Dark skies, pounding rain and vicious winds can only mean that Autumn has truly arrived and with it the League of Legends World Championships 2019 has truly kicked off. One of the biggest E- Sports events of the year, the World Championships will be held from October the 2nd to November
the 10th in countries and cities all across Europe.
The schedule boasts twenty-four teams who all qualified to participate, including last year’s champion’s Invictus Gaming who won a whopping $2,418,750 at their last outing but will they be victorious once again? With the only change to their roster being their coach, the outcome may seem likely.
The More You Know
League of Legends takes place in the fictional world of Runeterra. The champions of Runeterra, a collection of heroes and villains, battle for control using a mixture of swords and sorcery. In a casual game of co-op play, each member of a team will work together to battle back the minions and members of the opposing team and destroy their Nexus like a fantastical game of capture the flag.
This week saw the end of the Play-In stage, where twelve teams of fresh faced challengers to the crown competed to get a chance to knock Invictus Gaming from their throne. These twelve mighty teams would be reduced to four main competitors through two rounds of intense combat in the
battlegrounds of the LEC Studio, Berlin.
The teams were split into four groups, and the first round began where the dominant warriors demonstrated their skills with excellent displays of confident manoeuvres. The second round confirmed their entry to the group stage, welcoming Damwon Gaming first as they blasted Lowkey
Esports away 3-1, followed by Clutch Gaming soundly seeing off Royal Youth 3-0.
They were joined by Hong King Attitude thwarting Isurus Gaming with a defeat of 3-1 but the final battle of the stage was the most intense. Splyce faced off against Unicorns of Love who took an early swipe at the domineering team, but Splyce fought back and secured two victories in a row but that confidence was badly rocked when Unicorns of Love took back control leading to a nailbiting finale.
The endgame was savage but culminated with Splyce destroying two of the Unicorns of Love bosses, going golden and walking uncontested into their Nexus which secured their place into the group stage.
The competition is definitely heating up now, the sixteen overall qualifying teams have been drawn into four groups with four teams in each group. All the next matches will be best of one, in a double round robin, where eight of the best teams will then enter the knockout stage.
Invictus Gaming aren’t the only returning champions of course, European runners up Fnatic and G2 Esports, alongside the Canadian/American spliced Cloud9 have picked up the gauntlet and returned to the
fight, as we head to the Group Stage which will unleash the mayhem on October 12th until the 20th in the Verti Music Hall, Berlin
