The long awaited IEM Grand Finals at Hannover occurred over the duration of last week. The tournament featured professional StarCraft II, CounterStrike 1.6 and, the free-to-play MOBA League of Legends with players from all over the world. The League of Legends teams alone competed for their share of the $100,000 prize purse.

Out of the ten teams that competed, Moscow 5 emerged as the victors. Even more impressive is the fact that the team managed to go completely undefeated. That’s right, they didn’t lose a single match and this is all the more impressive when you consider how stiff the competition was.

The Grand Finals saw teams from all over the world participate in what has to be one of the most impressive showings in League of Legends history. The incredibly impressive roster of teams included the likes of Counter Logic Gaming, Team Solo Mid, Fnatic.RaidCall, Against All Authority, Curse Gaming, SK Gaming, Dignitas and of course Moscow 5.

For those that are interested the top 4 placing teams are listed below:

1. Moscow 5 (M5)

2. Dignitas (d)

3. Counter Logic Gaming (CLG)

4. Against All Authority (aAa)

Moscow 5’s perfect victory at the championship is an outstanding feat in light of the fact that they 2-0’d CLG. CLG until this point had only lost a tough match to Dignitas and their AP mid player, Bigfatlp, was performing at an exceptional level; probably the best he has performed since the days of him holding multiple positions atop the solo queue charts in Season One.

In addition to this they also 2-0’d Dignitas in the championship match. All of Dignitas was at the top of their game the entire tournament and there were many dominant performances by both their solo top, Voyboy, and their jungler, I WILL DOMINATE.

The tournament was filled with plenty of great gameplay and some major upsets. Fnatic.RaidCall, winners of the Season One Championships and strong performer at LAN events didn’t even make it past group stages. Team Solo Mid, one of the oldest teams and a fan favorite, were also unable to make it out of their group.

Meanwhile, Curse Gaming, made it through Group B using a random German player as a substitute after their usual solo top was unable to attend due to age constraints and their actual substitute missed his flight.

This tournament also saw a much broader selection of champions than the Season One Championship at Dreamhack. Champions such as Shen, Dr. Mundo, Corki and Miss Fortune, all who were largely absent at Dreamhack, made an appearance at IEM Grand Finals. Ashe, a champion who has been fairly neglected in competitive play ever since the start of Season Two, made a resurgence and was one of four champions that had a 75% W/L ratio.

The other champions with a 75% W/L ratio were Lee Sin, Ryze, and Kennen. All of them saw the play at least nine times, with Lee Sin appearing on the Fields of Justice a whopping twenty times. Overall, the tournament gave fans a great look at the pinnacle of League of Legends competitive gaming.

Many fans even stayed up to watch the first matches of the day which for some time zones was as late/early as 1 A.M. and as if being stricken by exhaustion and ready to pass out wasn’t bad enough, many fans experienced lag. In fact the stream, which was hosted by twitch.tv, reached over 250,000 concurrent viewers. A feat which Riot surely hopes to beat next year with the Season Three championships.

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About the author

Chris Pressnall
I am a devote gamer who enjoys video games from every walk of life. I have been gaming for nearly my whole life and got my first taste of gaming watching my mother playing Legend of Zelda, Mario, Tomba, Spyro and Crash Bandicoot games in addition to watching my father play Doom, Duke Nukem, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Myst. This early exposure to the digital worlds of video games has since developed into a passion and an eagerness to pursue all things gaming.