Article by James Chen

The first week of the League of Legends 2014 World Championship has come and gone, and like Typhoon Fung-wong's visit on the last day of the spectacle, rained its fair share of drama across the international field. Though the concluding results were largely within expectations, there were some close shaves Taiwan's own ahq e-Sports Club, largely written off in the face of the threat posed by Samsung White and Edward Gaming, rallied in a show of strength and came within a tiebreaker game of advancing to the Busan, South Korean quarterfinals stage.

But the teams of Groups A and B are only half of the contenders for the world championship title and the remainders are all the premier heavyweights of League of Legends competitive play. These are the names to know as the pan-Asian Worlds circuit reaches the city-state of Singapore.

Group C
 


Fnatic (EU)
Roster Paul "sOAZ" Boyer, Lauri "Cyanide" Happonen, Enrique "xPeke" Cedeno Martinez, Martin "Rekkles" Larsson, Bora "Yellowstar" Kim

Fnatic's one of the best-known and most popular European teams in the circuit, and not entirely due to xPeke's tendency to wander around taking shirtless selfies of himself. Despite the EU LCS teams' infamous parity, with 2013 featuring a four-way tiebreaker for second place at the end of the group stage, Fnatic has come out time and again as the king of the hill. They've won three of the four half-season playoffs in the last two years, making them the region's most consistent team when it matters most.

When it doesn't matter, they're at least dramatic. Xpeke's claimed his place in the scene's growing lexicon for his reckless antics, sneaking through the enemy's side of the map to enter their base while they're busy elsewhere, securing victory by single-handedly taking out the win condition. The "xPeke Backdoor" is symptomatic of the team's play style: they go for ambushes and unexpected plays, winning by virtue of obfuscation and surprise. Though they don't always have the cleanest victories, they've nonetheless managed to peak last year as a Worlds semifinalist and with ace rookie Rekkles, considered one of Europe's best in his role, they're out for more.

Samsung Blue (South Korea)
Roster Choi "Acorn" Cheon-ju, Lee "Spirit" Da-yoon, Bae "dade" Uh-jin, Kim "Deft" Hyuk-kyu, Lee "Heart" Gwan-hyung

Last year, mid-laner Dade came into Worlds expecting an easy conquest through his group the distance between South Korean e-sports infrastructure and the rest of the world was and remains profound, and the savvy expectation was for any top-ranked Korean team to breeze through the competition. At the time, he was considered one of the scene's best individual players, having conquered the Korean circuit in the spring of 2013. But a half-year later, the game's changed on him, he was pushed out of his comfort zone, and his performance on the world stage was nothing short of a travesty in the mind of Korean fans.

To Dade's credit, he's come back stronger than ever, and to Blue's credit, they're well in position to take on the world at large. Yet again, Dade's team was the "king of spring," winning OGN Champions earlier this year, but the changes since have barely shaken them: they were within a single game of taking the title again in the summer, losing to KT Rolster Arrows in a dramatic full-fledged five-game set, and are considered co-dominant alongside sister team Samsung White. Just as White dominated their group, Blue is expected to lead Group C. And Dade will get his redemption.

OMG (China)
Roster Gao "Gogoing" Diping, Yin "Loveling" Le, Yu "Cool" Jiajun, Guo "San" Junliang, Fang "Dada777" Hongri

Between their ominous black shirts and Gogoing's formidable physical presence and play style, team OMG reigned over the Chinese scene as the "gangsters" of 2013. They dominated the region's LoL Pro League in aggressive fashion their "freight train" strategy was the definitive establishment of the region's play style since, encouraging imitations of their in-your-face brawling tactics well into 2014. Notably, they were the only non-Korean team to take a game off Season 3 World Champions SKT T1 K, and commonly considered the second-strongest team that year except that they ran into Royal Club in the playoffs, losing to the one team in the world that had their number.

OMG lost some of that prominence and glory as the seasons changed and team Edward Gaming took over the spotlight. The new "super team" of China seemed to have their crosshairs meticulously calibrated to take on the former number ones and fractious internal changes have shaken an otherwise indomitable team: support player Dada7 is a new addition, and his unwieldy synergy with San has led to dropped games against teams OMG used to steamroll over. Their hopes lie in jungler Loveling's return to form, as the man once considered the single best player in the entire region struggles to keep his team relevant.

