The student news site of Oakton High School

Oakton Outlook

The student news site of Oakton High School

Oakton Outlook

The student news site of Oakton High School

Oakton Outlook

League of Legends World Championships to Conclude this Saturday

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This weekend marks perhaps the single biggest event to take place annually in the e-sports world: the league of legends world championship. After almost a month of games to progress from twenty teams down to a final two, there are many memorable moments to look back over and celebrate. As SKT Telecom and KOO Tigers prepare for a harrowing best of five series this Saturday, let us look over the long and twisted competition Worlds has been so far.

Perhaps first and foremost in the minds of heart-broken North American and European fans were the resounding defeats of all teams from both regions. North America looked to have a promising run this year, with teams Cloud 9 and Counter Logic Gaming doing unexpectedly well in the first three days of the group stage, but as quickly as the upsets came they left, and neither team progressed passed the stage in Paris.

European teams did a slight step better, with Origen and Fnatic both making it to the semi-finals with a roller-coaster record of success and failure. Origen, a team new to the e-sports world this year after being founded by the long time pro player Enrique ‘XPEKE’ Martinez did much better than expected, easily winning their group stage and progressing through quarterfinals. However, in the semis they wound up against the Korean team SKT Telecom, widely thought of as the best e-sports team in the world, and who this year have held a flawless record at World’s, going 9-0 as of the writing of this article. Origen, who had done so well in eariler stages, appeared to run into a brick wall during the match, and SKT progressed. With a roster of fearsome players and one win at World’s already in the bag, SKT is definitely thought of as the favorite to win.

Fnatic on the other hand, was expected to do much better in their semi-final game, but ended up losing in a shockingly one sided match against KOO Tigers. Many have written it up to poor performance by some of Fnatic’s best players, or simply the pressure of the world stage. Either way, one of the most promising teams of the year met a brief and remarkably unsatisfying end, something that has begun to characterize this year’s World’s.

It’s long been known that Korean and Chinese teams typically outdo their American and European counterparts, but to see it so clearly defined this year is another thing. SKT, as mentioned before, hasn’t lost a single game this month, and they haven’t even had their star player on the roster half the time. On top of this, both Fnatic and Origen had strong runs, until they came up against Korean teams, who both mopped the floor with them for lack of a better phrase. This left many Korean fans cackling with glee, but also has led to a lot of criticism of the unfairness of competition between different regions due to the player skill in other areas of the world. To break it down simply, it’s as if the Korean teams are the American basketball team at the Olympics. Sure, some other countries will give them trouble, but year after year they win the gold because no one else is anywhere near as good, and their own countries don’t have the same competitive scene America does.

Hopefully in the future we might see this change, but in the meantime, tune in this Saturday at 6 am to watch the final match between KOO and SKT being played in Berlin. The game should actually be pretty amazing in terms of level of play, so if you are unfamiliar with the e-sports scene you should tune in and give it a try. Maybe next year we’ll see some American faces on the stage, but for this year, Korea still reigns supreme.

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League of Legends World Championships to Conclude this Saturday