League Of Legends: The Best Of The All-Star
The problem with snowballs.
The League of Legends [official site] 2015 All-Star Event drew to a close last night after four days of silliness and spectacle. Some were sillier and more spectacular than others. I'll put together something more nuanced about where the event succeeded and where it fell short BUT in the meantime I've made a list of the must-watch matches and giggle-worthy moments, from kaSing's unexpected (by everyone especially kaSing) dominance in the 1v1 competition to Westdoor picking up a pentakill against the International Wild Card squad.
Here are my merriest bits of the All-Star*!
1. Pantomime Horse Mode
With one player controlling the keyboard and the other on the mouse this was most definitely not a serious game mode. I really loved how the pairs didn't shy away from difficulty and picked up champions who needed more than a modicum of co-ordination to work. I'd been looking forward to the tandem match (that's the official name for it) particularly because I figured it would be one of the game types most likely to get the pros energised and trolling one another. It didn't disappoint, although I'll need to watch the match itself again as I spent the first time around focused on the player cams to see their reactions:
2. Westdoor's Pentakill
Everyone loves a pentakill, so... Actually I can't substantiate that with actual research so instead I'll say that pentakills provoke massive crowd reactions when I'm at League of Legends events and that screaming can feel like it's coming from everyone and everywhere at once. Where was I? Oh yes. Here is the LMS team's mid-laner Westdoor annihilating the entire wildcard team. He wasn't even on Fizz.
3. Froggen and Aphromoo play Farming Simulator
After literally spelling out their champion picks during the ban phase Froggen and Aphromoo headed onto the Howling Abyss. A gentleman's agreement meant their Zilean mirror match had no runes, no masteries, no items and no levelling your skills. I don't think I've ever been more ridiculously tense watching last hitting. Sterling work from casters Riv and Stress, too.
Here's the match:
4. Blitzcrank Bop
Ten sets of hooks. Ten knock-up punches. Ten static fields. In following Huni's chant of "Hook! Hook! Hook!" the champion selection phase saw Summoner's Rift end up somewhere between Pudge Wars and Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
5. Froggen v Koro1
Throwing out a bit of a curve ball, Froggen took Nasus, Curator of the Sands (great name for a child) out to face Koro1 in their 1v1 match. It's another farm fest but I enjoyed watching the balance of farming and trading hits. Towards the end it also has that giggly, tense excitement quality to it and left me grinning ear to ear.
6. kaSing's surprise run in the 1v1
Nobody predicted kaSing's heroic performance in the All-Star's 1v1 mini-tournament, least of all kaSing himself. Here he is having just taken out opponent Uzi. His European teammate and AD carry Rekkles is similarly baffled. I am devastated he didn't go on to win the whole thing.
7. Being one with your current champion
8. SNOWBALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLooops
You know how sometimes you're just casually chucking snowballs and rushing at your mates because lols and bants but then one of them has to go home and you take it too far by following them back to theirs and their house has a big laser that kills you instantly? Froggen knows this because it happened twice in his matches against Doublelift. Those two matches got remade, by the way, and that's how Doublelift managed to win a best of three match 4-0.
9. Huni
Huni's bellowing, chanting and hollering filled the entire arena any time he was on stage. You can get a teensy tiny taster of what it was like by skipping to the end of this video - go from 1:08:06. He crops up in so many of the other matches, though, lightening the mood and making the other players laugh. I'm really going to miss him next season when he's absconded to North America's LCS :(
*You can add your own in the comments.