Over the weekend the MLG Summer League of Legends Arena took place, marking the first time a Korean League of Legends team has played outside of Korea, which makes it more than a little auspicious. Especially so when that team, Azubu Blaze, went up against the likes of Team Solomid, Curse Gaming and Team Black, and came out on top to earn $10,000 and erase all doubt from the minds of anyone who thought that Koreans were only good at commanding a zerg rush.
League of Legends has been in Korea since late last year, with Riot opening a dedicated office in Seoul specifically to engender a better relationship with the Esports juggernaut of a country. It’s clearly paying off, then, when a team like Azubu Blaze outperforms pretty much everyone else in the League of Legends competitive scene, including fan favourites Team Solomid.
The replays of each game will be going up on MLG.tv by the end of Wednesday this week, but if you have to see it right now yes please then you can buy a pass and watch every game in HD right now.
Looking forward, we’ve got the Summer Championships in Raleigh on August 24th to the 26th, where Solo Mid, Curse and teams like Dignitas and mTw are going to rock up to make a more evened lineup. Unfortunately Azubu Blaze aren’t going to be at that one, so we won’t know definitively whether Korean LoL is better than Western LoL. Although it can’t be all that long before we find that one out. The world is only so big, after all, and there are a lot of League of Legends tournaments going on.