The Season 2 European Championship at Gamescom finished up this past weekend in Germany, where Moscow 5 BenQ defeated SK Gaming 2-0 in the finals to stand victorious with a 6 – 1 record overall. Along with bragging rights as the undisputed best team in Europe, M5 walked away with $40,000 in prize money.
Joined by 2nd place SK Gaming and 3rd place CLG.eu, these three teams will represent Europe in the Season 2 Championship.
More importantly, each team also guaranteed a spot in the Season 3 League of Legends Championship Circuit, where they will officially compete as professional, salaried athletes in eSports.
In the truly outstanding single elimination tournament, M5 dominated the competition with their usual aggressive style. Adopting one of M5′s own tactics from Kiev, SK opted to go for an immediate red buff on kev1n’s Gangplank and teleport up to top lane. However, M5 jungler Diamond would have none of this, grabbing first blood after an extremely early and well timed gank.
From there, M5 was able to control the flow of the match with the help of a very early (5min) oracles. Coupled with an immediate (10min) dragon and an eventual 10k gold lead as the match went on, M5 quickly steamrolled out of control and took game 1 with a combined 15/1/32 score.
Game 2 started with another clever tactic by SK; Typically top lane Yorick – who has been seen more and more in lane switch strategies – took an early blue buff and went to harass bot lane.
At least, that was the plan.
Instead, an unfortunate mistake in pull led to a blue buff reset, leaving kev1n no choice but to go bot lane without it. There, the unlucky gravedigger was met by the combined efforts of Diamond’s Udyr and Genja’s Corki, picking up first blood. Grabbing another early oracles similar to the previous game, Diamond was able to get constant pressure on every lane from the get go. To make matters worse, the failed lane swap strategy left M5′s Darien comfortably farmed up top while kev1n struggled down bot. Almost completely uncontested, M5 walked away with a decisive 26/3/40 victory.
If you missed any of the excitement from this past weekend, be sure to catch the VODs for this game and more at esl.tv here.
M5′s dominance continues to grow. With no stop in sight, will they be able to conquer the NA and Asia teams to claim the Season 2 League of Legends title? Let us know your thoughts below. And get ready for the upcoming NA PAX Regionals to find out who will be joining them in October.
See ya on the Fields of Justice.
