2016 League of Legends World Championship

2016 League of Legends World Championship

2016
Tournament information
Location	United States
Dates	September 29–October 29
Administrator(s)	Riot Games
Tournament format(s)	16 team round-robin group stage 8 team single-elimination bracket
Venue(s)	4 (in 4 host cities)
Teams	16
Purse	$5,070,000 USD
Final positions
Champion	SK Telecom T1 (3rd title)
Runner-up	Samsung Galaxy
Tournament statistics
Matches played	75
MVP	Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok (SK Telecom T1)
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The 2016 League of Legends World Championship was the world championship for League of Legends held from September 29 – October 29, 2016 across several cities in the United States. Sixteen teams qualified for the tournament.

The world championship began with group stage matches at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, moved to The Chicago Theater in Chicago for quarterfinals, and then to Madison Square Garden in New York City for the semi-finals. The final was held in front of a crowd of nearly 20,000 fans at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the same location for the Season 3 Championship.

The championship went to SK Telecom T1, who defended their title from the 2015 League of Legends World Championship by defeating runner-up Samsung Galaxy 3-2 in a best of five final series. With their win, SKT became the first three-time League of Legends world champion. SKT's Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok was named MVP of the tournament.

Background, teams, and qualifications

After the 2015 League of Legends World Championship was held across Europe, the 2016 edition was held in North America.^[1][2]

On October 28, Riot Games announced that the prize pool had grown to over $5 million, on the strength of selling unique Championship skins for hero characters in the game.^[3] The original prize pool was $2.13 million contributed by Riot Games, and the final amount will be calculated after fan contributions stop on November 6.^[4] The $5.07 million prize pool as of October 28 is the largest single prize pool in League of Legends history.^[5] Riot announced that 40% of the prize pool will be awarded to the winner and 15% to the second place.^[4]

To encourage new viewers to watch, Riot Games set up a second stream specifically for new viewers.^[6]

Sixteen teams qualified for the tournament from regional events. EDward Gaming, Royal Never Give Up, and IMay from qualified from the League of Legends Pro League in China. G2 Esports, H2K-Gaming, and Splyce qualified via the 2016 Summer European League of Legends Championship Series. Team SoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming, and Cloud9 qualified via the 2016 Summer North American League of Legends Championship Series. ROX Tigers, SK Telecom T1, and Samsung Galaxy qualified from the League of Legends Champions Korea event. Flash Wolves and Ahq e-Sports Club qualified from the League of Legends Master Series for the Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau region. INTZ eSports from Brazil and Albus NoX Luna from Russia qualified via international wildcard qualifications.^[7]

Rosters

Venues

Four venues in four cities were selected for the tournament.^[24]

San Francisco, California	Chicago, Illinois	New York City, New York	Los Angeles, California
Bill Graham Civic Auditorium	Chicago Theatre	Madison Square Garden	Staples Center
Sep 29 – Oct 9	Oct 13 – Oct 16	Oct 21 – Oct 22	Oct 29
Capacity: 7,000	Capacity: 3,800	Capacity: 18,200	Capacity: 18,188

Group stage

The group stage was held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California. The group stage was played in a best of one double round-robin format, with the top two teams from each of the four groups advancing to the knockout stage, for a total of eight teams. Tiebreaking matches were played in groups A and C.^{[25][25][26][27]}

Group A

The Cinderella story of the tournament was the run of Albus NoX Luna, the CIS champions who became the first wildcard qualifier to make it to the quarterfinals in the history of League of Legend worlds.^[27] European champions G2 Esports, underperformed in this group, while ROX Tigers, the first seed from Korea and the Korean League champion, won the group as expected, but had to do so by defeating Albus NoX Luna in a tiebreaker game.^[27]

#	Team		1	2	3	4		W	L	±
1	ROX Tigers		~	1-1	1-1	2-0		5	2	3
2	Albus NoX Luna		1-1	~	2-0	1-1		4	3	2
3	Counter Logic Gaming		1-1	0-2	~	2-0		3	3	0
4	G2 Esports		0-2	1-1	0-2	~		1	5	-4

Group B

Group B's deciding matches all occurred on the last day, when all teams except for the Korean first seed SK Telecom T1 had 2-3 records.^[28] In the end, it was Cloud9, the sole North American team to move on,^[29] that moved on after exploiting the inconsistent play of the Chinese and Taiwanese teams.^[28] I May was also hurt when one of its players was suspended for one match on the last day and fined $2000 for abusive behavior in online games.^[30]

#	Team		1	2	3	4		W	L	±
1	SK Telecom T1		~	2-0	2-0	1-1		5	1	4
2	Cloud9		0-2	~	2-0	1-1		3	3	0
3	I May		0-2	0-2	~	2-0		2	4	-2
4	Flash Wolves		1-1	1-1	0-2	~		2	4	-2

Group C

Group C was the only group without a Korean team seeded first. Its two qualifiers were both considered championship favorites, since H2K-Gaming was the only Western first seed and EDward Gaming was a strong Chinese team.^[31] Despite a 1-2 showing in the first week, H2K managed to make the quarterfinals at the top of its group by winning four straight matches, including a tiebreaker against EDWard Gaming,^[27] to become the only European team to move on.^[31]

#	Team		1	2	3	4		W	L	±
1	H2K-Gaming		~	1-1	1-1	2-0		5	2	3
2	EDward Gaming		1-1	~	2-0	1-1		4	3	1
3	ahq e-Sports Club		1-1	0-2	~	2-0		3	3	0
4	INTZ e-Sports		0-2	1-1	0-2	~		1	5	-4