LMQ (North America)
Roster Xiao "Ackerman" Wang, Zhou "NoName" Qilin, Yu "XiaoWeiXiao" Xian, Li "Vasilii" Weijun, Zhang "Mor" Hongwei

The beginning of the 2014 season brought along a storm of controversy. A combination of North America's poor showing at the Season 3 World Championship, yet comparatively superior e-sports support, drew in a surge of ambitious challengers eager for a path onto the world stage through a reputedly weak region. LMQ was among the many, but had a number of notable exceptions to their case first, unlike the Korean Quantic Gaming, they paid their dues by spending months terrorizing by amateur-level North American Challenger Series. Second, unlike the European-led Evil Geniuses, they actually did succeed in breaking through to the very top of the region, holding first place in the NA LCS rankings for weeks at a time.

They did so by being mindblowingly aggressive. Vasilii in particular might have named himself after the famous Soviet sniper, but plays more like a John Woo protagonist: a gun in each fist, and leaping straight into the action. Plays that would get anybody else sent packing into respawn somehow work out for LMQ, as if their enemies hesitate just long enough, in disbelief that anybody'd actually try their sort of stunts.
Group D
 

Alliance (EU)
Roster Mike "Wickd" Petersen, Ilyas "Shook" Hartsema, Henrik "Froggen" Hansen, Erik "Tabzz" Van Helvert, Patrick "Nyph" Funke

It's no secret that e-sports organizations Alliance and Evil Geniuses have a very close working relationship, and it superficially made sense that they would expand their operations across two continents by sending one brand to North America while keeping at least part of the team in Europe. What was surprising was their willingness to completely split the 2013 Evil Geniuses roster in half to do so surprising, but also extremely promising.

Mid laner Froggen is one of the foremost players in the world, period. Even as the South Korean scene took over and competition everywhere matured, his name remains spoken of in the same breath as Faker, Dade and every other legend. Alliance, in many ways, is his personal project a hand-picked roster by him and Wickd to produce a team that would dominate Europe and eventually take the entire world. That ambition suffered a rough start in the spring, but began to flower in a dominant summer run. It will take the international competition, and a highly anticipated showdown with NaJin White Shield, to show if their efforts will bear fruit.


Cloud 9 (North America)
Roster An "Balls" Le, William "Meteos" Hartman, Hai Lam, Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi, Daerek "LemonNation" Hart

Before 2013, the players of North America's strongest overall team were almost totally unknown to the community at-large. Though the amateur circuit knew that the former Quantic roster had strong players, they were largely overshadowed by the scene veterans on Curse, Counter Logic Gaming, TSM and Dignitas, and their failures to qualify for the first split of Season 3 further obscured their talents.

Then they broke out in the following summer, and never looked back. Cloud 9 is a dominant force in North American gaming, and the organization's steady expansion through the fields of competitive play has its League of Legends team as its powerful mainspring. It's as hard in North America as anywhere else to remain a frontrunner, culminating with allied organization Team Solomid's 2014 summer playoffs triumph over them, but Cloud 9 is the last team anybody in the region will take lightly. Balls, in particular, is more than an awkward name for casters Rumble's recent appearance in the Taiwanese group stage promises a return of one of his classic and most beloved champions.

KaBuM! E-Sports (Brazil)
Roster Pedro "LEP" Luiz Marcari, Daniel "Danagorn" Drummond, Thago "TinOwns" Sartori, Gustavo "Minerva" Alves, Daniel "Dans" Dias

North America wasn't the only continent bedeviled by upstarts looking for an easier path to the world stage. Brazil, with access to the International Wildcard ticket, attracted a number of South Korean transfers too: Han "Lactea" Gihyun and Kim "Olleh" Joo-sung, in particular, found some level of success on PaiN Gaming, and even attracted the help of former NaJin Black Sword star Maknoon as an advisory overseas coach.

But it wasn't any of the international hybrid attempts that ultimately clinched the spot. The all-native KaBuM! Team struck back for the pride of their region's players, successfully coming back from a string of tournament losses to the hybrid teams to clinch what mattered most: a ride to Singapore, and a chance to prove Brazilian might before the world audience.

