Who won League of Legends Worlds in 2012?

After a successful first edition in 2011, Riot Games invested a lot to make their biggest event of the year one to remember. Being only a part of the Swedish DreamHack last year, they decided to make it a standalone competition increasing the prestige of the tournament and attracting many more players and audience.

The Season 2 League of Legends World Championship held in Los Angeles, with the semis and grand final to be played at the Galen Center, a 10.000 people capacity arena, for a cash prize of $2 millions overall, $1 million going only for the first place. This was the first time in esports history such a cashprize was at stake. Against all the odds, Taipei Assassins won the League of Legends Worlds in 2012. Here's a look back at a tournament, that has gone down in history in more ways than one.

At the end of Season 2, the hierarchy between regions in League of Legends was not clearly established. Europe had won the Season 1 World Championships and generally remained stronger than North America in most matchups. Asian regions were emerging strongly as League of Legends officially arrived in China and Korea at the beginning of Season 2. Considering the skill level of Koreans in the only major esport title at the time, Starcraft II, and the broadcasting of some matches on national television, many specialists believed that South Korea could be a formidable opponent.

At that time, the Worlds format was still in its early stages. Following the Regional Finals - regional tournaments to qualify teams for the Worlds - five teams earned the status of top seeds in their respective regions: Team Solomid (North America), Moscow Five (Europe), Team World Elite (China), Taipei Assassins (Taiwan) and Azubu Frost (South Korea). It was then decided through a draw that Azubu Frost was the only team required to compete in the group stage, while the other four top seeds advanced directly to the quarterfinals.

In the group stage, the two Korean teams Azubu Frost lead by support star player Hong "MadLife" Min-gi and NaJin Sword (NJS) with future star to be Kim "Pray" Jong-in, placed first by winning all of their games and proving they may be true contenders to the title. The second Chinese seed, Invictus Gaming (IG), and Counter Logic Europe (CLG EU) went through the second place and reached the quarters.

All matches were now played in best of 3 (except the final that will be a best of 5). And many surprises occured as TPA exited NJS in a sharp 2-0 win, and that the two teams from China got eliminated. IG ended their run against Moscow 5 (M5) which incarnated the best hope of Europe to win a second Worlds title that year as Danil "Diamondprox" Reshetnikov et Alexey "Alex Ich" Ichetovkin revolutionized the game with their plays and creativity.

However, the quarter matchup between Team WE and CLG EU was the victime of an unfortunate scenario. After a convincing win from WE in the game 1 and a great start in game 2 thanks to Blitzcrank played by support Feng "fzzf" Zhuo-Jun, internet went down in the venue after only 12 minutes. After deliberation between teams and Riot Games, game 2 was remade causing an advantage to CLG EU as they chose to ban Blitzcrank this time.

After a 54 minutes battle, the second seed from Europe managed to get the win tying the score to 1-1. Game 3 was even longer, reaching 58 minutes when CLG EU advances to WE's base to start what seems to be the very last team fight of the game, when suddenly all of the ten players disconnected once again, forcing Riot Games to postpone the game to semi-finals day at the Galen Center. Eventually CLG EU got the win, but this best of 3 remains one of the most frustrating in the whole League of Legends esports history.

The Taipei Assassins (TPA), a professional League of Legends esports team from Taiwan, emerged as the most surprising team that year. The team roster consisted of:

They simply played at their best level, eliminating in the semis the first European seed, Moscow Five against all odds, which seemed to be the greatest favorite to the title considering the teams remaining. They came in the grand final as outsiders, and managed to lose only the first game against another favorite to the title, Azubu Frost, to end the series 3-1. With a very impressive coordination between them to control the Koreans, they ended creating the first upset in Worlds Finals History.

In June 2013, Riot Games decided for the first time to launch a unique set of in-game skins to commemorate their achievement, the "TPA" skin line, featuring customized appearances for champions used by the team during their fourth game in the Final. These skins included TPA Shen, TPA Dr. Mundo, TPA Orianna, TPA Ezreal and TPA Nunu.