Group D

Group D was considered to be the group of death because it had three top Korean, Chinese, and North American teams, and a strong European team.^[32] Samsung Galaxy, would convincingly win the group with help from the strong play of Kang "Ambition" Chang-yong.^[32] Royal Never Give Up defeated the North American champions TSM to even their records at 3-3 and win the head-to-head tiebreaker to move on to the quarterfinals.^[33]

#	Team		1	2	3	4		W	L	±
1	Samsung Galaxy		~	2-0	1-1	2-0		5	1	4
2	Royal Never Give Up		0-2	~	2-0	1-1		3	3	0
3	Team Solo Mid		1-1	0-2	~	2-0		3	3	0
4	Splyce		0-2	1-1	0-2	~		1	5	-4

Knockout stage

Quarterfinals

The quarterfinals were held at the Chicago Theatre, starting on October 13.^[34] All three of the Korean teams, SK Telecom T1, ROX Tigers, and Samsung Galaxy, advanced to the quarterfinals from the group stage. Two Chinese teams, EDward Gaming and Royal Never Give Up, advanced by finishing second in their groups. Cloud9 and H2k-Gaming were respectively the only North American and European teams to advance out of groups. The last team to make it to the quarterfinals was Albus NoX Luna, a Russian wildcard team that finished second in its group.^[34]

Semi-finals

Three teams from the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) circuit and one from the European League of Legends Championship Series (EULCS) made it to the semi-finals.^[35] H2K-Gaming ended the wildcard run of Albus NoX by sweeping them 3-0 in the quarterfinals.^[36] Meanwhile, the three Korean teams ended the runs of EDward Gaming and Royal Never Give Up, the last two Chinese teams and the run of Coud 9, the last North American team.^[29]

The semi-finals were held at Madison Square Garden in New York over two days.^[37] SK Telecom T1 won a five-game series against the ROX Tigers, who had won the 2015 Summer League of Legends Championship Korea season and were favorites to win this event.^[35] Many commentators called this matchup the true World Finals.^[35] In the other semi-finals, Samsung Galaxy swept H2k-Gaming, the last European team in the tournament, 3-0 to advance to the finals.^[35][37]

Finals

The Staples Center as used for the 2016 League of Legends World Championship finals.

The final lasted six hours and was played in front of a crowd of nearly 20, 000 fans at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.^[38] A projection of the minimap which showed each team's map control was shown on the floor of the arena between the two teams.^[39] Most of the players for Samsung Galaxy (SSG) had never played in the finals before, while most members of SK Telecom (SKT) were returning members of the 2015 championship team.^[40] It was the first finals series in a League of Legends world championship to go the full five games.^[40]

The first match of the best of five series lasted 40 minutes and was won by SK Telecom,^[40] who were able to attack Samsung Galaxy's undefended base after winning a big "all-in" battle between the two teams.^[41] The second match was also won by SKT, who was able to continuously build up an insurmountable advantage after winning a battle in the mid-game,^[41] ending the game after 31 minutes.^[42]

After losing the first two games, Samsung Galaxy won a long third game against SK Telecom.^[38] SKT dominated the early stages of the game and built up a lead in both kills and gold.^[42] The turning point in this game was a fight over Baron, an important in-game objective, where Samsung Galaxy was able to kill half of SK Telecom's team and destroy two of their turrets afterwards.^[42] After a similar engagement later in the game over Baron which Samsung Galaxy also won, they were then able to quickly destroy five of SKT's defensive towers and win the game.^[41] This third game was the second-longest in competitive League of Legends history,^[41] clocking in at 71:20.^[42]

Samsung Galaxy then won the fourth game, also after winning a key fight over Baron.^[40] Despite losing two inhibitor buildings in their base, SKT was able to stall SSG with defensive play until the 42-minute mark, after which SSG took three Dragons – another in game objective – uncontested and gained buffs that allowed them to win the game.^[42] In the final game, SK Telecom played a more cautious gameplay style and punished Samsung Galaxy's riskier play.^[42] SKT was able to grab two Baron kills and two Elder Dragon kills en route to winning the final game.^[38]

SK Telecom's team shared a $2 million prize purse between its members.^[38] The championship victory was SKT's third in four years, and a successful defence of their 2015 title.^[38] SKT also became the first team to win three world championships.^[35] ESPN's Timothy Lee called the finals "an instant classic."^[42] SKT's Lee Sang-hyeok, who uses the handle "Faker", was named as the tournament MVP.^[38] It was Faker's first Worlds MVP.^[40] Faker's performance on the map's middle lane broke the previous 208 kills record at Worlds by the third map of the finals, and ended up with 217 kills.^[40]

Bracket

	Quarter-finals				Semi-finals				Final
	October 14 – Chicago Theatre
	SK Telecom T1	3
					October 21 – Madison Square Garden
	Royal Never Give Up	1
					SK Telecom T1	3
	October 15 – Chicago Theatre
					ROX Tigers	2
	ROX Tigers	3
									October 29 – Staples Center
	EDward Gaming	1
									SK Telecom T1	3
	October 16 – Chicago Theatre
									Samsung Galaxy	2
	H2K-Gaming	3
					October 22 – Madison Square Garden
	Albus NoX Luna	0
					H2K-Gaming	0
	October 13 – Chicago Theatre
					Samsung Galaxy	3
	Samsung Galaxy	3
	Cloud9	0

Source^[43]

Final standings

References

External links

• Official information