NaJin White Shield (South Korea)
Roster Baek "Save" Young-jin, Cho "Watch" Jae-geol, Yu "Ggoong" Byeong-jin, Lee "Zefa" Jae-min, Kang "Gorilla" Beom-hyeon

White Shield's growth has been slow and steady sister team Black Sword attracted all the attention with back-to-back NLB championships (the precursor stage before the prestigious OGN Champions circuit), while Shield's reputation was stuck as a competent but slow and defensive team through most of Season 3. As the seasons passed and their players grew in experience, however, the signs of a breakout team began to manifest: top laner Save grew into one of the most dominant players in a region with a reputation for world-class top laners, while Watch's transfer to the team brought the direction of a jungler who has now succeeded in attaining his third Worlds appearance in a row the most of any Asian player.

But the difference between a well-respected team and a well-feared one is night and day, and there is now clear reason to fear Shield. Their advance through the South Korean regionals tournament was transcendental, plowing through OGN summer champions KT Rolster Arrows, KT Rolster Bullets, and even former world champions SKT T1 K in a streak that defied all expectations of the team.

Defensive? Passive? Not Shield. Not anymore. This Shield is the sort they use to bash in skulls and shatter swords.

By Jem Alexander.

The first week of the League of Legends World Championships 2014 has come to a dramatic conclusion, and has been a good tournament so far for both LoL fans, and anyone who enjoys expert e-sports and upsets. It's not easy to boil down four days of elite LoL play into six bullet points, but this way you get to watch the series' most thrilling moments, back-to-back. Get your videos and analysis right here.

During the first week two teams from each of groups A and B were eliminated from the competition. Those remaining will continue on to the quarterfinals next week. A second group stage will take place this week, which is the perfect place to start watching if you re late to the party. As expected, the quality of play has been top-notch, with some of the most exciting games of League I ve ever seen.
If you only watch one game


This match between Taiwan s AHQ eSports Club (AHQ) and China s Edward Gaming (EDG) isn t the flashiest killfest we saw last week, but the back-and-forth flow made it one of the most entertaining games to watch. EDG looked set to win, seemingly focusing harder on downing turrets and bulldozing into AHQ s base with their siege team composition than getting kills in the field. No-one expected a set of fantastic team fights to go in AHQ s favour; clearly even EDG were taken off-guard. Especially when AHQ scored an ace and took the opportunity to waltz through EDG s front door and win the game. Bonus points for the crowd reaction AHQ are on home turf in Taiwan and some stunning Thresh plays by GreenTea.

Winning this game meant that AHQ and EDG would face off again later that day to decide a tiebreaker for second place. Sadly this underdog story has a tragic ending: EDG won the tiebreaker and secured their spot in the quarterfinals. Still, this match is a must-watch. Professional League of Legends at its finest.
Biggest play


Poor Dark Passage never knew what hit them. Which is understandable since this is a blink-and-you-miss-it play by Samsung White s AD Carry, Imp. It s only fitting that the first pentakill of Worlds 2014 was awarded in a match between currently best and worst teams of the competition. Korea s Samsung White (SSW) ended the week with a 6-0 win streak, while Turkey s Dark Passage (DP) didn t manage to win a single game. Which is pretty surprising, since DP blitzed through the Wild Card Tournament undefeated to secure their place at Worlds.

This pentakill marks the end of the game, as Dark Passage surrendered almost immediately. Understandable, since Samsung White were up fifteen kills to Dark Passage s zero before the 25 minute mark. A humiliating defeat, but one that perhaps they can learn from as they start up the long road to Worlds 2015. You never know.
Sneakiest bait and switch


This game between USA s Team Solo Mid (TSM) and Europe s SK Gaming (SKG) was pretty closely fought throughout. An early turret lead by SKG gave hope that they might be able to scrape through the competition with some dignity after a series of early defeats prevented them reaching the quarterfinals. However, after 48 minutes of closely contested play things start looking pretty grim for SKG, as TSM gets a foothold in their base and take an inhibitor. Which is when SKG pulls one of the most beautiful baits I've ever seen.

Leaving their base undefended, SKG lets TSM stroll in and start hitting their nexus turrets. It looks like the end for SKG, but they manage to catch the intruders in a pincer move and somehow split them off so they can take them out one by one. With TSM destroyed, SKG rush up the mid lane and batter their opponent s nexus to bits before they have a chance to respawn.
Samsung White s Imp is MVP


There have been some fantastic games full of excellent plays during Worlds 2014 already and it s pretty clear who the best player of the tournament is, so far at least. Samsung White s Imp is the team s AD Carry, a role which typically becomes very powerful later in the game (after having been carried by the team, hence the name). It s not surprising then that Seung-bin Imp Gu currently sits at the top of the KDA rankings for the tournament, especially since he was the first player in Worlds 2014 to score a pentakill.

