Legends Never Die

The Rift is wearing the Worlds color

From the 23rd of September until the 4th of November, the so waited World Championships finally arrived, to close this season. From Wuhan to Guangzhou, the fight is raging in the rift. We saw a lot of happiness but inevitably disappointments as well. However, this year will remain an excellent one, and one question rises again and again until the end, who'll win and become kings ? Who will earn the fantastic dotation of $1 000 000 (882 200 €) ? But before that, let’s jump back onto the Group Stage, where we got a lot of surprise !

Chase Your Legend

To make us wait before the real start, short videos were published on YouTube. In each of them, a player was presented as a defined quality, that a champion needs to have to win. Ambition for Doublelift in TSM, Resilience for Crown in the Samsung Galaxy team, and Strength for Xiaohu from RNG. These three big esport figures, tell their stories and by what then went through to become champions. Runaway to keep playing while his parents didn’t let him to, the return of a heartbroken man, and a player who was afraid to fall. It is in itself a real lesson for all of us, we learn from our mistakes and weaknesses, and to be a champion, work on the game and on ourselves is crucial and indivisible.

Chase Your Legend, Crown, Resilience

During the Group Stage, it’s without any surprise that we see SKT being at the first place of their seed, followed by Cloud 9, but they don’t remain undefeated ! ahq e-Sport took them down, while the Korean Longzhu Gaming won everything, and finished the Group Phase with 6W-0L. The first European team to be qualified made our hearts beat faster than ever, because Fnatic won every game of the tiebreaker, and finish second of Group B. Gygabyte go back home, as we saw during the MSI in Rio, where they finished at the 5th place. Group C is where our heart broke, especially if you’re from Europe and a G2 fan. They played very well, we see that all players are close friends as their bo5 matched perfectly. Unfortunately, their Group was such a hard one, fighting against RNG and Samsung Galaxy from Korea and China was quite of a journey. But whatever happens, G2 are the kings of Europe four-in-a-row, and that’s unforgettable. Then the last Group was not easy as well, TSM and Flash Wolves lost against World Elite and Misfits, the second European team to succeed and which gets qualified for quater-finals.

SKT, owners of the World title in 2016

But the evil question remains : who will govern this year ?

It’s never too late

As I’m talking to you, the quater-finals just ended and teams are moving to Shanghai. Samsung Galaxy booked their ticket to Semi-finals 3-0 against Longzhou. Yes, a lot of people lost points in the Pick’em because of that, while thinking that LG would win, as they were undefeated. The 20th of October, EU shouted behind Misfits, close to take down the kings SKT. The rabbits finally lost the last game, crushed by SKT with 8 turrets to 2 and 6 kills to 6. A low advantage of Gold, Misfits was totally capable of winning. This BO5 was the closest ever, but the victory was not total for the Korean team, because Europe is growing and becomes dangerous for them. Europe wanted to take back the trophee, especially with the previous owners Fnatic in 2011 for the first League World Championships. They finished at the 3rd place in 2013 with YellOwStaR, and 3rd in 2015 as well. In a word, winning Worlds would be more than a victory, but even if they lost 3-1 against RNG, FNC are proud of what they did, above all Broxah for whom it was the first big tournament, after the LCS. The semi-finals and finals will only be made of asian teams, the last American team Cloud 9 lost 2-3 against World Elite. C9 won two successive games but won the two last ones, giving the ticket for semi-finals to WE.

South Korea vs China

Then, what will be the finals like ? Four teams remain : SKT and SSG from South Korea, WE and RNG from China. SKT T1 is the most prized team ever, with three World titles, in 2013 against Royal Club (China), in 2015 against Rox Tigers (SK) and in 2016 against SSG (SK).

Semi-finals

While waiting for the last days of the competition, I paste the link of the lolesports clip of «Legends Never Die». GLHF to every team, a big congratulations to the others who all played well, and whatever the outcome, World Championships are every single year full of surprises, shifts and hopes.

To be continued…