League of Legends E-Sports: A Weekend To Remember

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Last weekend demonstrated one of the highest level of play League of Legends history. In the 3 major regions of North America, Europe, and Korea, the finals took place. Every finals showed how strong each team was and how competitive it will be when the first international tournament MSI takes place.

Korea (LCK)- Korea has always been the region to beat. Korea constantly has the best teams and players every year. Last year was the first year where they looked shaky. At the World Championship, Korea was eliminated early in the first round of the knockout stage, but this year they come back with a vengeance. The finals in Korea was dominant this split. The 2 powerhouse teams SKT and Griffin went head to head to see who the best was. The story line going in was the old kings vs the new guard. SKT has a history of being the best team in the world for years, but when Griffin came into the league, they took it by storm. The series started out kind of close with both teams being even until SKT opened up the game. They took that momentum and used it for the rest of the series and took the series without losing a game. Off the back of the 2 carries Faker and Teddy, they manage to team fight well and play them to perfection. With how dominant SKT look, they seem to be the undisputed favorites for the MSI tournament.

North America (LCS)- In North America, we saw TSM and Liquid fight it out in one of the closest finals ever. This series was a nail biter going head to head in a close game 5.  The series started out super dominant from TSM, they used their strong solo lanes in Bjergsen and BrokenBlade to snowball huge leads in the mid to late game. Bjergsen played out of his mind and secured so many leads for this team to take into neutral objectives and towers. After Liquid fell 2 games in a row, they looked to bounce back. Liquid came into the split as the super team from North America that could be the regions chance to finally show how strong they could be, and they didnt upset. After being down 2 games, they showed that they can be resilient and come back. Liquid dominated 2 games in a row against TSM after the rough start, this lead to the final game 5 to determine who would take the finals and go to the first international tournament of the year. This game was the closest one of the series, TSM started off the game strong, they managed to gain a huge lead. Even though they were really ahead, they knew they would have to end the game fast or else Liquids team composition would win late game. This lead to Zven getting caught out at baron and allowed Liquid to get baron and snowball the game slowly. After Liquid got the baron off of Zven’s mistake, the took the game and the finals. Liquid is looking to be North America’s hope at MSI but it would be hard for them to overcome the strong teams from other regions.

Europe (LEC)- Europe had 2 matches this weekend instead of 1. Europe decided to change their format for the finals and it didn’t disappoint. The first match was between FNC and OG. FNC just came off of the best year in European history. They were the first Europe team to make it to a world final. They looked to be the fixed pick for this year in the LEC, but things didnt go as planned. FNC were the favorites for this series, OG looked shaky after their lost to G2 and FNC looked to be back in dominant form. This led to the community perception of this match to be boring and one sided. Even though the perception was correct, it was for the wrong team. OG showed that they could do one thing that FNC can’t, they adapted to the meta fast and use the strengths to catch FNC off guard. This led to them taking the first series and moving onto the final. Since OG looked strong going into the final, the community thought it would be close against the superteam G2. G2 decided that they wanted to show why this roster was the most hyped going into this season and they dominated OG. The series wasn’t close at all with G2 winning a game in just 18 minutes. Going into MSI G2 is looking to contest the superteam SKT and is Europes hope.