Chinese team FunPlus Phoenix (FPX) defeated European rivals G2 Esports to win the World Championship finals of esports phenomenon League of Legends.FPX conquer the favorites G2 Esports in all three of their matches to win the championship in one of the planet’s biggest online games, watched by a crowd of 15,000 audiences in Paris.
Even more, tuned in online to see two groups face off to win a mostly crowd-funded decoration that hasn’t been finalized yet. (Last year’s prize pool totaled around $6.45 million.) G2 Esports represented Europe, a region that won the championship in 2011 when the games first started but have not secured success at Worlds since then. FPX, a relatively newer group that made in 2018, represented China, which had a group win the crown last year.
Congratulations again to @FPX_Esports on winning the 2019 World Championship and thank you to Paris ???????? for the incredible memories and wonderful hospitality! GG WP! #Worlds2019 pic.twitter.com/MXzvqFxRwI
— LoL Esports (@lolesports) November 10, 2019
After the match, FPX manhood Doinb, stated, “Earlier this, a lot of people stated that a mid-sized laner that played with my playstyle doesn’t deserve to win the championship, but I think I eventually demonstrated that I deserved it.”
Every year League of Legends puts on a series at its World Championship esports finals. In 2017, it flew a giant dragon into a bird’s nest during the Beijing finals utilizing augmented reality. Last year, it had a digital Korean pop band. This year, the events team has chosen hologram-like projections. But before the teams faced off, Riot Games’ opening ceremony was pure spectacle.
The events team drew inspiration from several other important sports and music events. “We saw the Super Bowl half time show, and we picked it apart: Hey, I truly love the way they have made the moment happen,” Adam Mackasek, Riot Games’ associate director of esports occasions, told PHILsPortsNews. “Same thing when there’s an Olympics. We really try to dive deep on award shows throughout the whole year for the way they take their content”
For Sunday’s finals, Riot’s events team put in one of the world’s biggest orders for a metallic, mesh substance known as holonet, which may be used to put on hologram-like pictures. Mackasek explains holonet as akin to”a picture screen, but there is a bunch of holes in it that makes things seem 3D.” “When we held our very first World Championship it was literally in a conference room with hundreds of people watching, and a million people watching online,” explained John Needham, Riot’s head of international esports.
“Now, when you look at where we are in our sport, we are filling 20,000 person arenas and we have 100 million viewers online. So it has just been enormous growth.” Many areas of the opening ceremony got that the hologram treatment. When artists performed, they sometimes appeared to be under the magical spell of figures from the”League of Legends” video game. Various actors appeared to teleport around the point and dancers performed with a personality’s blades. Riot is also capitalizing on its brand deal with Louis Vuitton, as female actors of the fictional hip hop group True Damage will wear designer clothing.
The hologram effect will be there during the finals. Depending on which five-man team takes home the championship, Riot will switch out the holographic images of the players in the background. Mackasek said his group had considered sticking using augmented reality like last year’s viral Korean pop hit, as well as using lasers. They always want to change things up using new technologies, he said. “We don’t want people to feel as though they know what they’re going to see.
It challenges us not to take the safe path,” he said. “No one ever thought they would see a dragon land in a bird’s nest. No one anticipated an electronic pop group dancing on stage with an actual pop group”
