By Griffin LaMarche
In each of the four major regions, teams can qualify for League of Legends Worlds in three different ways: winning in the Summer Split, beating the other teams in your conference in the playoffs, earning the most championship points by aggregating top positions in both the Spring and Summer Split or the Regional Gauntlet, where the four teams not yet qualified for Worlds with the highest amount of championship points battle in a gauntlet-styled tournament, where the lowest seed takes on every team to have a shot at the international tournament.
In Korea (LCK), Generation Gaming (Gen.G), the defending World champions, came into the gauntlet as the third seed, meaning they would have to beat legendary team SK Telecom T1 (SKT), rookie superstars Griffin (GRF) and powerhouse Spring Split champions Kingzone Dragon-X (KZ). SKT grabbed an early 2-1 series lead with a great performance by Bae “Bang” Jun-Sik, but Gen.G was able to come back and win the series 3-2. The story stayed the same against Griffin, as a decisive Game 5 allowed Gen.G to contend for the final Worlds spot against Kingzone Dragon-X. Against KZ, a clean performance by Park “Ruler” Jae-Hyuk allowed Gen.G to take the series 3-0, so they will represent South Korea alongside KT Rolster and Afreeca Freecs at Worlds.
In Europe (EULCS), Misfits Gaming was upset early by Splyce after bot-laner Kasper “Kobbe” Kobberup bested Steven “Hans Sama” Liv in a close five-game series. However, all eyes were on G2 Esports as Luka “Perz” Perkovic looked to best Splyce, but it was Petter “Hjarnan” Freyschuss’s phenomenal performance on Heimerdinger that solidified G2’s spot in the regional finals. Hjarnan holds a 7-0 record on Heimerdinger with an outstanding 7.1 KDA. G2 would use that momentum to take down the Summer Split runner-up FC Schalke 04 in a 3-1 series to join Fnatic and Team Vitality at Worlds this fall.
In China (LPL), despite the series being plagued with pauses and Chronobreaks, Edward Gaming (EDG) was able to beat out both JD Gaming (JDG) in a vicious five-game series, though the series was scattered due to bugs, and long investigations led fans and players to express massive disappointment in the structure of the games. Following the delays, EDG beat out Rogue Warriors (RW), the favorites to win the gauntlet in a decisive 3-1 series. EDG has been known to not perform to their expectations at Worlds, but things may be different this year. EDG joined Royal Never Give Up (RNG) and Invictus Gaming (IG) as the Chinese representatives.
Finally, North America (NALCS) brought some more lackluster games with Joshua “Dardoch” Harnett being able to bring Echo Fox (EF) over a very weak Clutch Gaming (CG), despite a great performance by Clutch’s midlaner Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten. However, Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg posted up a 18/2/27 record against Echo Fox, and with the disappointing performance by 2017 Worlds runner-up Heo “Huni” Seung-Hoon, Echo Fox was eliminated 3-0. TSM now plays gauntlet juggernauts Cloud9 for the final spot.
The 2018 League of Legends Worlds Championship begins Oct. 1.
