MLG Anaheim League of Legends coverage

This weekend League of Legends made its long awaited return to MLG, becoming the first major League of Legends tournament of the summer. 19 top teams from all over the world fought for a $40,000 prize pool, bringing some amazing games and incredible competition. Read below to see the winners, champion statistics, and best games recap.

Complete MLG Anaheim champion statistics

 Games you want to make sure you haven’t missed (some of the VODs are already available here):

TSM vs MRN Game 1
One hell of a pure, entertaining wreckage. TSM tried to force a fast surrender (which they promised to deliver in a pre-game interview) by initiating fights at every possible occasion, but ended up giving away a lot of kills and nearly losing their control of the match. While barely serious, this match turned out to be one of the most entertaining ones of the tournament.

Curse.EU vs Team Dynamic Game 3
After getting completely destroyed in the first game, Team Dynamic managed to quickly recover and completely shut down Curse.EU in the second one. This was a clear warning for Curse.EU, and they came back to the third game giving a very strong performance, which, combined with some  unexpected plays TD were pulling off, made it an incredibly tense and fun game to watch.

TSM vs Fnatic Game 1
Fnatic was being considered one of the underdogs of the tournament due to the recent roster change (Shushei being replaced with Soaz) and Fnatic under performing for the whole last year, which is why the outstanding performance they showed knocking out TSM EVO to the losers bracket went completely unexpected.
The intensity of the first TSM vs Fnatic game was huge; at some point it felt like Fnatic are going to claim the victory, however TSM managed to drag the game out, at some point even out smiting Fnatic (very well known for being the team you don’t want to fight for Baron with). Overall, a great game.

TSM vs CLG.EU Game 1-3
Being the most anticipated series of MLG Anaheim, it delivered everything we were hoping for: highest level of gameplay, close games and clutch comebacks.
Also watch out for the mindblowing AP Kog’maw gameplay from CLG Froggen during the second game, which he turned around by picking up a spectacular quadrakill:

CLG.NA vs Dignitas Game 2 (Loser bracket finals)
The second CLG.NA vs Dignitas game quickly turned into Dignitas favour in early levels, which they used to start agressively snowballing, entering mid game with a 9-21 score and two fed carries. However, CLG.NA managed to use the flaws in Dignitas’ agression playstyle to shut down their snowballing, at some point having Bigfatlp turn the game around with an incredible Baron fight, which led CLG to a clean 2-0 victory. Overall a very tense game with probably the toughest comeback MLG Anaheim has seen.

CLG.NA vs TSM (grand finals)
With the recent roster changes in CLG.NA (HotshotGG leaving top lane and taking Santvicious’ place in the jungle) as well as their new member, Voyboy (one of the scariest top laners out there) being unable to attent to MLG Anaheim, nobody really expected CLG.NA to perform well. Surprisingly, they managed to do remarkably well and even take out Curse.NA, but then were beaten by Dignitas and lost our attention. However, CLG.NA seems to have managed to set their mind right, take out MLG Anaheim favourite team CLG.EU in a very close fight, take revenge on Dignitas in the losers bracket final, and then proceed into the Grand Finals with a good old classic rivalry match-up of CLG.NA versus TSM.

Quality plays from ReginaId.

The first game of CLG.NA vs TSM turned out to be a complete disaster for CLG, making TSM look even more unbreakable, but once again CLG.NA managed to keep their moral up and bring some unexpected strategies and clutch plays, winning the next two games and claiming the first best out of three.
The sudden loss of the first series was a wake-up call for TSM, and they were able to open the second series with a decisive victory. The second game was CLG’s turn to win again, bringing it up to a 1-1 score and the last game of the tournament. TSM came up with an unusual strategy for the last game, sending Karthus top to prevent Nidalee from pushing, and Kayle mid to shut down Kassadin, and it payed off. TSM started rapidly snowballing, and even HotshotGG stealing Baron was not enough to stop them: TSM took the second series with a total score of 3-3.

Overall, one of the most spectacular Grand Finals, with advantage frequently jumping between two equally strong teams, and a level of tension comparable to IEM Kiev Grand Finals.

Even though in the end CLG.NA were unable to take down TSM, they nevertheless proved themselves as one of the leading League of Legends powerhouses. HotshotGG, who was expected to under perform due to being new to his role of a jungler, proved to be fitting it perfectly. On the other hand, TSM have shown that, while they’re still not quite at the level they were at during IEM Kiev, they’re still an incredibly strong team, and one of the front-runners for the Season 2 championship finals.

Congratulations to TSM on winning MLG Anaheim, and to CLG.NA on making it to the Grand Finals despite being an underdog team.

1st place:  TSM – $20,000
2nd place:  CLG.NA – $12,000
3rd place:  Dignitas – $5,000
4th place:  Team Dynamic – $3,000

Team Solomid.

The next major tournament is going to be DreamHack (16-19 June), and will have 8 teams (M5, CLG.EU, AL, fnatic, Na’Vi, Teamless, Fragzone and HCL) and a $40,000 prize pool. Make sure you don’t miss it!