League of Legends, one of the most popular team-based games currently played, starts their World Championship series October 1st with the 16 top-ranked teams in the world.
If you aren't familiar with League of Legends, the game is a fast paced, multiplayer online battle arena game blending real-time strategy and tactical elements with RPG aspects. In other words, a player's team must fight together, grow stronger together, and win together. The various champions the teams choose must complement each other and fill particular roles that provide strategic depth and versatility.
In addition, League of Legends has been highly influential in causing gaming to be recognized as a sport. The ESL, Electronic Sports League, has been one of the primary promoters of gaming as a sport as far back as 2000, and currently provides league support for games like Starcraft II, Counterstrike, Dota 2, and League of Legends. It often provides free online streaming of major events.
League of Legends made gaming history back in 2011 with a $5 million prize pool for the season. While other games have upped the ante as well to offer similar rewards, at the time, LoL offered the largest pool ever in gaming history.
Tomorrow, October 1st, the League of Legends World Championship gets underway at 9:30 AM ET. If you are a fan of LoL, you can watch masters of the game play with free online streaming here. If you have the game installed, you will most likely find a link to live games on one of the launch pages. For those of us who aren't really into gaming particularly, I would still recommend tuning in for a few minutes so you can better understand why someone you know likes this game. For players like myself, this is a chance to learn a good bit about tactics and implementation thereof as well as to see how various champions mesh with each other.
The three top contenders according to League of Legends power rankings are EDG (Edward Gaming, LGD (LGD Gaming) and SKT (SKTelecom T1). All three teams did well in last year's championship, and analysts expect a strong showing in this one.
For anyone interested in learning more about the players themselves and some of the struggles these teams have faced as both teams and individuals, check out the Legends Rising. It provides an interesting look at some of the challenges players have gone through.
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