League of Legends All-Star Heating Up
League of Legend’s fourth annual All-Star Event in Barcelona, Spain is headed towards a final showdown as close as we’ve ever seen this tournament. A mere 100 points separates Team Ice (Europe, Taiwan, China) from Team Fire (South Korea, North America, International Wildcards).
The event features five fan-voted all-stars from the International Wildcard region in addition to each of the five major regions – China, Europe, South Korea, North America and Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau. These six regions have been split into two teams (Team Fire and Team Ice) that compete for points throughout the event.
Some of the headlines heading into Worlds included former teammates playing with each other for the first time.
Team Ice consists of the glory heroes from Fnatic’s squad in 2014, Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño Martínez, Paul “sOAZ” Boyer and Martin “Rekkles” Larsson.
Meanwhile, Team Fire had World Champion’s SK Telecom T1’s Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, who received 83 percent of the fan vote, the most of any individual. The MVP mid-laner is joined by jungler Bae “Bengi” Seong-woong, who was released by the team earlier this month.
The entire 2016 All-Star Event is played on League of Legends patch 6.23, which features many experimental preseason changes to assassins, the vision system, and the jungle. This ensures fresh excitement for fans of the game.
Region vs Region Competition
The first event of day one was the region vs region competition. North America’s team of Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong, Kim “Reignover” Ui-jin, Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, and Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black were able to win their matchup against the Europeans.
The Koreans proved to be a dominating force once again, going 3-0. The North American All-Stars would lose to the LMS All-Stars, but regain some glory by taking out the All-Star selections from China.
The EU All-Stars did manage to pick up one win against the IWC All-Stars, who finished a collective 0-3.
1vs1 Competition
In the 1vs1 part of the tournament, Xpeke has surprised many. He’s advanced to the quarterfinals to take on Cloud9’s Impact, a player with impressive wins over China’s Chen “Mouse” Yu-Hao and Ming “Clearlove” Kai.
Some other surprises include Faker going down to KT Roster’s support player, Cho “Mata” Se-hyeong, in the first round. His teammate, Bengi, would also fall to Flash Wolve’s Huang “Maple” Yi-Tang in the first round.
Other Events
On day one it was the marksmen duel, with Team Ice coming away victorious after a ridiculous 16-2-13 performance by Rekkles. Team Fire would bounce back in Poro King, coming away with victory. Fire’s ???' “Levi” Duy Khánh, a current free agent Jungler, went 23-10-21 to lead the way.
Lee Sin was the pick in one-for-all. Levi was proving huge once again for Team Fire, going 18-3-16.
The Final Showdown
Currently Team Fire sits in the lead by 100 points, 600-500. There is one crucial day remaining to decide a winner.
The 1vs1 matchups will be critical, with xPeke up against Impact and the likes of Maple against Mata. The Team Ice vs Fire Tandem match will also be taking place.
After the finals of the 1vs1 tournament, Team Ice and Team Fire All-Stars will play three crucial games that very may likely determine the winner of the 2016 All-Star Event.
Are you rooting for Team Fire or Team Ice? Let us know in the comments below.
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