League of Legends: Season 2 World Championship

The Season 2 World Championship occurred on October 4–13, 2012, in Los Angeles, California and was the second iteration of the annual League of Legends World Championship. The tournament was won by Taipei Assassins over Azubu Frost in the finals.

Season 2 World Championship
2012
League of Legends Season 2 World Championship finals
Tournament information
SportLeague of Legends
LocationLos Angeles, California
DatesOctober 4, 2012–October 13, 2012
Administrator(s)Riot Games
Venue(s)Galen Center
Teams12
Purse$2,000,000 USD
Final positions
Champion Taipei Assassins
Runner-up Azubu Frost

Background

A group picture of the Taipei Assassins, the champions of season 2.

After Season 1, Riot announced that US$5,000,000 would be paid out over Season 2. Of this $5 million, $2 million went to Riot's partners including the IGN Pro League and other major esports associations. Another $2 million went to Riot's Season 2 qualifiers and championship. The final $1 million went to other organizers who applied to Riot to host independent League of Legends tournaments.[1]

The Season 2 World Championship was held in early October 2012 in Los Angeles, California to conclude the US$5 million season. Twelve qualifying teams from around the world participated in the championship, which boasted the largest prize pool in the history of e-sports tournaments at the time at US$2 million, US$1 million going to the champions, until The International 2013 beat it the next year. The group stage, quarter-final, and semi-final matches took place between October 4 and 6. The grand final took place a week after, on October 13 in the University of Southern California's Galen Center in front of 10,000 fans, and were broadcast in 13 different languages.[2] In the grand final, Taiwan's professional team Taipei Assassins triumphed over South Korea's Azubu Frost 3-to-1 and claimed the US$1 million in prize money.[3]

Over 8 million viewers tuned in to the Season 2 World Championship broadcast, with a maximum of 1.1 million concurrent viewers during the grand final, making the Season 2 World Championship the most watched esports event in history at the time.[4]

Format

Several top teams missed out on the World Championship, including Fnatic and Azubu Blaze.[5] The IGN Pro League 5 tournament has been touted by some as the true Season 2 World Championships.

Cheating incident

During the quarter-final round of the Season 2 World Championship, Jang Gun Woong of team Azubu Frost cheated by turning his head to look at the big screen which was positioned behind him. The screen, which presents an overview of the game, is meant to be watched only by the crowd, as it displays elements that are supposed to be hidden from the players inside the game. This led to Azubu Frost being fined US$30,000.[6][7][8]

Technical issues

During the last quarter-final best-of-three match on October 6 between European team Counter Logic Gaming EU and Chinese team World Elite, multiple technical difficulties occurred. Roughly twenty minutes into the second game, the network connection in the arena went down, terminating the live stream on Twitch and disconnecting all ten players from the game, forcing a remake of the game. Then, roughly sixty minutes into the third game, the network went down again. A final attempt was made at finishing the third game, but due to more network outages and technical issues, including a player's defective computer which had to be replaced, the last game and the following semi-finals were rescheduled to be played on October 10 in the Galen Center, which was still undergoing construction work. The cause of the connection issues is uncertain, but is suspected to have been caused by faulty hardware.[9][10][11]

Qualification

The Participants qualified through the Regional Finals:

  • China: July 26 – Shanghai, China at China Joy – 2 teams
  • Europe: August 16 – Cologne, Germany at Gamescom – 3 teams
  • North America: August 30 – Seattle, United States at PAX Prime – 3 teams
  • Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau: September 1 – Taipei, Taiwan at G1 – 1 team
  • Southeast Asia: September 9 – Da Nang, Vietnam at Tien Son Sports Palace – 1 team
  • South Korea: September 21 – Seoul, Korea at the OGN eSports Stadium – 2 teams

Team

Of the five first seeds of five regions (China, Europe, North America, South Korea, Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau) a random drawing was done to determine which four teams skip the group stage

  • The random drawing determined that Azubu Frost would go to the Group stage while the others received a bye
Region Path Team ID
Starting in the Playoff stage
China Most Circuit Points Team WE WE
Europe Regional Finals Winner Moscow Five M5
North America Regional Finals Winner Team SoloMid TSM
TW/HK/MO Regional Finals Winner Taipei Assassins TPA
Starting in the Group stage
South Korea Summer Champion Azubu Frost AZF
Regional Finals Winner NaJin Sword NJS
China Regional Finals Runner-Up Invictus Gaming IG
Europe Regional Finals Runner-up SK Gaming SK
Regional Finals 3rd Place CLG Europe CLG.EU
North America Regional Finals Runner-up Team Dignitas DIG
Regional Finals 3rd Place CLG Prime CLG.NA
Southest Asia Regional Finals Winner Saigon Jokers SAJ

Group stage

  • Eight teams are drawn into two groups with four teams in each group based on their seeding. Teams of the same region cannot be placed in the same group.
  • Single round robin, all matches are best-of-one.
  • If teams have the same win-loss record and head-to-head record, a tiebreaker match is played for first or second place.
  • Top two teams of each group will advance to Playoff stage. Bottom two teams are eliminated.

Group A

Pos Team W L
1 Azubu Frost 3 0
2 Invictus Gaming 2 1
3 CLG Prime 1 2
4 SK Gaming 0 3

Group B

Pos Team W L
1 NaJin Sword 3 0
2 CLG Europe 2 1
3 Saigon Jokers 1 2
4 Team Dignitas 0 3

Playoff stage

  • Eight teams are drawn into a single elimination bracket.
  • All matches are best-of-three, except Final match is best-of-five.
  • The auto-qualified team is drawn against the team from Group stage.
  • Teams from same group will be on opposite sides of the bracket, meaning they cannot play each other until the Finals.
Quarterfinals Semifinals Finals
         
AQ Moscow Five 2
A2 Invictus Gaming 0
Moscow Five 1
Taipei Assassins 2
AQ Taipei Assassins 2
B1 NaJin Sword 0
Taipei Assassins 3
Azubu Frost 1
AQ Team SoloMid 0
A1 Azubu Frost 2
Azubu Frost 2
CLG Europe 1
AQ Team WE 1
B2 CLG Europe 2

Final standings

Team ranking

Place Team Prize money
1st Taipei Assassins $1,000,000
2nd Azubu Frost $250,000
3rd-4th Moscow Five $150,000
CLG Europe
5–8th Invictus Gaming $75,000
NaJin Sword
Team SoloMid
Team WE
9-10th CLG Prime $50,000
Saigon Jokers
11-12th SK Gaming $25,000
Team Dignitas

Top four

Place Team Players[12] Prize money
ID Name
1st Taipei Assassins

Stanley
Lilballz
Toyz
bebe
MiSTakE

Wang June Tsan
Kuan-Po Alex Sung
Kurtis Lau Wai-kin
Cheng Bo-Wei
Chen Hui Chung

$1,000,000
2nd Azubu Frost

Shy
CloudTemplar
RapidStar
Woong
MadLife

Park Sang-myeon
Lee Hyun-woo
Jung Min-sung
Jang Gun-woong
Hong Min-gi

$250,000
3rd–4th Counter Logic Gaming Europe

Wickd
Snoopeh
Froggen
yellowpete
Krepo

Mike Petersen
Stephen Ellis
Henrik Hansen
Peter Wüppen
Mitch Voorspoels

$150,000
Moscow Five

Darien
Diamondprox
Alex Ich
Genja
GoSu Pepper

Evgeny Mazaev
Danil Reshetnikov
Alexey Ichetovkin
Evgeny Andryushin
Edward Abgaryan

References

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