Intel Extreme Masters
Intel Extreme Masters: San Jose 2015 is literally hours ago from now. Six teams from around the world will compete to win the biggest League of Legends off-season tournament with a 50,000$ prize to the winner.
First off, we have Origen, who reached the semifinals at Worlds this years. They were voted in by their fans and received. On their side, the EU LCS champions, Fnatic, who were also voted in by the fans, had to cancel their trip to San Jose due to “medical issues”, so Unicorns of Love (4th this year in EU LCS) will make a comeback in San Jose since they were the 3rd team in the fan vote.
Last year, the rookie team and roster got their first real test at IEM where they performed really well knocking out NA LCS champions Team SoloMid in semifinals before losing to Cloud9 in the grand finale. Speaking of Team Solomid, they will once again take part in this tournament.
TSM finished 5th in NA LCS this year but still managed to reach the Grand Final in the playoffs losing to the 2nd seed, Counter Logic Gaming, who will also attend IEM. Representing China’s LPL, it will be LGD Gaming and invited to represent Korea’s LCK, it will be Jin Air Green Wings.
Here is the IEM: San Jose format:
– Single-elimination Knockout Bracket
– Best-of-3s in Quarters and Semis
– Best-of-5 in the Grand Final
Match-ups
Quarterfinal one: Team SoloMid vs. LGD Gaming
Quarterfinal two: Counter Logic Gaming vs. Unicorns of Love
Semifinal one: Origen vs. the winner of quarterfinal one
Semifinal two: Jin Air Green Wings vs. the winner of quarterfinal two
Team Solomid vs. LGD Gaming
Counter Logic Gaming vs. Unicorns of Love
The second quarterfinal will be interesting since, at the moment, CLG does not even have an AD Carry since their ADC superstar Doublelift was kicked out in late October. We know that Jason “WildTurtle” Tran did tryouts but it ended up not working for him. We are exactly 36 hours from their first game at IEM so expect an announcement really soon, probably later today. Sources close to the team said to TheDailyDot that Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes was probably to start for CLG at IEM. One thing is sure, they will be facing Unicorns of Love tommorow for the second quarterfinal of the day. On their side, UoL also made major changes in their roster. In October, Cho “H0r0” Jae-hwan left the team. A couple of weeks later, Tristan “PowerofEvil” Schrage and Pontus “Vardags” Dahlblom also left, leaving Jungle, Midlaner and Ad Carry’s positions open. On November 18th, Berk “Gilius” Demir, Hampus “Fox” Myhre and Pierre “Steelback” Medjaldi joined the team to fill in the open spots. With an entire new team, I can’t wait to see what UoL can offer vs CLG and their new midlaner Choi “HuHi” Jae-hyun.
Origen
Jin Air Green Wings
Also getting a Bye directly into semifinal is Korea’s Jin Air Green Wings. Jin Air GW is an LCK team who always failed to reach higher than 4th place in regular seasons. With recent departure of the their top laner Lee “GMB” Chang-suk for NRG Esports in the NA LCS, Jin Air looks to win a first international event in their history of League of Legends with their new top laner, Jun-yeong “SoHwan” Kim.
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Rosters
Origen
- Top: Paul “sOAZ” Boyer
- Jungle: Maurice “Amazing” Stückenschneider
- Mid: Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage
- AD Carry: Jesper “Niels” Svenningsen
- Support: Alfonso “mithy” Aguirre Rodriguez
Unicorns of Love
- Top: Kiss “Vizicsacsi” Tamas
- Jungle: Berk “Gilius” Demir
- Mid: Myhre “Fox” Hampus
- AD Carry: Pierre “steeelback” Medjaldi
- Support: Zdravets “Hylissang” Galabov
Counter Logic Gaming
- Top: Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaha
- Jungle: Jake “Xmithie” Puchero
- Mid: Jae-hyun “HuHi” Choi
- AD Carry: Will be announced soon (Probably “Stixxay”)
- Support: Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black
Team SoloMid
- Top: Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell
- Jungle: Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen
- Mid: Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg
- AD Carry: Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng
- Support: Raymond “kaSing” Tsang
LGD Gaming
- Top: Ho-jong “Flame” Lee, Cheon-ju “Acorn” Choi
- Jungle: Yongquan “TBQ” Zhu, Lisheng “xiaoxi” Wei
- Mid: Zhen “GODV” Wei
- AD Carry: Seung-bin “Imp” Gu
- Support: Bo “Pyl” Chen
Jin Air Green Wings
- Top: Jun-yeong “SoHwan” Kim, Chang-dong “TrAce” Yeo
- Jungle: Sang-hyun “Chaser” Lee, Tae-jin “Winged” Park
- Mid: Seong-hyeok “Kuzan” Lee
- AD Carry: Hyung-woo “Cpt Jack” Kang, Woo-hyung “Pilot” Na
- Support: Sun-ho “Chei” Choi, Eun-teak “Sweet” Lee
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