The absence of Lemondogs left a void in the League of Legends European League Championship Series, which Riot Games moved immediately to try and fill. Holding an online 3-team round robin tournament, either Ninjas in Pyjamas, Meet Your Makers, or Supa Hot Crew was going to have the chance to take the spot vacated by the no-longer qualifying Lemondogs.
It started with a disqualification.
The tourney was taking place online, due to the hurried nature of it, so the three teams were given certain guidelines to follow to be prepared and ready to go when their names got called, including applying a new patch.
Ninjas in Pyjamas did not get patched before the tournament. They were given fifteen minutes to get into the game lobby, losing a ban every five minutes of time they used up. In the end, with fifteen minutes wasted, probably the favorite team to win the round robin tournament was still not ready to play, resulting in a disqualification from the tournament.
This left Supa Hot Crew and Meet Your Makers to face each other in a best of three series, and with the new patch active and the changes in the meta, it was guaranteed to be quite a show.
Meet Your Makers managed to out-farm SHC in the first game, despite giving up first blood to MrRalleZ’s Lucian. But MYM were unable to hold that lead after several well-executed teamfights by SHC overcame and passed the farm disparity, resulting in a solid win for the Supa Hot Crew in game one.
Game two started a bit slower, with first blood taking longer to earn, but ultimately swung even more heavily in Supa Hot Crew’s favor, ending in a surrender vote from MYM to seal the ultimate victory!
The round robin may not have gone as expected, but it was nonetheless exciting to watch once it actually got started. As a prelude to Season 4’s League of Legends League Championship Series, it did exactly what I had hoped it would do…
