The Texas Wesleyan eSports Hearthstone team started their season on Oct. 1, with weekly matches 7 p.m. every Monday through Nov. 12.

According to Eugene Frier, executive director of eSports and recreation, depending on how the individual matches go, each competition night is generally 60-70 minutes long, and matches can be viewed on the eSports Twitch page http://www.twitch.tv/txwes_esports.

Frier wrote in an email that each week is a best-of-five competition. The first team to three wins gets a victory for the week.

“We play against different teams each week and are given our next opponent in our region at the end of the week before our competition,” Frier wrote.

Frier wrote that Hearthstone lost their first and fourth games but won their second, third and fifth games with these scores: University of Alabama 3- TWES 2, on Oct. 1,; Saint Leo University 2- TXWES 3 on Oct. 8; University of Texas-Dallas 2-TXWES 3 on Oct. 15; Auburn University 3- TXWES 2 on Oct. 22.

The Hearthstone team was scheduled to play the University of Alabama-Birmingham on Monday, but they forfeited, so Wesleyan won, Frier wrote.

Frier explained how the scores are determined and how the team prepares and practices for matches like these.

“It is best of 5 series of 1vs1 matches to determine the winner,” Frier wrote. “We looked at the decks our opponents ran and came up with decks that were good counters to them.”

Senior business major Jacob Chesney, who is captain of the Hearthstone team, adds that the team practices by evaluating what other teams have brought in the past and mastering his team’s decks that they prefer to bring.

“Doing these two things allows us to predict and adapt to what our opponents bring.” Chesney wrote in an email.

Despite losing their first and fourth games, senior business management major Chris Austin wrote in an email, winning two out of three matches was amazing.

“When I first started to play Hearthstone competitively, we would struggle to win during the early matches and that put us in a bad position late [in the] season,” Austin wrote. “Winning this early has allowed us to not stress late [in the] season and play calm and collective to advance to the semifinals this season.”

Another team member who was excited to win was junior psychology major Gordon Armbruster.

“It was an amazing once and a life time experience,” Armbruster wrote in an email. “I hope to continue on our win streak.”