2016 League of Legends World Championship

The Cinderella story of the tournament was the run of Albus NoX Luna, the CIS champions who became the first wildcard team to make it to the quarterfinals in the history of the League of Legends World Championship.[16] European first seed G2 Esports underperformed in this group, while ROX Tigers, the second seed from Korea, won the group as expected, but had to do so by defeating Albus NoX Luna in a tiebreaker game.[16]

#	Team		1	2	3	4		W	L	±
1	ROX Tigers		~	1–1	1–1	2–0		5	2	3
2	Albus NoX Luna		1–1	~	2–0	1–1		4	3	1
3	Counter Logic Gaming		1–1	0–2	~	2–0		3	3	0
4	G2 Esports		0–2	1–1	0–2	~		1	5	−4

Group B's deciding matches all occurred on the last day, when all teams except for the Korean first seed SK Telecom T1 had 2–3 records.[17] In the end, it was Cloud9, the sole North American team to move on,[18] that moved on after exploiting the inconsistent play of the Chinese and Taiwanese teams.[17] I May was also hurt when one of its players was suspended for one match on the last day and fined $2000 for abusive behavior in online games.[19] During Cloud 9's match against Flash Wolves, Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi killed 690 minions, which set a new record for this statistic at worlds.[8]

#	Team		1	2	3	4		W	L	±
1	SK Telecom T1		~	2–0	2–0	1–1		5	1	4
2	Cloud9		0–2	~	2–0	1–1		3	3	0
3	I May		0–2	0–2	~	2–0		2	4	−2
4	Flash Wolves		1–1	1–1	0–2	~		2	4	−2

Group C was the only group without a Korean team seeded first. Its two qualifiers were both considered championship favorites, since H2K-Gaming was a strong European team and EDward Gaming was a strong Chinese team.[20] Despite a 1–2 showing in the first week, H2K managed to make the quarterfinals at the top of its group by winning four straight matches, including a tiebreaker against EDward Gaming,[16] to become the only European team to move on.[20][21]

#	Team		1	2	3	4		W	L	±
1	H2K-Gaming		~	1–1	1–1	2–0		5	2	3
2	EDward Gaming		1–1	~	2–0	1–1		4	3	1
3	ahq e-Sports Club		1–1	0–2	~	2–0		3	3	0
4	INTZ e-Sports		0–2	1–1	0–2	~		1	5	−4

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]

#	Team		1	2	3	4		W	L	±
1	Samsung Galaxy		~	2–0	1–1	2–0		5	1	4
2	Royal Never Give Up		0–2	~	2–0	1–1		3	3	0
3	Team SoloMid		1–1	0–2	~	2–0		3	3	0
4	Splyce		0–2	1–1	0–2	~		1	5	−4

The quarterfinals were held at the Chicago Theatre, starting on October 13.[21] Teams were seeded against each other based on their performance in the group stage, and played a best-of-five, single-elimination bracket.[5]

All three of the Korean teams, SK Telecom T1, ROX Tigers, and Samsung Galaxy, advanced to the quarterfinals from the group stage. Two Chinese teams, EDward Gaming and Royal Never Give Up, advanced by finishing second in their groups. Cloud9 and H2k-Gaming were respectively the only North American and European teams to advance out of groups. The last team to make it to the quarterfinals was Albus NoX Luna, a Russian wildcard team that finished second in its group.[21]

Three teams from the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) circuit and one from the European League of Legends Championship Series (EULCS) made it to the semi-finals.[24] H2K-Gaming ended the wildcard run of Albus NoX by sweeping them 3–0 in the quarterfinals.[25] Meanwhile, the three Korean teams ended the runs of EDward Gaming and Royal Never Give Up, the last two Chinese teams, and the run of Cloud 9, the last North American team.[18]

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]

The Staples Center as used for the 2016 League of Legends World Championship finals.

The final lasted six hours and was played in front of a crowd of nearly 20,000 fans at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.[27] A projection of the minimap which showed each team's map control was shown on the floor of the arena between the two teams.[28] Most of the players for Samsung Galaxy (SSG) had never played in the finals before, while most members of SK Telecom (SKT) were returning members of the 2015 championship team.[29] It was the first finals series in a League of Legends world championship to go the full five games.[29]

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.[27] The championship victory was SKT's third in four years, and a successful defense of their 2015 title.[27] SKT also became the first team to win three world championships.[24] ESPN's Timothy Lee called the finals "an instant classic".[31] SKT's Lee Sang-hyeok, who uses the handle "Faker", was named as the tournament MVP.[27] It was Faker's first Worlds MVP.[29] Faker's performance on the map's middle lane broke the previous 208 kills record at Worlds by the third map of the finals, and he ended up with 217 kills.[29]

Competition table[32]

	Quarter-finals				Semi-finals				Final
	SK Telecom T1	3
	Royal Never Give Up	1
					SK Telecom T1	3
					ROX Tigers	2
	ROX Tigers	3
	EDward Gaming	1
									SK Telecom T1	3
									Samsung Galaxy	2
	H2K-Gaming	3
	Albus NoX Luna	0
					H2K-Gaming	0
					Samsung Galaxy	3
	Samsung Galaxy	3
	Cloud9	0

• 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

Final standings, 2016[14][32][33]

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