What the Starcraft 2 World Champion Series must learn from Riot's LCS and DreamHack
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What are eSports tournaments for? If you’re a fan, you’re looking for drama, suspense, and passion. Tournaments have to be more than just demonstrations of skill.
Two examples: over the weekend at Dreamhack, Sweden’s mercurial Protoss, NaNiwa, faced off against Brood War legend Jaedong in front of a delirious home crowd. The combination of star power, a close series, and the crowd’s fever-pitch excitement made it an unforgettable series.
Meanwhile, the League of Legends Championship Series is about narrative; about the long game. The story of this weekend wasn’t the prize pool, or the possibility of relegation. It was the astonishing twists and upsets that came from young teams that have finally come into their own.
The success of both Dreamhack and the LCS stand in sharp contrast to the stumbles of Blizzard’s Starcraft 2 World Championship Series.
The fourth week of the League of Legends Championship Series, the “Super Week” was a real test of whether or not League fans could get too much of a good thing. With 20 matches apiece in the North American and European divisions, following all the action in the LCS was a test of endurance and commitment. I was still catching up on matches throughout Monday, seeing what I’d missed while distracted by things like sleep and sustenance.
The Evil Geniuses League of Legends squad is currently ranked second in the European division of the LCS, close behind Fnatic following their victory over EG last Saturday. They are easily one of the top teams in the LCS’ European or American divisions, and next week they’ll be tested against many of the world’s best at the IEM World Championship in Hanover. We recently had a chance to talk to EG’s team captain, Stephen “Snoopeh” Ellis about the team’s plans for improving this year, why it’s become so much stronger since the Season 2 playoffs, and the tension between being a successful competitive team and being a successful business.
Riot Games, the developer behind the enormously successful MOBA League of Legends, yesterday announced that they have opened an office in Sydney, Australia, to cover the Oceania region.
This is a monstrous week for the League of Legends Championship Series: both the North American and European divisions are playing 20 games this week, and the action starts today for North America with 12 hours of League. The first game, CLG versus the surging Vulcun team, starts at 11 AM Pacific (2 PM on the East Coast and 5 PM in the UK). You can watch on Riot's Twitch stream.
The third week of the LCS has concluded, and the competition is beginning to tighten a bit as Evil Geniuses lost first place to Fnatic in the European division, and Vulcun made big advances in the North American division with a clean sweep of its Week 3 opponents. Remember that next week is likely to be pivotal as both divisions play 20 games. Full results continue below:
I’m celebrating my first week back at full-strength by unwinding with some drinks, dinner, and League of Legends Championship series. We already saw Curse remain undefeated with a defeat of Vulcun, and now Dignitas is taking on Good Game University.
