Worlds Ahead
World’s biggest eSports tournament set for October
By Bigoa Machar, Publishing Editor
With approximately 36 million viewers for last year’s finals, the Season 6 League of Legends world championship is set to take place on Sept. 29. With a prize pool of $1 million up for grabs, 16 of the best squads from six regions across the world will go head to head for five weeks to determine who is the champion of Summoner’s Rift.
Leading the way for North America are Team Solomid, who took home the championship trophy for the 2016 Summer Split. Led by midlaner 3-time MVP Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and superstar AD Carry Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, Team Solomid are the favourites to win their group, over Korean Team Samsung Galaxy and European team Splyce. As North America’s best chance to take home a World Championship trophy, Team Solomid will definitely be the team to watch throughout the tournament.
Other North American teams playing the tournament are Spring Split champions and Mid-Season invitational runner ups Counter Logic Gaming and North American Gauntlet winners Could 9.
Another storyline to follow is the fallout from Group A, which arguably the hardest group of the tournament. Joining Counter Logic Gaming will be Korean Champions and pre-tournament favourites ROX Tigers, European Spring Split champions G2 eSports and Russian Wild Card team Albux Nox Luna. With Counter Logic Gaming and coming off a disappointing 4th place finish in the Summer Split and G2 coming in on a hot streak after winning Europe, it’s hard to put any team above the other in this group. With ROX a head above all the other teams, Counter Logic Gaming and G2 eSports will be scrapping it out for the second seed to advance to the quarterfinals.
Reigning champions SKT Telecom T1 out of Korea will open up their title defence in Group B. Paired with Cloud 9, Taiwan’s Flash Wolves and China’s I May. With 2015 Worlds MVP Jang “MaRin” Gyeong-Hwan and super sub Lee “Easyhoon” Ji-hoon no longer with the squad, it’s up to Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok to carry his squad out of the group. With Cloud 9 making an impressive run throughout the Summer and Flash Wolves having an impressive track record at international tournaments, the road to repeating will be much tougher this time around.
The 2016 League of Legends World Championship tournament will be streamed for free on Twitch and YouTube. Be sure to follow @lolesports on Twitter to keep up with all of the updates throughout the entire tournament.