The video above is another great example of a big play executed flawlessly by Imp, as he confidently flashes into a risky position, kills his marks and then bounces back to safety with the help of Mata, his support. There have been many instances of Imp and Mata working together seamlessly already in the tournament and I can t wait to see more as the competition progresses.
Best steal


It s not uncommon to see teams try and steal large objectives from right under the noses of their opponents. A last minute attack on dragon or Baron Nashor after the enemy team has whittled down its health will net your team the rewards without having to do any of the work. At the top-level LCS tier these plays are a dime a dozen, but this Baron theft is Worlds class.

It takes place in a match between Taiwan s Teipei Assassins (TPA) and Europe s SK Gaming (SKG). When SK Gaming engages the Baron (which grants a huge buff for the entire team when defeated), the Assassins initiate a team fight, almost killing SKG s tank. SKG seems to panic, disengaging from Baron Nashor and returning to base, which is where TPA appears to be headed. The Assassins circle round, taking the opportunity to defeat the now defenceless Baron and scoring the buff. Less than four minutes later, they win the match. Coincidence? (No.)
Biggest surprise


The picks and bans phase so enticing and such a large part of professional League of Legends strategy. So what happens when, after a season of barely seeing Janna picked for play, she starts appearing in the majority of team comps in Worlds 2014? Disruption. Confusion. Great games of League of Legends.

Janna has become the flavour of the week for support players, thanks to her crowd control and healing abilities. Her Monsoon skill, as seen in the video above, is an incredible way of disengaging from a team fight while simultaneously healing your teammates. Seeing Janna picked and used so effectively is the biggest surprise of the tournament so far. What next? The return of jungle Rammus?

This week there will be a second group stage running from Thursday September 18 to Sunday September 21. Groups C and D include Cloud 9 from the USA and Fnatic from Europe. Both of whom were the only teams from their respective regions to make it past the group stages of Worlds 2013. With SK Gaming out of the picture, Europe s hopes now lie with Fnatic and Alliance. Both very strong in the EU LCS, but can they succeed on the world stage? It looks like we ve got another stellar week of League of Legends to look forward to.

You know about e-sports tournaments. Maybe you've even watched an e-sports tournament. But have you seen an e-sports tournament depicted through an earnest, slightly silly, but, if I'm honest, pretty great anime-styled trailer? If not, get ready to, because Riot has released this audacious opener for the 2014 League of Legends World Championship.

Day one of the tournament is happening right now. You can watch it live through Riot's Worlds 2014 tournament page. Not sure who to support? Our LoL expert James Chen produced this handy guide to the teams taking part in today's Taiwan group stage.

Article by James Chen

Riot Games' 2014 League of Legends World Championship is about to begin, drawing in 16 teams from across the world for a final end-of-year bout. This year, the tournament's split into three parts: eight-team group stages each in Taiwan and Singapore, a quarterfinal showdown in Busan, South Korea, and a climatic semifinal and grand final in the capital city of Seoul.

Of course, it's hard to understand what the big deal is if the teams are unfamiliar to the observer. So here's a cheat sheet for who's who, what's what, and why they're so amped up to tear each other down. The following are the eight teams scheduled to play in the Taipei, Taiwan group stages beginning today.

Group A

Edward Gaming (China)
Roster Tong "Koro1" Yang, Ming "Clearlove" Kai, Zheng "U" Long, Zhu "NaMei" Jia-wen, Feng "Fzzf" Zhou-jin

The so-called "super team" of China went through a controversial birth. They acquired the participation rights to the Chinese pro circuit from team LMQ, who had left to test their mettle against the American scene instead. While the departure of what was then a low-ranked team would normally generate little interest, the rise of Edward Gaming in their stead rippled out through the rest of the Chinese community. In a move that left not a few bridges burned, the newly formed squad was largely comprised of Team WE and Positive Energy starters (with Positive Energy itself formerly playing as WE.i-rocks, the sister team to China's most famous League of Legends team), particularly Clearlove and Fzzf from the once-legendary World Elite of 2012. Their departure forced those teams in turn to recruit from elsewhere, disrupting other rosters along the way.

