Australia whiffs at League of Legends World Champs

The Chiefs had a stellar run in the regular season, going 19-2 and undefeated in both of their splits. At Worlds, they went 0-5.

Australian League of Legends esports team ‘The Chiefs’ is competing on the world stage for League of Legends, running up against some of the strongest teams in the world, such as Evil Geniuses, Fnatic, and DRX, formerly DragonX.

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game that pits 5 players against 5 other players in a race to conquer the enemies “nexus,” the home base for each team. Teams do this by going out on the map, killing enemy NPCs and players, and strategically pushing “lanes,” roads which allied NPCs travel on.

If it seems complicated, that’s because it is. League of Legends is a game that first launched in 2009, although it was playable in a beta state for a few months prior. The game has over a decade of history tied with it, and while it’s not necessary to know that history just to play, it does mean that a certain amount of game knowledge is required to understand the game at a higher level. It’s kind of like comparing junior league football to the Brisbane Lions when comparing Gold level League of Legends to professional teams like The Chiefs.

The ill-fated Ace, born of overzealous pushing from The Chiefs, allowed Team Loud to finalise the win. Picture: Riot Games

The Chiefs were founded in 2014 by previous League of Legends top players in Australia, and this year they brought an incredible show of power to the world stage. In the Oceanic splits, they went an incredible 19-2 W/L for Split 1 and 22-0 — yes, undefeated — in Split 2, making them the only team in the world to have gone undefeated for the regular season.

While that is impressive, it is unfortunate to report that they whiffed hard at Worlds — though they were up against some of the toughest competition imaginable. Fnatic and Evil Geniuses were their first and third matches respectively. The Chiefs lost to Fnatic 17-6 and to EG 19-6.

In their final match against Loud, The Chiefs were able to turn things around briefly by scoring an Ace — eliminating all five of their opponents at once — but soon fell victim to hubris and gave up an Ace of their own, allowing Loud to come in and take out their Nexus with a final score of 27-18.

That marked the end of The Chiefs’ world-stage run, and while they didn’t bring home any wins, their stellar regular season proves that they have what it takes to get back there next year.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.