Worlds in the Windy City Day 1 (Featuring an Interview with SSG ADC Ruler)
League of Legends fans descended on the Windy City for game one of the quarterfinal stage of the 2016 World Championship for League of Legends. The line wrapped around the block and was studded with Rammus hats and various jerseys for teams. Even teams not competing in the quarterfinal stage were represented. As fans pilled into the historic Chicago Theatre for the first match the spectacle began.
James “Dash” Patterson began the production, walking down the aisle announcing the start to the series. He joined his colleagues on the analyst desk as the teams were brought on stage. Cloud9 entered to a ring of cheers while the crowd did not welcome Samsung Galaxy with the same attitude. Chicago is known to have a history for booing the visiting team in traditional sports and the crowd chose to continue that tradition in Chicago’s first big esport tournament.
All the analysts picked Samsung to win the series, much to the crowds’ dismay. The first game started, but ended quickly as Samsung beat C9 in fewer than thirty minutes. After such a demoralizing loss, it remained to be seen how Cloud9 would react. The second game started off better for the North American team, but the result was the same as Samsung won the second game. With the Koreans on match point, Cloud9 were backed into a corner and pulled out the crowd-favorite Zac pick for Meteos. Unfortunately the blob could not carry Cloud9 to victory as Samsung completed the sweep. There was no Cloud9 patented reverse sweep this series.
For Samsung, Ruler, Ambition, and CuVee played great and helped carry the team to victory. Sneaky had an unusually bad series sporting a bad KDA meanwhile Meteos played too passively and did not have much impact on the game. North America’s last hope in the tournament has fallen out leaving no home team to root for in the rest of the series. Despite the unfortunate ending, the event was fantastic and the Chicago Theatre was an amazing venue to host the games. As fans were leaving the theatre, I had a chance to interview the Samsung Galaxy ADC, Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk.
Ruler has enjoyed Chicago so far despite the cold welcome from the crowd. He enjoys the beautiful skyline of the city and the people of Chicago have good personalities according to the player. When asked about his performance for the day, Ruler rated his play a 9/10 believing he had a great series. As a rookie, it may be understandable to have some nerves going into such an important tournament and series. But Ruler said he has no nerves at all and feels completely free to play his own style. Ruler was initially a little scared of Sneaky because of the Cloud9’s fame, but as the games started he quickly got over his slight nerves and played well against his lane opponent. I asked him about his confidence moving forward in the tournament and he said that he believes Samsung has a 55% chance of winning the tournament. In the semifinal stage, he would like to play against H2K because he believes they are the stronger team and will provide him more of a challenge. For his fans, he said that they should continue to watch and cheer for the team because he will play great. Despite only being a rookie, Ruler is extremely confident in himself, and his team. This first series has given him hope for the remaining stages, believing his team can win Worlds.
The first day of the quarterfinal stage proved to be as fantastic as advertised. Riot was able to use the Chicago Theatre effectively in putting on a production, and Chicago served as a great backdrop to the games. Tomorrow brings a match-up of two-time winners of Worlds SKT and a bot lane of a Worlds champion and a two-time World Championship finalist. SKT versus RNG will be an exciting series and will continue this great event.
