Leviathan’s captain is Clement Chui, a Year 2 Sem 2 Global Studies student. Clement initially signed up for the vice captain position, but was astonished to see that the captain position was vacant. Clement was pondering how he’d handle the responsibilities and his hefty units at first (Very relatable).

But, after some deliberation, he decided to seize this once in a lifetime opportunity and exclaimed, “Why not!”

Clement had to participate solely in Mobile Legends this semester due to his tight schedule.

Fortunately, Clement has had a lot of extra help. “You’re practically prepared to go if you have skilled secretaries, liaison officers, publicity, and vice. It’s actually extremely easy as a job to station everything really properly if the entire subcommittee is eager to support you” (Shoutout to you, Leviathan subcommittee!).

During the semifinals, PubG, Mobile Legends, CSGO, Dota, League of Legends, and Valorant will all be available to stream. In addition, players will be expected to open their webcams in the game preview. Interestingly as well, the players wear jerseys with their names on the back, despite the fact that the Monash Cup 2021 edition is predominantly an E-Gaming tournament. How legit!

The players of Leviathan have been instrumental in helping the entire house to thrive, filling up Google Docs to add their size, measurement, and address in order to make the jersey endeavour a success.

Clement also graciously allowed me to ask him a few other questions.

Q: How has the transition been from offline to online hosting of the Monash Cup? 

When it was offline, I didn’t really have the experience with the Monash Cup. 

But based on all of my seniors and how they talk about it, it felt really fun. All the cheering and the motivation, the outings with people in all the other sports you can do offline is good. I know the feeling because I’ve been competing before as well. 

When you transition to online, it’s more chill. For example, if you win a game against the other teams, you would just text in the group “Oh, we won. Ok I’ll text you later” and “Oh, congrats.” But you won’t be there to celebrate together, so usually we go on a call together and be like, “Yo, congrats!” 

It’s actually a really new perspective to actually feel and experience it, so I will say it’s quite good. Management wise, it’s quite difficult but you get the hang of it after that. 

Q: Following up on that, I mean, you kind of covered it, but is the current execution of the Monash Cup meeting your expectations?

Yeah, C&S is trying their best to reschedule here and there. What I like about C&S, especially covering the Monash cup right now, is that they’re really flexible. 

If you need rescheduling for the competition, because not everybody can fit within the time given. They’d actually give you the opportunity to reschedule. It’s open for discussion if you don’t like the option, instead of saying, “Oh no I’m the authority you should listen to me this and that”. So yeah, it’s actually really good. 

Q: In the future, would you like to continue to implement the E-Gaming section for Monash Cup when transitioning back to physical campus? 

Yeah, sure. At first, when Monash Cup actually implemented this, they wanted to implement both E-Gaming as well as offline if possible. I was actually really surprised because I was really hyped with both platforms. 

Some people are really thriving online but some are really good offline, in outdoor sports and stuff. And I will definitely encourage both as well because it gives out more hype during the sport season. 

Q: So I saw recently that there’s a new initiative that’s been very interesting and exciting, an online cheer pom competition! How’s that been so far?

I was really confused the first time when they implemented Online Cheer Pom. I actually had to talk with the Leviathan team captain of Cheer Pom and asked if they could give me a brief of what this is. 

I know cheerleading, right? It’s, you know, people doing acrobatics and doing cheers and stuffs. I know that but so I asked them, how will online cheer pom be any different? 

And to my surprise, they have an example video. It’s actually really interesting.

They give you a timespan of five to 10 minutes, and in that 10 minutes you get to record yourself, as well as, any pictures or videos of you doing the stunts. Usually what they do is they put on one whole video, and there’re different sections. So like, Cheer Pom 1, 2, and 3 are doing the same thing. Then below there, they have another three more cheerleaders doing the other things. So like the first panel, they go up, and then the other one below is going down.

If you edit it nicely, and the timing is really perfect, it feels really satisfying to watch because it’s so synchronised. It’s something that I never thought would happen. 

Q: Has the response been good so far in terms of engagement and interactivity?

The response at first was honestly not good at all.

We tried to recruit members, but no one was interested. We would ask “I think you have cheerleading backgrounds. Are you interested in this?” The response at first was like “I would be in cheerleading but not this because it’s online.”

I understand, you have to film yourself alone but there’re some people who are willing to take part and try on this thing.

Maybe as the season goes by, people actually try and there will be more and more people who are more curious about it. Right now, I would say it’s above average. It wouldn’t be really, really high. But it’s definitely enough to compete against.

Q: Describe Leviathan in 3 words and explain why you chose these words. 

The first one would definitely be chill.

This team is the chillest house I’ve ever met.  Even in high school the different houses I’ve been in are really competitive. When I was managing Leviathan, I asked them, “Oh, aren’t you guys going to train together? ” They’d be “Ah, it’s fine, We’re not gonna do that.” I was like, wow okay, let’s chill! 

The second one is definitely, especially the team captains for each game, who are very patient and honest.

Not only them,  the majority of the members are patient as well. You know how people in games can be toxic, especially in E-Games, they don’t hold back from typing stuffs and emote themselves.

But Leviathan is different. It is one of the most patient houses I’ve ever seen.

If they get stomped by an opponent they will just be “It’s fine. Calm down. You don’t have to start shit-talking other people.” That was really surprising because I thought I was being toxic. Then I met them I’m like, “Oh, well, I’m actually not just toxic. I’m very toxic”.

The last one is definitely teamwork based.

They really like to communicate. Whenever they win or they lose, they will be like “Guys pop into Discord. Let’s talk about the games, even though we had a loss, let’s discuss how to make it better.” We actually sync up and do it for the better of the team, especially those teams that went into lower brackets where they lost during the main stages. Because when you drop to the lower bracket, that’s the last chance for you to continue the competition. You could see the commitment they gave for the team.

Q: Leviathan’s motto is “Strive to thrive”, which is pretty relevant in these challenging uncertain times. How do you, as a captain, keep the whole house motivated to partake in the virtual Monash Cup during the pandemic? 

What I found out was, it was a joke at first, I told them, “if you guys win this, the entire house will treat you guys to McDonald’s.” And they actually won the game! So now I had to treat them to McDonald’s in stock! It was really funny.

Because, everyone is taking it really seriously. At the same time, it felt like a game more than a competition. You know?

Yes, it is a competition, but they took it more to the fun side and positive side. So it’s really good because like I said, it’s our teamwork and the attitude from each of them. They like to take it very seriously but also have fun at the same time. So it’s definitely how I motivate all of them with the help of my vice captains as well as my subcommittees. 

On a last note…

Finally, I asked if there’s any behind-the-scenes drama. Now, I have to be very vigilant while including the tea he spilled. “

There will undoubtedly be tea everywhere, especially in this kind of competitive scene,” he remarked. The information given to the house captains was a little out of date. He was always up to date thanks to the Leviathan team captains. It got to the point where all of the captains of each house had to join a discord chat to work out the kinks.

While wrapping up, I had to bring up the “I’m going to shine a bright light on the leviathan because we strive to thrive” line once more. 

Stay tuned for September 19th. Best of luck to Leviathan and the other three houses!

Article by Lay (Layan) Alkaf
Header by Angeline Ho