League of Legends World Championship

The League of Legends World Championship is the annual professional League of Legends world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games and is the culmination of each season. Teams compete for the champion title, the 70 pounds (32 kg) Summoner's Cup, and a US$1 million championship prize.^[1] In 2017, the finals were watched by 60 million people, breaking 2016's finals' viewer record.^[2] The tournament has been widely praised for its ceremonial performances,^[3][4] while receiving attention worldwide due to its multiple dramatic and emotional series.^[5][6][7] A donation of US$2 million was raised through the sales of the Worlds 2017 Championship Ashe skin.^[8]

LA 2024, which is overseeing the Los Angeles bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics was inspired by the growing success of League of Legends World Championship and is considering to plan and include eSports in the Olympic Games if they win the bid. Casey Wasserman, the chairman of LA 2024, suggested using technology used in certain segments of League of Legends Worlds such as augmented reality and virtual reality to make the Olympics more accessible to a younger demographic.

The League of Legends World Championships has gained tremendous success and popularity, making it among the world's most prestigious and watched tournaments (surpassing even conventional sports tournaments), as well as the most watched video game in the world. Due to its success, eSports scenes became prominent and widely seen as a potential Olympics event, already being included as a medal event in 2022 Asian Games.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]}

The tournament is known to rotate its venues across different major countries and regions each year in a rotating manner, particularly in East Asia, Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia. South Korea's SK Telecom T1 currently holds the highest record of wins, with three world championship wins (2013, 2015, and 2016).^[15]

Trophy

Riot Games, which owns League of Legends, commissioned the winner's trophy known as the Summoner’s Cup. Riot specified that it should weigh 70 pounds, though the actual weight of the finished cup was reduced so it would not be too heavy to lift in victory. MacTavish, having already created the Season Two World Championship Cup in 2012, crafted the winners' trophy for the 2014 games.^[16]

Overview

Year	Finals location	Final			Semi-finalists
		Winner	Score	Runner-up
2011	Jönköping	Fnatic	2–1	against All authority	Team SoloMid
2012	Los Angeles	Taipei Assassins	3–1	Azubu Frost	Counter Logic Gaming Europe	Moscow Five
2013	Los Angeles	SK Telecom T1	3–0	Royal Club	Fnatic	NaJin Black Sword
2014	Seoul	Samsung Galaxy White	3–1	Star Horn Royal Club	OMG	Samsung Galaxy Blue
2015	Berlin	SK Telecom T1	3–1	KOO Tigers	Fnatic	Origen
2016	Los Angeles	SK Telecom T1	3–2	Samsung Galaxy	H2k-Gaming	ROX Tigers
2017	Beijing	Samsung Galaxy	3–0	SK Telecom T1	Royal Never Give Up	Team WE
2018	Incheon		–

Season 1

The Season 1 Championship^[17] in June 2011, held at Dreamhack Summer 2011 in Sweden, featured a US$100,000 tournament prize pool.^[18] 8 teams from North America, Southeast Asia and Europe participated in the championship.^[19] Over 1.6 million viewers watched the streaming broadcast of the event, with a peak of over 210,000 simultaneous viewers in the final matches.^[20]

Season 2

A group picture of the Taipei Assassins, the champions of season 2.

After Season 1, Riot announced that US$5,000,000 would be paid out over Season 2. Of this $5 million, $2 million went to Riot's partners including the IGN Pro League and other major esports associations. Another $2 million went to Riot's Season 2 qualifiers and championship. The final $1 million went to other organizers who applied to Riot to host independent League of Legends tournaments.^[22]

The Season 2 World Championship was held in early October 2012 in Los Angeles, California to conclude the US$5 million season. Twelve qualifying teams from around the world participated in the championship, which boasted the largest prize pool in the history of e-sports tournaments at the time at US$2 million, with US$1 million going to the champions. The group stage, quarter-final, and semi-final matches took place between October 4 and 6. The grand final took place a week after, on October 13 in the University of Southern California's Galen Center in front of 10,000 fans, and were broadcast in 13 different languages.^[23] In the grand final, Taiwan's professional team Taipei Assassins triumphed over South Korea's Azubu Frost 3-to-1 and claimed the US$1 million in prize money.^[24]

Over 8 million viewers tuned in to the Season 2 World Championship broadcast, with a maximum of 1.1 million concurrent viewers during the grand final, making the Season 2 World Championship the most watched esports event in history at the time.^[25]

Season 3

A group picture of SK Telecom T1, the champions of season 3.

The Season 3 World Championship was held in late 2013 in Los Angeles, California. 14 teams from North America, Korea, China, Southeast Asia, Europe, and one of the emerging League of Legends territories measured up at the World Playoffs after having qualified through their regional competitions.^[27] The grand final were held in the Staples Center on October 4, 2013, where Korean team SK Telecom T1 defeated the Chinese team Royal Club,^[28] granting them the title of the Season 3 world champions, the Summoner’s Cup and the $1 million prize.

The Season 3 World Championship grand final broadcast on October 4 was watched by 32 million people with a peak concurrent viewership of 8.5 million.^[29] The numbers once again beat the previous records for esports viewership.

Season 4

The 2014 World Championship featured 16 teams competing for a $2.13 million prize pool, with 14 teams qualifying from the primary League of Legends regions (China, Europe, North America, Korea and Taiwan/SEA) and two international wildcard teams.

