The League of Legends All-Stars tournament is in progress!

It’s one of the major highlights of the LoL season: the League of Legends All-Stars tournament. It began on December 7th and ends on December 12th in Los Angeles, California. Every player participating in the All stars tournament is fan-voted in, and 5 players come from each of the various international regions. Just imagine the best players in your country fighting other countries with their best players. It’s exciting! The players then choose the coach who will lead their team to victory. Most of the players competing only know one, or two people on their team. You might think it’s a challenge for them, but these are the best of the best competing. Their communication is top notch and as such, is not an issue. They are also able to adapt nicely into new team settings. The regions who can join are, China (LPL), South Korea (LCK), Brazil (CBLoL) , Europe (EU LCS), North America (NA LCS), Southeast Asia (GPL), Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mongolia (LMS), and Turkey (TCL). The regions are chosen from the results of the League of Legends World Championship.

There are two main events that take place: a 1 vs1 tournament and regional matches. 16 All-star players compete in the 1 vs 1 tournament. The coach from each region’s team chooses two players from their team to participate. It’s best out of one until quarterfinals, and then best of three in the semifinals and finals. The regional matches are an exciting competition between the teams with the 5 chosen players in their region competing against each other. They start with a group stage: group A and group B. The top two teams from each group then go onto the semifinals and then the finals. What makes these matches more entertaining to watch is that there are fun rules set in place for individual games that the players must follow; for example, limiting the players to certain classes such as only marksmen or only Tanks or only Assassins and so on. These limits lead to some engaging and entertaining game play more so than a regular competitive tournament.

As casual as All-Stars is, there are definitely some highlight-worthy plays. Last year in the 1vs1 tourney, a match in the 1 vs 1 tournament was between Faker and Mata. As we all know, Faker is the the world’s top-rated player and as such, was expected to win. Furthermore, he was against Mata, a support role main. Supports generally don’t play mechanically intense champions and cannot train their mechanics as well as players who consistently play much more mechanically-demanding roles. Yet, surprisingly, Faker lost to Mata. This definitely caught people off guard but it wasn’t a complete surprise as Faker is well known for having fun and fooling around in the All Stars Tournament.

This isn’t really a competitive tournament, since there is no prize. The All Stars Tournament is for having fun with fans and players. It is enjoyable watching your favourite players having fun and playing casually for pure enjoyment and for themselves, not competitively. All Stars is a change of pace from the serious ambiance that’s typically seen in competitive tournaments and is definitely something you don’t want to miss out on. Make sure to get your streaming devices ready! You can watch the All-stars games on the LoL-Esports Youtube channel and the League of Legends Category on Twitch.