China Wins League of Legends Worlds Final Decisively

Yes, BlizzCon was this weekend, which means that Blizzard has released a… let’s say flurry of new stuff. All very important stuff. But there’s another reason this weekend was so busy for gaming fans: it was also when Riot Games hosted the Finals for their World Championship, the culmination of a whole year’s worth of eSports.

If you missed it (and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did), for the most part this was an excellent year. Korea, who has historically dominated the world stage (because of course they would) has had one of their teams crowned World Champion over the last five years, a winning streak only disrupted in Season Two, when the winners were a Taiwanese team, and season one, when they weren’t even invited. But in an unprecedented turn, all the Korean teams were actually eliminated in the quarter finals, which meant that for the first time in a long time, another region was guaranteed the chance to hoist the winning prize, the “Summoner’s cup”

Semifinals were between one American team, two European teams, and a Chinese team, with the Americans and the Chinese never having won a worlds series before, and Europe having only won in season one. By the end of that weekend, the Americans and one of the European teams had been eliminated, which meant the final would be between the long-standing Europeans in Fanatic, and the Chinese juggernauts Invictus.

People were prepared for a heart-racing, bloody final. What they got, last weekend, was an absolutely humiliating 3-0 sweep from the Chinese team as they crushed the Europeans in decisive, brutal fashion. “Last western hope” indeed.

It was an emotional final, with both teams in tears by the end, but a sort of disappointing end to what was once the most exciting Worlds series I’d ever seen.

All the same, congrats to the winners.