Their circumstances are complicated, to say the least. But while the dramas and talent sniping behind Edward Gaming's founding might leave even hardcore fans a little dizzy, at least their impact is undeniable. They've taken over the Chinese competition like a force of nature, securing gold in the playoffs of both spring and summer, as well as the all-China International Esports Tournament back in April. Edward Gaming is the one team not from South Korea believed to have a chance at the world title this year, due in no small part to NaMei's fiercely dominant play.

Samsung White (Korea)
Roster Jang "Looper" Hyeong-seok, Choi "DanDy" In-kyu, Heo "PawN" Won-seok, Gu "imp" Seung-bin, Cho "Mata" Se-hyoung

This is White's second time on the world stage, and their disgraceful performance from last year's put a large chip on their shoulders. Back when they were known as MVP Ozone, they'd flown to Los Angeles with the full expectation of an easy ride through the group stages even then, the skill difference between South Korean and western teams was considered insurmountable. To their dismay, however, they were the worst-performing of the three South Korean representatives that year, failing to get out of the group stages after a tiebreaker loss against Russian powerhouse Gambit Gaming.

This year, they're out for blood. They've shuffled their rosters a bit, mainly swapping mid laners with sibling team Blue, and the shakeup in team composition and leadership seems to have done wonders for both. DanDy is commonly accepted as one of the very best junglers in the world, and his direction's played an integral role in unlocking the team's overall strength and where he can't make an impact, there's always PawN to step in, who has made his reputation over the last season as one of the few mortals in the world capable of consistently taking down SKT T1 K's Faker, last year's world champion mid laner, on a one-on-one basis.

ahq e-Sports Club (Taiwan)
Roster Chen "Prydz" Kuang-Feng, Chen "Naz" Tien-Chih, Liu "Westdoor" Shu-Wei, Lai "GarnetDevil" Yi-Meng, Sa "GreenTea" Shang-Ching

Though commonly overshadowed by rivals Taipei Assassins, ahq e-Sports Club's reputation for dominance is on par with the Season 2 World Champions team. While TPA was in their Season 3 decline, ahq smoothly stepped in for their hometown peers to take over Southeast Asia's Garena Premier League circuit, knocking down all comers from Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines and continuing what is now a three-year-long tradition of Taiwanese supremacy among the region's e-sports organizations. In particular, legendary Taiwanese mid laner Westdoor conqueror of both North American and South Korean ranked ladders has left a permanent mark as the most dynamic of assassins, often almost single-handedly snatching games out of the maw of defeat.

Transitioning that flourish into the international scene, however, might be too herculean a task even for him. Ahq's strengths lie in pushing superior individual mechanics into an unstoppable snowball, eagerly seeking fights to trample their opponents farther into the dust. Which serves well enough against Southeast Asian teams, most of which consist entirely of part-timers and students. But the bar of excellence is much, much higher elsewhere. Ahq faces the daunting task of proving that they're more than what they appear to be: a big fish in a small and overlooked pond. Victories in Southeast Asia mean nothing if they can't swim in the shark-infested waters of China and South Korea.

Dark Passage (Turkey)
Roster Asim "Fabulous" Cihat Karakaya, Atakan "Crystal M" Aydin, Koray "Naru" Bicak, Anil "HolyPhoenix" Isik, Ercan "TrieLBaenRe" Bozkurt

Little is known about the International Wildcard teams compared to their more storied peers on established circuits, but Turkey's top team is not without a flair for the dramatic. Though they failed to qualify for the Season 3 World Championship last year, they didn't go down without a big fight in particular, top laner FabFabulous's five-man kill against Brazil's paiN Gaming took them within a hair's breadth of the finals.

They've demonstrated even better consistency this year, coming out ahead dominantly against Australia's Legacy eSports. Legacy spent the matches prior taunting the European scene for an unsightly passiveness, only to eat their own words as Dark Passage climbed over them for the ticket to Taipei with a decisive 3-0 victory. They're used to being underestimated, and being the underdogs of Worlds suits them just fine.

