2016 League of Legends World Championship
2016 | |
Tournament information | |
---|---|
Location | United States |
Dates | September 29–October 29 |
Administrator | Riot Games |
Tournament format(s) | 16 team round-robin group stage 8 team single-elimination bracket |
Venue(s) | 4 (in 4 host cities)
|
Teams | 16 |
Purse | $5,070,000 USD SK Telecom T1 |
Runner-up | Samsung Galaxy |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 75 |
MVP | Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok (SK Telecom T1) |
→ |
The 2016 League of Legends World Championship was an
Background
After the 2015 League of Legends World Championship was held across Europe, the 2016 edition was held in North America.[2][3]
The original prize pool was $2.13 million contributed by Riot Games, with the final amount being calculated after fan contributions stopped on November 6.[4] Riot pledged to add 25% of all revenue generated from selling Championship wards and skins – customizations for the player controlled hero character – to the prize pool.[5] On October 28, the sale of these unique Championship skins had grown the prize pool to $5.07 million, making it the largest single prize pool in League of Legends history.[6][7] The final prize pool reached $6.7 million.[8] Riot announced that 40% of the prize pool will be awarded to the winning team and 15% to the runner up.[4] The winning team would also receive 25% of revenue from skins created to commemorate the championship victory.[5]
To encourage new viewers to watch, Riot Games set up a second stream specifically for new viewers, which would help explain basic game concepts that more experienced viewers on the regular stream would be familiar with.[9]
Riot Games collaborated with Zedd, an electronic dance music disc jockey to create "Ignite", a dance music anthem for the tournament. The video referenced multiple highlights from previous League of Legends world championships.[10] As of July 2022, it has almost 90 million views on YouTube.[11]
Teams and qualifications
Based on the results of the 2016 MSI, the European (EU LCS) summer split champion team was seeded to Pool 2, since the European team that participated in the 2016 MSI, G2 Esports, did not qualify for top 4.
Region | League | Path | Team | ID | Pool | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
North America | NA LCS | Summer Champion | Team SoloMid | TSM | 1 | ||
Most Championship Points | Counter Logic Gaming | CLG | 2 | ||||
Regional Finals Winner | Cloud9 | C9 | 3 | ||||
Europe | EU LCS | Summer Champion | G2 Esports | G2 | 2 | ||
Most Championship Points | H2k-Gaming | H2K | |||||
Regional Finals Winner | Splyce | SPY | 3 | ||||
China | LPL | Summer Champion | EDward Gaming | EDG | 1 | ||
Most Championship Points | Royal Never Give Up | RNG | 2 | ||||
Regional Finals Winner | I May
|
IM | |||||
South Korea | LCK | Summer Champion | ROX Tigers
|
ROX | 1 | ||
Most Championship Points | SK Telecom T1
|
SKT | 2 | ||||
Regional Finals Winner | Samsung Galaxy | SSG | |||||
TW/HK/MO | LMS | Summer Champion | Flash Wolves | FW | 1 | ||
Regional Finals Winner | ahq e-Sports Club
|
AHQ | 2 | ||||
Wildcard | Brazil | CBLOL | IWCQ | CBLol Winter Champion ►IWCQ Brazil Winner #1 |
INTZ e-Sports | ITZ | 3 |
CIS | LCL | LCL Summer Champion ►IWCQ Brazil Winner #2 |
Albus NoX Luna | ANX | 3 |
Venues
San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles were four cities chosen to host the tournament.[12]
United States | |||
---|---|---|---|
San Francisco, California | Chicago, Illinois | New York City, New York | Los Angeles, California |
Group Stage | Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals |
Bill Graham Civic Auditorium | Chicago Theatre | Madison Square Garden | Staples Center
|
Capacity: 7,000 | Capacity: 3,800 | Capacity: 18,200 | Capacity: 18,188 |
Sep 29 – Oct 9 | Oct 13 – Oct 16 | Oct 21 – Oct 22 | Oct 29 |
Group stage
The group stage was held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California.[5] The group stage was played in a best of one double round-robin format, where each team played every other team in their group twice, with the top two teams from each of the four groups advancing to the knockout stage.[5][13]
Tiebreaking matches were played in groups A and C.[14][15][16]
Group A
The
Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | PCT | Qualification |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | ROX Tigers | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0.714 | Advance to knockouts |
2 | Albus NoX Luna | 7 | 4 | 3 | 0.571 | |
3 | Counter Logic Gaming | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0.500 | |
4 | G2 Esports | 6 | 1 | 5 | 0.167 |
Group B
Group B's deciding matches all occurred on the last day, when all teams except for the Korean first seed
Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | PCT | Qualification |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | SK Telecom T1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0.833 | Advance to knockouts |
2 | Cloud9 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0.500 | |
3 | I May | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0.333 | |
4 | Flash Wolves | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0.333 |
Group C
