League of Legends World Championship (Season 2)

Game version, popular champions and strategies

The championship was held on the version of the game v1.0.0.147 World Championship Hotfix Patch from September 18 ^[2] , in which the champions Renhar, Sindra and Kaziks ^[3] were not available. Specially for the tournament, the Championship Riven skin was released (in Russian localization - Riven champion ^[4] ) ^[5] .

In the second season (2012), a counter-jungle strategy appeared ( English Counterjungle , literally “discourage a forester” - a farm of neutral monsters [ NPC ] on the enemy side of the map ^[6] ). Champions were able to prevail on the top line, able to quickly push creeps to the enemy tower, and then go to the farm of neutral monsters in the forest ^[7] . For Moscow Five, this strategy was the main ^[8] .

The middle line was occupied by the champions whose task was to farm the gold to assemble objects in order to use their strength in battles at the late stage of the game ^[9] .

By the beginning of the championship, the teams had found a remedy against intrusions into their own forest in the form of Nuno, the most popular champion in the Season One Championship ^[10] . It was a flexible choice for teams: it could be used as a forester and as a support ^[7] .

Organization

The organization of the championship and the selection for it cost Riot Games $ 2 million - 40% of the total developer costs for League of Legends tournaments for the second season. The prize pool of the championship of the second season amounted to $ 2 million, half of this amount was due to the winner of the tournament ^{[11] [12]} .

Matches were commented on by Deman , Phreak , Jatt and Rivington , and the event itself was hosted by Marcus “ djWHEAT ” Graham and Rachel “ Seltzer ” Quirico ^{[13] [14]} .

Over 8 million viewers watched the championship broadcasts, with a maximum of 1.1 million simultaneous viewers during the final. It was the highest rate for e-sports broadcasts at that time ^[15] .

Qualifications

Participants qualified for the regional league finals:

• China: July 26 - Shanghai, China at China Joy - 2 teams;
• Europe: August 16 - Cologne, Germany at the Gamescom exhibition - 3 teams;
• North America: August 30 - Seattle, USA on PAX Prime - 3 teams;
• Taiwan / Hong Kong / Macau: September 1 - Taipei, Taiwan on the G1 - 1 team;
• Southeast Asia: September 9 - Danang, Vietnam at the Tien Son Sports Palace - 1 team;
• Korea: September 21 - Seoul, South Korea at the OGN eSports Stadium - 2 teams ^[16] .

Format

• Among the 5 teams that won first places in their leagues - Team SoloMid , Moscow Five , Team WE , Taipei Assassins and Azubu Frost - cast lots to determine which team will participate in the group stage
  • This team turned out to be Azubu Frost;
• 8 teams are divided into 2 groups of 4 teams;
• the group stage passes through a circular system, Bo1;
• 2 best teams from each group go to the playoffs;
  • in case of equality of points of 2 teams, between them one game is played in the format before the first blood . If there are three teams, the teams play in a circle until the winner is identified ^[17] ;
• Grand final in Bo5 format, the rest of the playoff matches - Bo3;

Prize Fund

Group Stage

Playoffs

Playoff matches were held from October 5 to 6. The final took place on October 13, it was attended by 10 thousand fans, the broadcast was conducted in 13 languages ^{[11] [12]} , the professional team from Taiwan “ Taipei Assassins ” defeated the team “ Azubu Frost ” from South Korea with a score of 3-1 ^{[19 ]} .

All-Star Showmatch

Final position

Several top teams missed the World Cup, including the Fnatic and Azubu Blaze teams. Some ^{[ who? ]} believe that the real world championship in League of Legends was the tournament IGN Pro League 5 ^[20] .

In the quarter-finals match, Chan “Gun” Wung from the Azubu Frost team cheated, turning his head to look at the large screen that was behind him. The screen, intended for viewing by viewers, contains elements that are hidden from players within the game. The Azubu Frost teams were fined $ 30,000 ^{[21] [22] [23]} .

During the last quarter-final Bo3 match, on October 6th, between the European Counter Logic Gaming EU team and the Chinese World Elite, there were numerous technical problems. At about the twentieth minute of the second game, the network connection in the arena disappeared, which led to the cessation of broadcasting on Twitch.tv , the disconnection of all ten players from the game and the forced replay. Then, around the sixtieth minute of the third game, the network again “fell”. A final attempt was made to complete the third game, but due to network outages and technical problems, including a faulty computer of the player who had to be replaced, the last game and the following semifinals were moved to Galen Center on October 10, in which construction work. The cause of the connection problems has not been determined, but there is a suspicion that they were caused by a hardware failure ^{[24] [25] [26]} .