It takes a lot more than a virus to get in the way of the studio that created League of Legends, and what's true for esports is also true for the rest. Because, amid the current lockdown situations that still affects many countries around the world, we had the pleasure of being invited to an online press conference, bringing together the thinking heads behind the LEC, and representatives of the ten franchised teams.
LEC: 1 - COVID19: 0
If Riot Games has demonstrated anything during this pandemic, it is the incredible capacity of its teams to adapt even to the impossible. Whether with LCS or LEC, the studio has, in just a few days, deployed an exceptional device. For Alberto "Tiroless" Guerrero, Head of Esports EMEA [Editor's note: the global esports director at Riot Games.], the success of this pharaonic project is a source of pride, which he attributes above all to his teams.
"I want to highlight and thank the Rioters that have been working on the Spring Split. I'm so proud and impressed by how the team has been able to move from studio shows to working from home in just one week. The amount of work, skill, creativity, and effort they did was incredible.."
Guerrero tells how Riot had to anticipate the very arrival of the virus, wondering if they should cancel Budapest or the MSI, before reluctantly taking the decisions we know. "It was a learning process, I would say. Once we decided we would be working from home, it was about the technical skills of the team. We said: 'Ok, we need to do that, try to propose something.' And they did it in four days."
“This is a huge team effort. A lot of this technology wasn't set up to be accessed remotely at the time. "Confirms Jeffrey" Astrosyt "Latham, PR Strategist." Our engineers had to figure out an entirely new way for us to produce the show, from home, from a bunch of different apartments around Berlin."
Likewise, the talented team in charge of content production competed with creativity and ingenuity to produce a campaign of wacky videos in exceptional conditions. For Monica "Smart Patrol" Dinsmore, the success of the LEC cannot be understood as an isolated act, disconnected from other regional leagues. On the contrary, it is the result of collaboration on several levels between all the teams in charge of these different competitions around the world.
"It's more about a collective 'we'," explains the LEC Head of Publishing. "It's about helping each league find the best way to reach their audience, and we do that collectively at Riot."
The watchword was collaboration — especially between the different LEC organizations and Riot's teams.
"We are very involved in other titles, and we have a good vision of how the publishers and league organizers of the league have dealt with the whole COVID situation," comments Carlos "Ocelote" Rodríguez Santiago. "we actually believe Riot did a pretty good job."
"It just shows how collaborative the environment between the teams can be when it needs to be," adds Excel Esports CEO Kieran Holmes Darby. "yes, we will hate each other when we need to as well but when we need to we will come together."
With Darius Matuschak, Content Manager at Schalke 04, concluding that this is "a very strong testament that, if the world comes to a stop, there is a big chance that esports keep on going."
Nothing stops Riot, not even a pandemic
Despite these difficult times, the LEC Spring Split 2020 still broke records in terms of spectators. During Week 3, the match between Fnatic and G2 Esports alone brought together 476,599 simultaneous spectators ...
Far from being let down by COVID, the LEC continued its expansion, promulgating KitKat to the rank of main partner, and adding to its ranks a legion of sponsors like Logitech, Beko, Red Bull, Warner Music, or Pringles. Similarly, the league has announced three new partnerships to ensure the dissemination of LEC in China (Huya.com), Hungary (Esport1.hu), and Portugal (Inygon).
But the LEC went even further for this Summer Split. Inspired by the world of traditional sport, the league gave birth to LEC Super Fantasy, a roster management game created in partnership with LVP, the team that gave birth to the Superliga Orange Fantasy. The least we can say is that this new browser game is already a huge success, since 13,000 people signed up and 10,500 rosters were created — and that in less than ten hours.
Have you ever dreamed of building your own LEC team? It's possible with Super Fantasy, Riot Games' roster management game now in beta.
However, if it is now possible for us to play alongside the competition, we will have to wait a while before we can reinvest the LEC Berlin studio. Unfortunately, Riot Games still has its hands tied and cannot even promise an exact date by which the public will be allowed to return to harangue the teams.
"At some point, we will be able to bring the players first, maybe. Then, the media, and after that audience." explains Alberto Guerrero, "But with the information we have from authorities, we cannot commit to a specific date."
An atypical Summer Split
Like the end of the Spring Split, the 2020 Summer Split will still be played online — and the prospect of having to play remotely and not on the stage does not delight all the teams. For Rogue, the risk of reproducing the mixed-results of the previous split is very present ...
"Our performance took a hit when we changed playing from our office," says Rogue Managing Director Anna Baumann. "It's something that took us by surprise, but what we've learned from our players is that they simply perform better when they're on stage. We've been working really hard over the break to adjust the players to this new scenario, and we're ready to play from home forever."
However, and despite the exceptional measures taken to ensure the continuity of the competition, the ambition of the LEC teams is not diminished. On the contrary, the fact that four teams, instead of three, can now access the Worlds is a sure guarantee of motivation.
The 2020 LEC Spring Split concluded at the weekend, the culmination of a playoff bracket that didn't always go as planned. With views from Jankos, Humanoid and Bwipo, we look back on a weekend of surreal and unprecedented competition.
"The announcement around the LEC getting another spot for worlds, is really given our whole team a new lease of life," explains Kieran Holmes-Darby from Excel. "That idea of 40% of the teams in the LEC are going to qualify for Worlds is really given new motivation to our team. And that's the goal, the only goal."
If some, like Schalke04, SK Gaming, or Vitality, have lowered their objectives and are simply targeting access to the LEC Playoffs, others like Fnatic, Origen, Misfits, or MAD Lions are already looking to the Worlds.
The harsh words of Alejandro "Jandro" Fernández-Valdés speak volumes about the ambition of Misfits Gaming: "With a fourth spot at Worlds, if you're not taking one, you're not really part of the competition."
And if most of the teams look at this Summer Split with a serious and sharp look, the boss of G2 Esports cannot help but succumb to the provocation which made his charm and his fame. Because, for the Samurais, the stake is not only to win the Split, or to qualify for the Worlds.
"We're trying to see if we can get away without losing a single tower throughout the split." boast Ocelote.
Building on the lessons learned from Spring Split, and whatever their objectives in terms of Summer Split, ten teams will find themselves on the starting line this evening. Who will win? Response within a few months, at the gates of the Worlds ...
And for a taste, see you today for the resumption of LEC!
G2 Esports continued their dominance of European League of Legends, dominating Fnatic in a 3-0 series win. With four titles in a row, and eighth overall, they seize the mantle of most successful team in LEC history.