Group B

Team Solomid (North America)
Roster Marcus "Dyrus" Hill, Maurice "Amazing" Stuckenschneider, Soren "Bjergsen" Bjerg, Jason "Wildturtle" Tran, Ham "Lustboy" Jang-sik

America's Team, back in their rightful place as the region's top-seeded representative. TSM is by far the most popular team in the western hemisphere, and historically the most successful though the American throne had, lately, been occupied instead by the upstart Cloud9, their recent victory in the North American LCS circuit has revitalized a brand known for its massive fanbases, the incessant three-letter cheer in even foreign events that they weren't participating in, and a black-and-white logo that draws upon the same emotional well as the Oakland Raiders.

Of course, to get there, they had to shed some of their native identity. Dyrus and Wildturtle are the last originally North American players Amazing and Bjergsen are both expatriates of the European LCS, and Lustboy was previously known for his role on South Korean team CJ Entus Blaze. Coach Choi "Locodoco" Yoon-sub was also a recent trans-Pacific recruit though, interestingly, his case is a unique one. He was actually part of the original 2011 roster, and serves as the experienced emulsifier to TSM's melting pot of influences from east and west, past and present. His guidance's returned the team to the top of North America and it may yet prove enough to also carry them over the international threshold, where they've been frustrated time and again for three years running.

Taipei Assassins (Taiwan)
Roster Chen "Achie" Chen-Chi, Chen "Winds" Peng-Nien, Chen "Morning" Kuan-Ting, Cheng "Bebe" Bo-Wei, Li "Jay" Chieh

Little is left of the Season 2 World Championship team. Only Bebe remains of the original lineup the last man standing to witness what was once the world's top team slowly dissolve over the course of the following year, even losing a once-comfortable Southeast Asian leadership to local rivals ahq. It was a bitter decline for a team that was given a hero's welcome upon returning home in October of 2012 and it was the fire that stoked a rebirth.

This might not be the Season 2 roster, but the Taipei Assassins are none the worse for wear because of it. The 2014 roster is at least as coherent as their predecessors, if not more so their monopoly of the Garena Premier League's championship position stretched over a solid nine months of regular play, and against a field of competitors far more challenging than Bebe's old teammates had to face. They'd cut no corners, recruiting Winds to beef up a strategically critical jungle position, and even hiring coach Sim Sung-soo of South Korea the man ultimately responsible for sending the one team that managed to fight SKT T1 K on equal grounds last year.

Taiwanese hopes for renewed international relevancy are largely pinned onto this flagship team. Prior performances at Paris and Katowice left a bitter taste as everybody from China to Europe took bites out of this once-formidable name but that was before their talent acquisitions, and before their new coach. This time, they've run out of excuses.

Star Horn Royal Club (China)
Roster Jiang "Cola" Na, Choi "InSec" In-seok, Lei "corn" Wen, Jian "UZI" Zi-Hao, Yoon "Zero" Kyung-sup

Star Horn Royal Club's a team of survivor, if nothing else. Despite a successful run at last year's World Championship, their anticlimatic 0-3 finish against world champions SKT T1 K was treated as a crushing blow to their region. Two players, Whitezz and Tabe, retired soon after the tournament, and their top laner went off to join LMQ's pursuit of an American title, seemingly ending the story of a once-promising team.

Instead, they cast a broad net to find suitable candidates. Jungler InSec was once the undisputed king of the Korean jungle, and even has a technique named after him in the scene's competitive jargon: to InSec somebody is to suddenly appear before a fleeing opponent, then using an ability to knock them straight into the maws of your teammates for a devastating, potentially game-turning kill. Recruiting both him and fellow South Korean player Zero caused a storm of controversy in China, due at least in part to their centuries-old cultural rivalries, but a repeat return to the world championship stage quells all doubts. UZI, pronounced by the individual letters, is ready to open fire on the international competition for the second year running.


SK Gaming (EU)
Roster Simon "fredy122" Payne, Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen, Jesse "Jesiz" Le, Adrian "CandyPanda" Wubbelmann, Christoph "nRated" Seitz

Always a challenger, never the champions: SK Gaming has a long and illustrious career in European League of Legends for just barely missing out on a tournament title against top teams. They were once best-known for flamboyance more than anything else former mid laner Carlos "Ocelote" Rodriguez of Spain was one of the few mainstays of SK Gaming's rapidly evolving roster, but even he was finally exchanged for more promising talents.

