This fall, a new club was put together to play the League of Legends online computer game. 

League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena or MOBA video game. Players assume the role of a “champion,” a character that can have a variety of abilities and traits ranging from magic to brute strength. 

The club was established by two students, Russia junior Oleg Nesterov and Belarus junior Aliaksei Taranda, who serve as the co-presidents.

The whole purpose for creating the club was to form a community around the game. During the meetings, group members bring laptops and play the game together.

“We really wanted to find people who played the game to build a community and find people with the same goals and interests as us,” Nesterov said. 

The goal of the game is to destroy the main building of the other team, called the Nexus. The game is played across a series of maps ranging from forests to a village.

 The maps usually consist of obstacles and creatures called minions that must be overcome in order to reach the opponent’s Nexus. Players must be mindful of other hostile players as well.

As the game is played, players can receive benefits to make their character stronger.

About 27 million people play the game daily, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The club started off with 11 members, but because of networking the group ended up tripling the amount of players it had within three weeks after it was formed.

Taranda said the group grew as they began promoting the game on behalf of Riot Games, the company that made League of Legends. The promotion is done through the distribution of merchandise related to the game, such as keychains and wristbands.

There are two parts of the club, the community, in which group members play the game for leisure and the competitive team, which consists of five players that play on a more serious level.

Cadiz junior Fay Rea, one of the two female members of the group, said she’s been playing the game for nearly a year.

“I been playing this since January and I know a lot of other girls that play this game,” she said. “I kind of found the club randomly, I was talking about the professional League of Legends competitions and one of the presidents overheard me and told me about the club.” 

Rea said she likes to play League of Legends, but she wouldn’t say she plays it more than any other game.

Although there are more competitive sides to the game, Nesterov said he doesn’t take the game very seriously. 

“It’s just a hobby,” he said. 

The club meets three times a week, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. at Downing Student Union in Room 2122.