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"I remember the exact moment that we realized that it was going to be so big," Xpecial says.
"We were in Germany or Amsterdam or something like that, and we were headed for IEM Cologne. We were in a hotel lobby waiting to get some food, and we opened our laptops and we saw: $5 million prize pool announced for Season 2. And that was the moment we decided to just go hard."
For the players on Team SoloMid, like so many others in 2012, the Season 2 Championship spelled the end of amateurism. They were no longer a bunch of talented guys playing a game with their friends. They were part of a professional competitive organization, and League of Legend was more than a game for them. It was also a career.
"It's been three or four years, and I really remember that moment. Because that's the moment I decided, 'Okay, I'm probably not going to school anymore. This is going to be a real career.' ...That's the moment where it all started."
NEW BEGINNINGS
It's hard to say exactly when League of Legends matured as an esport. There was no single moment when a switch flipped. Instead, it was a series of little moments, like Xpecial's realization that League of Legends was becoming something considerably bigger. It was something worth changing your life to pursue.
But there's also a strong case to be made that the modern competitive scene came into focus over the course of Season 2 Worlds at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles, and later at the Galen Center at the University of Southern California. It showcased just how much League of Legends had grown in the space of a year, introducing the world to a scrappy Taiwanese team called the Taipei Assassins and a rapidly evolving Korean scene represented by Azubu Frost.
It sounded the first warnings that the North American scene was not as healthy and competitive as it had once been, as Counter Logic Gaming, Team SoloMid, and Team Dignitas all struggled to keep pace with the fresh blood coming from Europe and Asia.
By the time the world tuned in to the Finals between Taipei Assassins and Azubu Frost at the Galen Center, League of Legends had entered a new era.
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING
It's easy to forget now, but Season 2 was originally supposed to be Moscow Five's year. They'd burst onto the scene over the spring and quickly overturned the entire European order.
The Russian newcomers never doubted themselves. From the moment they appeared on the scene, they were certain that League was theirs to rule.
"When we came to IEM Kiev, we thought we were the best," recalls Alexey "Alex Ich" Ichetovkin. "I don't really remember where it came from. I guess we were winning most of scrims and were pretty confident in our powers. After that, we kept trying our best and winning every tournament we were in."
It wasn't just that the Russian team was good. They were also incredibly popular with the crowd.
"I think that in Europe and NA it was always like that: teams that were winning were especially popular," Alex Ich says. "We were [a] strange team for the crowd, and that repelled them from us [at first]. But at the same time, they were attracted by our way of winning. We were not really emotional, when we were winning. We were playing our own playstyle that made League less boring. Our games were always interesting."
"Less-boring" in this case meant that Moscow Five were evolving the game to being less about individual lane matchups and more about coordinated plays. Moscow Five made other teams look static and unimaginative as they hit them with all kinds of mid-game ambushes and unexpected rotations.
That popularity proved to be a double-edged sword for Alex Ich and the Moscow Five when they arrived at Worlds, with its spectator-friendly stage.
"The Season 2 stage was good and really big, but I still really wanted some kind of sound booth like they were using at OGN," Alex Ich said. "I think it is distracting a lot to be open to [the] crowd. But at the same time it was one of [the] things that gave us a boost as Moscow Five: the power of crowd."
League had already changed Alex Ich's life twice when he came to Los Angles in 2012. Not only had he embarked on a new career that had already taken him to the top of professional League of Legends, but it had also helped lead him into a marriage.
"I was married in the middle of Season 2," he recalls. "My wife understood my career because she was commenting League of Legends games, and we met each other through our social network. She was missing me when I was flying off to all these tournaments, but at the same time was excited and was cheering for me when she was watching them. Especially something as big as Season 2 [Worlds]."
Now, at Season 2 Worlds, Alex Ich and his team were looking for the perfect ending to their year of miracles.
NO "I" IN CLG EU
Moscow Five were showcasing what was possible when teams played more aggressively and coordinated their play a bit better. But no team so perfectly encapsulated League's shift away from the individual to the group as CLG.EU.
"CLG.EU first and foremost was a team, not just five guys working together," explains Mitch "Krepo" Voorspoels. "We had a mix of incredibly gifted players and older, more mature collected players. We focused on both in-game practice and bonding out of game. A thing you see go wrong with a lot of teams nowadays is that it's all about individual skill, and team chemistry gets forgotten."
CLG.EU were an incredibly charismatic team because you could see how much they enjoyed playing together, and what a fun cast of characters they were. What was less evident was how much work CLG.EU put into their relationships, building strong
friendships to undergird a strong roster.