The current roster is the most promising yet, as is the background staff supporting them from the sidelines. SK Gaming is the first western team known to enlist the aid of a sports psychologist while their influence upon their day-to-day conduct is uncertain, what is certain is that SK Gaming's among the most consistent teams of their region now, even if they aren't strictly the most skilled. It is important that they stay unfazed the world championship is guaranteed to throw something they haven't seen before or studied in advance, and it will take a stable center and focus to overcome the challenges ahead.

Behold Azir, the ancient Emperor of the Sands, commander of the Shuriman armies, and the latest Champion to fall under the League of Legends Champion Spotlight.

As revealed in August, Azir is a summoner who calls forth Shuriman soldiers to do his bidding, backed by powerful spells that make life difficult for his opponents. "An emperor does not act; he commands," Riot's ZenonTheStoic, aka Champion Designer Daniel Klein, wrote in the Champion Insights section of the Azir reveal. "Internally, we call these champs 'minion-mancers.' Once we knew Azir would take on this kind of kit, we knew it was time to look at what does and doesn t work for these often-problematic designs."

Taking stock of previous "minion-mancer" characters like Heimerdinger, Elise, Malzahar and Yorick allowed Riot to "introduce appropriate trade-offs to Azir's kit," Klein explained. "With these weaknesses in place, we could make the soldiers very strong indeed; imagine if I told you that, given the right setup, your basic attack has 1200 range and hits units in an AOE."

The full low-down on Azir, the Emperor of the Sands, can be read at LeagueOfLegends.com.

People who fill stadiums, a list: 1) ageing rock stars, 2) sports teams, and, as of this year, 3) wizards. We've already had Dota 2's International filling up Seattle's KeyArena. Now, ESL's Intel Extreme Masters tournament will use San Jose's SAP Center as the venue to find the world's best League of Legends and Starcraft 2 players.

"We are the first independent esports content creators to run an event of this scale inside a US sports stadium," explains ESL managing director Michal Blicharz in a press release. "It s a chance for gaming fans to prove that their hobby belongs in the spotlight."

Home to the San Jose Sharks an NHL team, rather than actual sharks the stadium has a capacity of between 17,000 and 19,000 people, depending on the event. The tournament will be held on 6-7 December, and will also be streamed on Twitch.



For more details, head over to the ESL Extreme Masters site.

League of Legends has held up pretty well over the years, but it's getting a little long in the tooth. So with the Summoner's Rift update working its way through the Public Beta Environment, Riot has decided that it's time to slap a fresh coat of paint on its older champions and skins.

It's a big job, obviously, and so it's not going to happen all at once, but eventually the update will cover just about every champion and skin released prior to 2013. The updated textures will stick with a "visual hierarchy" that's part of the overall Summoner's Rift update, which aims to focus attention on key areas like characters' heads and weapons. "At the highest level, we want to ensure that everything looks consistent," the studio wrote, "and that the art always adds to, rather than detracts, from gameplay."

Skins will also be updated, although in some cases the changes will only affect a character's default appearance. "An example of this is a metal shader that we re adding to Orianna's base texture, which will not be applied to the skins at this time," Riot wrote. "This is being done opportunely where we see a chance to do justice to the character's core identity."



Riot also noted that the texture updates won't have any impact on the releases of the Champions Updates. The first batch is expected to roll out on the PBE at 10 PDT tomorrow, and the job is planned to be complete by the time the Summoner's Rift update goes live.

Last week, we wrote that Riot Games was throwing out the lore League of Legends has built up over the past five years and replacing it with something new. Now we know what that something is, or at least what s coming first in LoL s rebooted fiction: a gameplay event tied to the desert empire of Shurima, which includes the launch of a new champion named Azir and a new game mode called Ascension.

Ascension takes League s combat off of Summoner s Rift onto a new desert map, where two five-player teams score points by capturing relics of Shurima. The big twist is a buff in the middle of the map: whoever lands the killing blow becomes Ascended, becoming powerful enough to take on the entire opposing team single-handedly.

To kick off the event, Riot has released a short gameplay video of Ascension in action.