The group stage began September 18 in Taipei and concluded September 28 in Singapore with eight teams advancing to the bracket stage.^[31] The bracket stage started on October 3 in Busan, South Korea, and concluded on October 19 with the grand final hosted at the 45,000-seats Seoul World Cup Stadium,^[32][33] where South Korean team Samsung Galaxy White beat the Chinese team Star Horn Royal Club to become the 2014 League of Legends world champions.^[34][35][36]

American band Imagine Dragons contributed the theme song "Warriors" for the tournament,^[37] and performed live on the grand final stage in South Korea.^[38] All games were made available for free via live streaming.^[39]

The 2014 World Championship games were streamed live by 40 broadcast partners, and cast in 19 languages. The grand final was watched by 27 million people, with concurrent viewership peaking at over 11 million viewers.^[40][41]

Season 5

After the 2014 season, Riot Games introduced a number of changes to competitive League of Legends. The number of teams in the League Championship Series was increased from 8 to 10 in both the North America and Europe regions.^[42] A second Riot Games official international tournament was announced, the Mid-Season Invitational, which took place in May 2015, and featured a single team from each major region and one international wildcard.^[43] Additionally, starting from 2015, all teams are required to field a head coach in their competitive matches, who will stay on stage and speak with the team via voice-chat in the pick-ban phase of the game. This change makes the head coach an officially recognized member of the team.^[44]

The 2015 World Championship concluded the 2015 season, and was held at several venues across Europe in October 2015. Like the 2014 World Championship, the 2015 World Championship was a multi-city, multi-country event.^[45]

2015 Worlds was won by SK Telecom T1, their second title, as they won the 2013 Worlds too. SKT Top laner Jang "MaRin" Gyeong-Hwan was named the tournament most valuable player (MVP).

The finals were watched by 36 million people, with a peak concurrent viewership of 14 million viewers.^[46]

Season 6

The various stages of the 2016 Worlds were held throughout the United States in Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, and the finals in Los Angeles.

The Groups of teams were decided through a live Group Draw Show on September 10. The games were played on the 6.18 patch of the game with Yorick disabled and Aurelion Sol was disabled for days 1-3. There were 16 teams and 4 groups that consisted of 4 teams. The group stage was Bo1 and the top two teams from each groups would advance to the Knockout Stage. The Knockout Stage was Bo5 and the #1 vs #2 teams from each group would face each other in the bracket. The total prize pool was $6,700,000 USD and it was spread among the teams. The first place (SK Telecom T1) took $2,680,000, the second team (Samsung Galaxy) took $1,005,000, the third place (ROX Tigers) took $502,500. The rest of the prize pool was distributed among the 5th-16th places.^[48]

SKT won 3-2 vs. Samsung Galaxy in the 2016 World Championship Finals, with Faker winning the MVP award, and along with teammate Bengi captured their third world championship in four seasons (2013, 2015, 2016), cementing SKT's legacy as the most dominant League of Legends team in the world.^[49]

The finals were watched by 43 million people, with a peak concurrent viewership of 14.7 million viewers, breaking 2015's finals' viewer records.

Season 7

The 2017 League of Legends World Championship series started in September 2017, and concluded in November 2017. It was held in 4 different locations throughout China: Wuhan (Play-In and Groups), Guangzhou (Quarterfinals), Shanghai (Semifinals), and Beijing (Finals).^[51] It was played on patch 7.18, with the newest champion Ornn being disabled. Patch 7.18 is slightly older than patches 7.19 and 7.20, which are the new standard for online matches during the September - November period. The most notable difference being the stronger Ardent Censer support meta with patch 7.18.

A total of 24 teams participated in the tournament: 3 teams from South Korea, China, North America, Europe and Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau; 1 team from Brazil, Latin America North, Latin America South, Japan, Oceania, Turkey, Southeast Asia and CIS/Russia; and 1 team from the Wildcard region with the highest rank finish at the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational (GPL in Southeast Asia, due to Gigabyte Marines from Vietnam prevailing there, and Vietnam received 1 more slot for VCSA's second seed to participate GPL 2017 summer split).

Samsung Galaxy reversed the previous year's result and defeated SK Telecom T1 3-0 in the 2017 World Championship Finals. Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk, the AD carry of Samsung, was named MVP.

The finals were watched by 60 million people, breaking 2016's finals' viewer records. The tournament is widely praised for its high quality of plays and amazing ceremonial performances, while receiving worldwide attention for its dramatic and emotional series. It is currently the most watched tournament in League of Legends' history, and is lauded as one of the best.^{[52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]}

Prize Pool: $2,350,000 (Riot) + ~$2,650,000 Fan Contribution = ~5 million as of October 7.^[61]

Top Four

Place	Team	Players		Prize money
		ID	Name
1st	Samsung Galaxy	CuVee Ambition Crown Ruler CoreJJ Edgar (coach) Haru (substitute)	Lee Sung-jin Kang Chan-yong Lee Min-ho Park Jae-hyeok Jo Yon-gin Choi Woo-bum Kang MinSeung	$1,540,000
2nd	SK Telecom T1	Huni Peanut Faker Bang Wolf KkOma (Coach) Blank (Substitute)	Heo Seunghoon Han Wang-ho Lee Sang-hyeok Bae Jun-sik Lee Jae-wan Kim Jeong-gyun Kang Sun-gu	$554,000
3rd–4th	Royal Never Give Up	Letme Mlxg Xiaohu Uzi Ming Firefox (Coach) Y1HAN (Substitute)	Junze Yan Shiyu Liu Yuanhao Li Zihao Jian Senming Shi Dingxiang Huang Zhiwei Hu	$287,000
	Team WE	957 Condi Xiye Mystic Ben Homee (Coach) Zero (Substitute)	Ke Chang Yu Xiang Ren Jie Su Han Wei Jin Sung Jun Nam Dong Hyun Kim Nam-hoon Yoon Kyung Sub

Season 8

References

External links

• Official website