“TSM!” “TSM!” “TSM!” – Only minutes have passed since the fan chants and Riot’s amazing after game celebration made the blood freeze in our veins. Season 6 of League of Legends ended with a huge boom and an even bigger surprise. North American crowd favorite Team SoloMid crowned themselves kings of the 2016 World Championship Finals by winning three games in a best of 5 series against underdog SK Telecom T1.
Located in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, this evening was set to make for the most interesting esports event of the year. But could anyone have guessed that the match between Team SoloMid and SK Telecom T1 would be this one-sided? In the unrelentless focus fire of TSM, SKT did not stand a chance. The North Americans dominated the Korean two times world champion ad libitum. Five games could have been played but three games were sufficient for TSM to show their opponents who the real Worlds champion is. Especially TSM mid laner Søren ‘Bjergsen’ Bjerg put SKT’s Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok in his place when he took absolute control of the lane and settled the question of who’s the better mid laner once and for all.
Image taken from lolesports.com
In a pre-game interview TSM manager Andy ‘Reginald’ Dinh proved confidence in his team when he said that
“We want to get out there and show the crowd what TSM can do”
Millions and millions of spectators quickly realised that these words were more than just an empty shell. Team SoloMid easily took control of the first game in the series and took first blood at 3:18 after a successful gank by jungler Dennis ‘Svenskeren’ Johnsen on mid lane, followed by a second kill on the enemy jungler Kang ‘Blank’ Sun-gu who desperately tried to help his teammate. From then on, TSM managed to snowball their way to an incredibly quick victory after 26 minutes.
Although SK Telecom T1’s head coach Choi Byoung-hoon promised after the first match that his team would be able to recover, it simply did not work out for the North Korean team. Overwhelmed and confused SK Gaming did not manage to make a stand against Team SoloMebdi. At least we were able to get the answer to the age-old question brought up by Riot employee Trevor ‘Quickshot’ Henry whether Bjergsen or Faker is the better mid laner.
The most interesting part of the three games played definitely took place on top lane, where the two champions Poppy and Trundle fought insanely intense battles. Kevin ‘Hauntzer’ Yarnell from Team ShittyMid and Lee ‘Duke’ Ho-Seong from SKT2 created crackling excitement with their action-filled gameplay full of duels and clashes. So entertaining to watch! What part of the League of Legends Worlds 2016 did you enjoy most? Comment down below!
