League of Legends World Championship Set To Start September 29th
Published September 25, 2016 by Vincent O
World's largest League of Legends tournament is now just a few days away, with four famous locations in the USA set to host the LoL World Championship during early October.
2016 has been an exciting year for all the e-sports fans. The recent Dota2 The International brought a huge $20.000.000 prize pool, largest ever in the history of e-sports, and the largest League of Legends tournament is now just days away, with the World Championship starting on September 29th.
Like in the previous four years, the tournament that will take place on four different locations across the USA is set to bring the best Lol teams in the world together, guaranteeing a $1.000.000 first place prize for the eventual winner.
The Format and Participants
The tournament brings together 16 strongest Lol teams in the world, who have made their way into the World Championship by showing continuous good performances in their local championships and playoffs. Teams from Europe, America, China and South Korea will all have a chance at the game’s top prize, but if history is anything to go by, the South Korean teams will have a tremendous edge.
Last year’s champions SK Telecom T1 and Rox Tigers will be the two main favorites in the tournament, having both done well in the South Korean Summer Split and playoffs and showing excellent performances for the last 2 years. SK Telecom T1 have won the tournament on two occasions in the past, in 2013 and last year, making them a likely favorite for the title, despite the bookies favoring Rox Tigers for this year’s superior performances.
The tournament will also play host to American teams such as Team SoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming anc Cloud9 as well as European sides G2 Sports, H2k-Gaming and Splyce, with the likes of Edward Gaming and Royal Never Give Up representing China.
While all of these sides have done well in their regional championships, the probability of them winning at the Worlds is very low, with South Korean teams simply dominant in every sense over the past four years. Edward Gaming have managed to defeat the Koreans in last year’s Mid-Season Invitational, which gives some hope of someone outside of South Korea taking home the title.
Millions of Fans And Dollars
With the game being played by 60.000.000 players on monthly basis, Lol World Championship is one of the largest and most viewed e-sports events of the years. The bookies are expecting millions of dollars to be placed in outright winner and more particular bets, with dozens of thousands of fans expected to watch every match streaming live on Twitch and in-game.
The tournament has a guaranteed $1.000.000 prize for the winner, with second place finishers set to receive $250.000 and the third and fourth best receiving $150.000 each. These numbers alone make Worlds fascinating and extremely fun to watch, but for the true fans and players, this tournament is about so much more than money.
The group stage of the tournament starts on September 29th in San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and the later stages of the championship will take place at the Chicago Theater, New York’s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles’ Staples Center, which will be hosting the finals.
As always, we can expect a true spectacle at all the venues and as the tournament approaches the grand finals, the audience is likely to grow, with millions of dollars in bets guaranteed to be placed on the outcomes of each of the knockout stage matches by fans, punters and professional bettors alike.
