goes semi-pro

A member of Heidelberg Esport’s team has gone semi-pro!

Corbin Sturgeon recently transferred to Heidelberg after starting out at Terra State Community College. At Terra State, Corbin played on their Esports team, and when they arrived to Heidelberg, they helped form a Mario Kart team within Berg Esports. But now, Corbin is going semi-pro!

Corbin was doing an interview with a Mario Kart Pro Twitch streamer over spring break last month. “I’ve always wanted to join a professional team.” Corbin shared. This Twitch streamer invited them to join the discord for his team and meet everybody at MKUniversity, just to get to know each other. 

For those unfamiliar, there are about 20 different divisions for competing in Mario Kart. While most casual players are used to vying for first place against their friends and several CPU (competitors created by the computer itself, and powered by Artificial Intelligence), Professional Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is played differently: in teams. Rather than play against any CPU, two groups of 6 join the same race virtually. MKUniversity, which stands for “Mario Kart University,” is one of these teams, a pro team made up of college students.

Corbin made a stellar impression, and was quickly invited to join a new B team that MKUniversity was working on developing, MKCollege. “This is a whole new learning experience,” Corbin explained, “because I’m used to playing individually. It’s been fun to learn all of the different callouts for these games.”

The members of each team communicate with their fellow teammates over a voice channel on their headsets. They coordinate their efforts with the goal of making sure that their team accumulates more points and places ultimately higher than the opposing team. In a chaotic digital world of bananas, golden mushrooms and blue shells, this requires a great deal of strategy and sportsmanship.

“There are two ‘positions’ that you can be in the Mario Kart team, Runners and Baggers, but it depends on the map,” Corbin detailed. Runners are just that! They do their best to get into 1st, or as close to it as possible, and try to stay there until the finish line. “Baggers hang back, where you’re situated to get more of the better items. They try to get items that will help the runners and the whole team in the long run.” The baggers work together to coordinate their attacks on the opposing team. “We use callouts, like ‘3, 2, 1, activate,’ or ‘Ready, activate,’ so we all know to throw our items at the same time.”

It’s fair to say that Corbin is passionate about Esports and Mario Kart in particular. “I’ve formed bonds with fellow Heidelberg students since starting on our Esports team, which led me to MKCollege, in a way.” Corbin continued. “Now I’m interacting with people all across the United States who love competing in this game.” At the end of the day, Corbin just wants to “make both my teams at Heidelberg and MKCollege proud, and everyone who has supported me. Esports has helped me become a better person. I take it seriously, and I hope all of Esports and competitive gaming is taken seriously.”

The season for a semi-pro Mario Kart 8 Deluxe team is about three months. Since starting, Corbin has had a lot of fun meeting the team and getting to play a favorite game in a new way. “We may not do the best, points wise, but this is a good team for me. We’re going to have fun, and kick as many butts as possible!”