"We managed to avoid the stress by doing silly things like singing karaoke in pauses of re-matches and generally being in good spirits because we got along so well," Krepo recalls. "Even though we've split, I can still call Mike [Wickd] and Henrik [Froggen] my friends, and obviously Pete [Yellowpete], me, and Stephen [Snoopeh] get along too, since we lived together in NA."
CLG.EU also kept the game simple. They weren't a flashy team, though mid laner Froggen was capable of astonishing feats. But their overall approach was one of dogged determination and caution.
"We played a very simple game of League where we basically laned until 15 minutes and then started team-fighting, our in-fight synergy and shot-calling was good and we won a lot of games on that alone," Krepo explains. "We played to our strengths by having bottom always go even or ahead by being passive, our control came out of the jungle, and we donated the farm to our top and mid who did super well in using that advantage."
Of course, this was not always the most exciting approach to the game. CLG.EU is the reason people cheer ward kills, after all. Their games against World Elite at Season 2 Worlds were such masterpieces of stalling-tactics that the crowd began celebrating literally anything and, for a while, ward kills were the only action they were getting.
It wasn't always pretty, but it worked. CLG.EU carved a swath all the way from the Group Stage to the Semifinals thanks to their conservative, meticulous play.
CLASH OF REGIONS
But Season 2 Worlds was also about the widening gulf between up-and-coming Chinese and Korean teams and their veteran American counterparts. Where Season 1 had featured close competition between Europe and North America, Season 2 was dominated by Asian teams that were finding new ways to play the game.
"They weren't better mechanically," Xpecial argues. "The only reason why we lost is because they had a different mindset going into the game. We were going into the game just doing whatever. Getting kills. But for them, they were prioritizing towers, 'objective.’ We had no idea what that word even meant back then. We just played the game, got kills, and we beat [people] by just winning lanes and being better mechanically."
Taipei Assassins, in particular, just seemed to get stronger as the tournament went on. They massacred NaJin Sword, the Korean team that had looked so dominant in the Group Stage, and then went on to take a narrow victory over Moscow Five.
Moscow Five's own approach wasn't so very different from what the Asian teams were bringing to the table. But they could not quite come to grips with TPA when it mattered most.
"I don't really think they were playing very differently," Alex Ich remembers. "They were just a bit more coordinated and more aggressive. I think that's still the difference with Chinese teams compared to others...[But] I think we got out-picked and didn't find the right counterplay for their strategy, so they did good. I think we were stronger in teamfights but they avoided those really well."
Maybe Moscow Five were stronger, in some ways. But that was what made Taipei Assassins' run to the championship so incredible. At each stage, they seemed like they should be outgunned. But TPA kept warming to their task across the tournament, getting better with every new series and every new game.
When fans tuned-in to the final at the Galen Center on October 13, they didn't get the duel between Taiwan's and Korea's best. Instead, they watched an increasingly confident TPA dismantle the Korean squad, with each member of Taipei Assassins taking a turn in the spotlight. Wang "Stanley" June Tsan, in particular, proved impossible to contain as he consistently dominated top lane before devastating Frost with his roaming.
Korea would have its day in League of Legends, but in 2012, against all expectations, Taipei Assassins cancelled that region's long-awaited victory parade.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
When Taipei Assassins hoisted the Summoner's Cup in front of an audience of thousands, they had just won a million dollars, vanquished a series of heavily favored rivals, and announced the arrival of China and Southeast Asia as top-tier competitive regions.
But their victory heralded the end of one era as surely as it hinted at the dawn of a new one. The relative simplicity of Season 1 was well and truly gone, replaced by objective-based strategizing and coordination across teams. Teams would have to adapt to the evolving meta, or they would be left behind. Just as SK Gaming, Dignitas, CLG Prime, and even TSM had found themselves left behind at Worlds.
The lesson was not entirely clear to TSM, though.
"We didn't really know what to do [after Season 2]," admits Xpecial. "We wanted to do well, but we actually weren't too sad because we had done so well in our own region that we just thought, 'Well, we gave it a good shot. We could've done better.' It was tough to be too sad. So we just thought we'd work harder next time, and hopefully do better.
"And we didn't really change much."
But if some of the old-school teams wouldn't change and adapt in the wake of Season 2 Worlds, Season 3 would force change upon them.
Source: http://na.lolesports.com/articles/worlds-rising-season-2-ushers-modern-era