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 expanded week of LCS play comes at an interesting time for the North American division. Doubters who keep expecting Curse to wake up and realize they’re not the best team in North America will see the unlikely division leaders face their toughest week yet. Today they play Team MRN (1-3), compLexity (1-3), and second-place Team Digniitas (5-2). Curse are playing not just to protect their lead of the division, but to keep their perfect 6-0 streak alive.
This week will be particularly significant for Team MRN and compLexity, who are in 6th and 7th place with 1-3 records. With both teams playing five games this week, they have a chance at either emerging as serious opponents and escaping the bottom of the standings. If they don’t step up, however, one or both of these teams is likely to find itself battling just to escape relegation at mid-season. They already watched Vulcun surge past them last week, and the only thing keeping them out of the divisional cellar is Good Game University’s poor performance without their mid-laner Danny “Shiphtur” Le.
The stream starts in just over an hour from now.