Riot s website dedicated to Ascension lays out how the new mode works:

Claim Ascension by taking down Ancient Ascendant Xerath in the center of the map, but be careful, you'll need your whole team to battle him and claim the buff. The Ascension buff yields awe-inspiring power:

Bonus health & infinite mana
AD & AP
Cooldown Reduction
Armor penetration & magic penetration

But the gifts of Ascension come with a price, as healing and regeneration effects are halved and the other team always retains vision of you. Once the Ascended falls, Ancient Ascendant Xerath will respawn shortly afterward, reigniting the struggle for Ascension!

In Ascension, player kills are worth one points, but capturing one of map s three relics of Shurima is worth three points. Destroying an ascended player, or the neutral Ascendant Xerath, is worth five points. The ascended champion earns two points per kill.

Playing Ascension during the LoL Shurima event, which lasts until September 21, nets you Shurima icons to proudly proclaim your participation. If you re not into icons, well, at least you ve got a new game mode to try out.

I hope you're not too attached to the lore behind League of Legends, because it's about to be chucked out and replaced with something new. As the rest of LoL has changed over the years, Riot Games say that the original lore has held them back, leading to "creative stagnation, limiting the ways that champions, factions and Runeterra itself could grow and change". So the lore's being updated to give Riot more freedom, allowing them to tell (hopefully) more interesting stories, and to give their characters better justifications for battering each other across a series of lanes.

The full details are here in a massive blog post by Tommy Gnox and LoL's narrative team, but I'll quote the relevant parts explaining why LoL's previous backstory is is being altered to allow Runetarra to be "a world in which the factions and champions we all know and love have full freedom to grow, travel, and kick ass on a worldwide scale."

"In the early days of League," Riot say, "we created a fictional background that would justify how players could control champions during games. We came up with concepts like Summoners, Fields of Justice, an Institute of War, and indeed, the League of Legends itself all in an attempt to provide fictional context for in-game action.

"After a while, these early choices began to create unexpected problems. Every new champion needed a reason to join and remain in the League, and as their number grew, the net result was that over time the world started to feel, well, small, and eventually less interesting. The institutions we d designed fostered creative stagnation, limiting the ways that champions, factions and Runeterra itself could grow and change. Furthermore, the very idea of all-powerful Summoners made Champions little more than puppets manipulated by godlike powers. The background we d created to explain in-game action was ultimately restricting the potential narrative development of the game s defining characters."

To pick up that earlier point, here's how Riot hope to achieve this: "from champion interactions to bios to events (and beyond), we aim to expand the scope of League s story and pursue a more dynamic and wide-ranging world fit for the outsized capabilities and personalities of our champions".

If you've grown attached to the original backstory, Riot assure fans that "League s original lore remains a cherished part of its history".

In other recent LoL news, Riot talked depth and player engagement at PAX.

Members of Riot, the dev team behind the popular MOBA League of Legends, gathered at PAX Prime 2014 to talk about their design philosophy and how they carefully balance the game s dozens of playable characters. With over 27 million players logging into LoL per day, they cite player feedback as one of their key guides.

Player feedback is really important to our design changes, lead designer Greg Street said. We gather a lot of data from players, about champions being played and wins and losses. If we hear from a lot of players that a champion is problematic, that will cause a discussion in the office. Do we need to step in and change something, or will players invent a strategy that will compensate for this, or is it time to admit that there s a balance problem?

Attacks being slightly overpowered or a champion walking a bit too fast are just the beginning. According to Street, the team works on three discrete levels: mechanical, tactical, and strategic. The mechanical level is about where champions stand and how they aim their attacks. Tactical depth is about their coordination with other champions fighting nearby, and the strategic level looks at the team s approach to winning the match as a whole.

We define depth as, having lots of interesting decisions to make, Street says. He relates it to tic tac toe, where your move is dictated by your opponent s move or Monopoly where your decisions matter less than your luck. Those games have very little depth. LoL champions, on the other hand, are balanced in part by being different. Some champions, like Kog Maw, have limited mechanical depth but serve as a locus for team strategy. Other champions are more mechanically diverse, requiring players to maneuver effectively and take accurate skill shots.

After a short talk, the team spent most of their hour fielding questions from fans, many of whom claim to have played thousands of games of LoL. These hardcore fans grilled the team on how they make balance decisions, and several were concerned about the long-term fate of their favorite champions.

Every champion should feel overpowered--sometimes, developer Jordan Anton said. You should have a moment where you play the champion and think, I feel like a god.

For more from the team at PAX Prime this weekend, head to this page.