The ''League of Legends'': Season 2 World Championship was an
esports
Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...
tournament for the
multiplayer online battle arena
Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of Gamer, players compete on a structured battlefield, each controlling a single Player character, character with distinctive abilit ...
video game ''
League of Legends
''League of Legends'' (''LoL'', commonly referred to as ''League'', is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for ''Warcraf ...
'', held from October 4 to October 13, 2012, in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. It was the second iteration of the
''League of Legends'' World Championship, an annual international tournament organized by the game's developer,
Riot Games
Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher, and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop ''League of Legends'' and went on to develop ...
. The tournament was won by
Taipei Assassins
Taipei Assassins (TPA) was a Taiwanese professional ''League of Legends'' team. It competed in the Garena Premier League (GPL) and later the League of Legends Master Series, ''League of Legends'' Master Series. It won the League of Legends: Seas ...
who defeated
Azubu Frost
OGN Entus was a South Korean esports organization . It formerly had teams competing in ''League of Legends'', ''StarCraft II'', '' Warcraft 3'',''Clash Royale'', ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'' and ''Special Force 2''. OGN Entus was establish ...
3–1 in the final.
Background
After Season 1, Riot announced that 5,000,000 would be paid out over Season 2. Of this $5 million, $2 million went to Riot's partners including the
IGN Pro League
''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
and other major
esports
Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...
associations. Another $2 million went to Riot's Season 2 qualifiers and championship. The final $1 million went to other organizers who applied to Riot to host independent ''League of Legends'' tournaments.
The Season 2 World Championship was held in early October 2012 in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
to conclude the 5 million season. Twelve qualifying teams from around the world participated in the championship, which boasted the largest prize pool in the history of e-sports tournaments at the time at 2 million, 1 million going to the champions, until
The International 2013
The International (TI) is an annual esports world championship for the five-on-five video game ''Dota 2''. Produced by the game's developer Valve, the International is the final event of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) and consists of 20 teams: 12 b ...
beat it the next year. The group stage, quarterfinal, and semifinal matches took place between October 4 and 6. The grand final took place a week after, on October 13 in the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
's
Galen Center
The Galen Center is a multipurpose indoor arena and athletic facility owned and operated by the University of Southern California. Located at the southeast corner of Jefferson Boulevard and Figueroa Street in the Exposition Park area of Los Ang ...
in front of 10,000 fans, and were broadcast in 13 different languages. In the grand final,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
's professional team
Taipei Assassins
Taipei Assassins (TPA) was a Taiwanese professional ''League of Legends'' team. It competed in the Garena Premier League (GPL) and later the League of Legends Master Series, ''League of Legends'' Master Series. It won the League of Legends: Seas ...
triumphed over
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
's Azubu Frost 3-to-1 and claimed the 1 million in prize money.
Over 8 million viewers tuned in to the Season 2 World Championship broadcast, with a maximum of 1.1 million concurrent viewers during the grand final, making the Season 2 World Championship the most watched esports event in history at the time.
Controversies
Format
Several top teams missed out on the World Championship, including S1 champions
Fnatic
Fnatic (pronounced "fanatic"; also stylised as fnatic or FNATIC) is a professional esports organisation headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Founded on 23 July 2004, it has players from around the world competing in several games.
Fnatic' ...
and
Azubu Blaze
Azubu was a live streaming esports website. In May 2017, it shut down and was succeeded by Smashcast.
History
Azubu was founded in 2012 when Lars Windhorst noticed that children were using live streaming services to watch others play video g ...
. (Till 2022, Fnatic had only missed the Worlds for two times, the second was in 2016.)
Cheating incident
During the quarterfinal round of the Season 2 World Championship, Jang Gun Woong of team Azubu Frost cheated by turning his head to look at the big screen which was positioned behind him. The screen, which presents an overview of the game, is meant to be watched only by the crowd, as it displays elements that are supposed to be hidden from the players inside the game. This led to Azubu Frost being fined 30,000.
Technical issues
During the last quarterfinal best-of-three match on October 6 between European team
Counter Logic Gaming EU and Chinese team
Team WE
Team WE, formerly known as World Elite, is a Chinese esports organisation based in Xi'an. It is one of the oldest esports organisations in China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With pop ...
, multiple technical difficulties occurred. Roughly twenty minutes into the second game, the network connection in the arena went down, terminating the live stream on
Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle c ...
and disconnecting all ten players from the game, forcing a remake of the game. Then, roughly sixty minutes into the third game, the network went down again. A final attempt was made at finishing the third game, but due to more network outages and technical issues, including a player's defective computer which had to be replaced, the last game and the following semifinals were rescheduled to be played on October 10 in the Galen Center, which was still undergoing construction work. The cause of the connection issues is uncertain, but is suspected to have been caused by faulty hardware. This incident,which was called "拔网线"(lit:unplugging the network cable) by many Chinese LoL fans,was seemed as a conspiracy that denied Team WE from winning the championship, whom later won the IPL5 by beating Azubu Blaze, Moscow Five, CLG Europe and Fnatic.
Qualification
The Participants qualified through the Regional Finals:
* China: July 26 – Shanghai, China at China Joy – 2 teams
* Europe: August 16 – Cologne, Germany at Gamescom – 3 teams
* North America: August 30 – Seattle, United States at PAX Prime – 3 teams
* Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau: September 1 – Taipei, Taiwan at G1 – 1 team
* Southeast Asia: September 9 – Da Nang, Vietnam at Tien Son Sports Palace – 1 team
* South Korea: September 21 – Seoul, Korea at the OGN eSports Stadium – 2 teams
Teams
Of the five first seeds of five regions (China, Europe, North America, South Korea, Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau) a random drawing was done to determine which four teams skip the group stage
* The random drawing determined that Azubu Frost would go to the Group stage while the others received a bye
Venues
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
was selected as the host city for the World Championship.
Group stage
* Eight teams are drawn into two groups with four teams in each group based on their seeding. Teams of the same region cannot be placed in the same group.
* Single round robin, all matches are best-of-one.
* If teams have the same win–loss record and head-to-head record, a tiebreaker match is played for first or second place.
* Top two teams of each group will advance to Playoff stage. Bottom two teams are eliminated.
Group A
Group B
Knockout stage

* Eight teams are drawn into a single elimination bracket.
* All matches are best-of-three, except for the final match which is best-of-five.
* The auto-qualified team is drawn against the team from Group stage.
* Teams from same group will be on opposite sides of the bracket, meaning they cannot play each other until the final.
Final standings
References
{{League of Legends, state=exp
2012 in esports
2012 in sports in Los Angeles
2012 multiplayer online battle arena tournaments
International esports competitions hosted by the United States
2012 League of Legends World Championship
October 2012 sports events in the United States