Starting yesterday, League of Legend’s big annual tournament, the 2016 World Championships had officially commenced. While the 2015 World Championships was hosted in Western Europe, 2016’s tournament will be held in 4 different locations across the United States. The first day kicked off with some incredible clutch best-of-one round robin matches, with some teams exceeding expectations and some not doing as hot as fans had hoped.
Teams from North America, Europe, South Korea, China and Taiwan/Hong Kong or Macau regions were provided invites to the event, judged by their results in the past year. This includes the winners of the Summer Split for each region, the team that accrues the most ‘championship points’ during the circuit, the LCS regional qualifiers for the championships, which occurred earlier in the month and the Wild Card round winners from the LCS regional qualifiers. The following teams for each region are listed below:
North America – Team SoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming, Cloud 9
Europe – G2 Esports, H2k-Gaming, Splyce
South Korean – ROX Tigers, SK Telecom T1, Samsung
China – Edward Gaming, Royal Never Give Up, IMAY
Taiwan – Flash Wolves, ahq e-Sports Club
Brazil – INTZ e-Sports
Russia – Albus NoX Luna
Each team clawed their way to this stage, through hundreds of teams and incredible odds. After the first day, it looks like the championship title is up for any team. The current Day 1 tally is shown below, so if you don’t want spoilers, it’s advised you stop reading right now and go watch those matches.
All 12 teams have been split into groups of 4, listed from A to D. For the first day, group B, had a day off to plan for their matches. In the meanwhile, the other three brackets fought tooth and nail for those much required points. After a long day, Group A saw Counter Logic Gaming take down European giants G2 e-Sports and ROX Tigers smashing through Albus NoX Luna. Group C witnessed the rise of the underdogs with Wildcard INTZ e-Sports taking down Edward Gaming, as well as ahq e-Sports Club taking apart H2k-Gaming. Finally, Group D saw the biggest upset with Team SoloMid losing to China’s Royal Never Give Up and Samsung taking the win from Splyce.
As wins come unpredictably, we can expect some incredibly high skill plays from the teams, as they fight a $1 million slice of the 2.13 million dollar prize pool. Even if teams come last, they will still go home with a tidy $25,000. If you’re a fan of League of Legends, this next month will be fueled with high octane battles between the current best players in League’s competitive scene.