League of Legends World Championship

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I love e-sports! I have touched on a couple of tournaments in my reviews such as Blizzards WCS for Starcraft and Valve's The International for DOTA2. E-sports is constantly growing and gaining ground in the mainstream and is being legitimized and recognized all around the world. The Season 3 World Championship for League of Legends just started and Phil has written up a nice overview of the first day of the tournament. I am thinking of doing a sort of e-sports round up so let me know what you think about that idea. Anyway, below is Phil's first impressions of the Season 3 League of Legends World Championship:


Season 3 World Championship:

First things first, it's World Championship time for League of Legends! Right now, things are in the group stages in Los Angeles, with 10 teams in two groups looking to come out on top during a double round robin (best of one). Every team will play the other teams in their group twice during the week with the top two teams in each group heading to the Quarterfinals and meeting four teams that are already in the next stage, due to coming in first in the regional qualifiers.

Group 1:
- OMG
- SK Telecom T1
- Lemondogs
- TeamSoloMid Snapdragon
- Gaming Gear.EU

Group 2:
- Samsung Ozone
- Team Mineski
- Gambit BenQ
- Fnatic
- Vulcan TechBargins

Bye:
- Royal Club
- Cloud 9 HyperX
- Gamania Bears
- NaJin Black Sword

Catch the current standings of the group stage here.

ONG vs. SK Telecom T1
In addition to the run-down, I managed to catch two of the group play games, starting with OMG vs. SKT T1.

Sure enough, the big players were Cool (OMG) versus Faker (SKT S1) in the mid lane. While OMG was able to take the match, Faker was the MVP of the match. As Gragas, his lane phase was high pressured and his ultimate usage was superb, constantly knocking Cool or others into turrets and managing to Flash himself away from danger over walls.

What took OMG over the top was their strategic command of objectives, surgically cutting them down as the match went on. GoGoing was able to maintain an uncontested dominance in the top lane, allowing vision and jungle control for LoveLin.

Vulcan TechBargins Vs. Fnatic

While the original projections and polls favored Fnatic, the choice of Yorick and some early game give-ups by Fnatic allowed Vulcan to take control of the map and gold in a way that made it impossible for Fnatic to come back. Vulcan's Zuna on Corki was impressive, with a highlight being blocking a Caitlin ultimate to save Xmithie during a teamfight by skill shotting in the way. Fnatic's xPeke just couldn't be the deciding factor they needed in mid to take back control. Additionally, late game Orianna controlled by mancloud allowed for total control of team fights and an unmatched dueling ability for the North American team. Vulcan answered the critics questions about their late game positional in this first game.  


Riot has done an amazing job at promoting and helping the League of Legends community grow and grow. LoL is by far the top e-sport out there right now and the games shown at Worlds are only going to get better and better. Much more will come from us on the tournament and e-sports in general. So while you wait for the next write up, go check some out and sit back and enjoy watching the top tier teams battle it out for a chance at $1 million!


Thanks for reading and until next time:

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