Group C was the only group without a Korean team seeded first. Its two qualifiers were both considered championship favorites, since
Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | PCT | Qualification |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | H2k-Gaming | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0.714 | Advance to knockouts |
2 | Edward Gaming | 7 | 4 | 3 | 0.571 | |
3 | ahq e-Sports Club | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0.500 | |
4 | INTZ e-Sports Club | 6 | 1 | 5 | 0.167 |
Group D
Group D was considered to be the group of death because it had three top Korean, Chinese, and North American teams, and a strong European team.[22] Samsung Galaxy, would convincingly win the group with help from the strong play of Kang "Ambition" Chang-yong.[22] Royal Never Give Up defeated the North American champions TSM to even their records at 3–3 and win the head-to-head tiebreaker to move on to the quarterfinals.[23]
Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | PCT | Qualification |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Samsung Galaxy | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0.833 | Advance to knockouts |
2 | Royal Never Give Up | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0.500 | |
3 | Team SoloMid | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0.500 | |
4 | Splyce | 6 | 1 | 5 | 0.167 |
Knockout stage
Quarterfinals and semi-finals
The quarterfinals were held at the
All three of the Korean teams,
Three teams from the
The semi-finals were held at Madison Square Garden in New York over two days.[26] SK Telecom T1 won a five-game series against the ROX Tigers, who had won the 2015 Summer League of Legends Championship Korea season and were favorites to win this event.[24] Many commentators called this matchup the true World Finals and many still call it the greatest best of 5 series in League of Legends esports history.[24] In the other semi-finals, Samsung Galaxy swept H2k-Gaming, the last European team in the tournament, 3–0 to advance to the finals.[24][26]
Finals
The final lasted six hours and was played in front of a crowd of nearly 20,000 fans at the
The first match of the best of five series lasted 40 minutes and was won by SK Telecom,[29] who were able to attack Samsung Galaxy's undefended base after winning a big "all-in" battle between the two teams.[30] The second match was also won by SKT, who were able to continuously build up an insurmountable advantage after winning a battle in the mid-game,[30] ending the game after 31 minutes.[31]
After losing the first two games, Samsung Galaxy won a long third game against SK Telecom.[27] SKT dominated the early stages of the game and built up a lead in both kills and gold.[31] The turning point in this game was a fight over Baron, an important in-game objective, where Samsung Galaxy was able to kill half of SK Telecom's team and destroy two of their turrets afterwards.[31] After winning a similar engagement over Baron later in the game, Samsung Galaxy was then able to quickly destroy five of SKT's defensive towers and win the game.[30] This third game was the second-longest in competitive League of Legends history,[30] at 71 minutes and 20 seconds.[31]
Samsung Galaxy then won the fourth game, also after winning a key fight over Baron.[29] Despite losing two inhibitor buildings in their base, SKT was able to stall SSG with defensive play until the 42-minute mark, after which SSG took three Dragons – another in game objective – uncontested and gained buffs that allowed them to win the game.[31] In the final game, SK Telecom played a more cautious gameplay style, which was effective against Samsung Galaxy's riskier play.[31] SKT was able to grab two Baron kills and two Elder Dragon kills en route to winning the final game.[27]
SK Telecom's team shared a $2 million prize purse between its members.
Bracket
- Competition table[32]
Final standings
- Initial prize pool US$2,130,000
- 25% of sales from Championship Zed skins & Championship ward skins increase the prize pool.
- On October 28, the prize pool reached US$5,070,000
Places | Team | Prize (USD) | Prize (%) |
---|---|---|---|
1st | SK Telecom T1
|
$2,028,000 | 40% |
2nd | Samsung Galaxy
|
$760,500 | 15% |
3rd–4th | ROX Tigers
|
$380,250 | 7.5% |
H2K-Gaming
| |||
5th–8th | Cloud9 | $202,800 | 4% |
EDward Gaming
| |||
Royal Never Give Up | |||
Albus NoX Luna | |||
9th–12th | Counter Logic Gaming | $114,075 | 2.25% |
ahq e-Sports Club
| |||
Team SoloMid | |||
I May | |||
13th–16th | Flash Wolves | $63,375 | 1.25% |
INTZ e-Sports | |||
G2 Esports | |||
Splyce |
Legacy
Viewership numbers were higher than those for the 2015 League of Legends World Championship. 43 million unique viewers saw the finals and peak concurrent viewership for the finals was 14.7 million; 370 million hours of esports were streamed over the course of the entire world championship.[8] The final prize pool, which included fan contributions via purchase of in-game items, was worth $6.7 million.[8] The total cumulative daily unique impressions (the amount of unique viewers that tuned in every day via online and television channels) reached 396 million.[34]
LA 2024, which is overseeing the
References
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