On Saturday, Nov. 3, the League of Legends World Championship finals were held at the Incheon Munhak Stadium in Incheon, South Korea.

European team, Fnatic, and Chinese team, Invictus Gaming, played a best of five series to claim the title of World Champions.

Possibly one of the more hyped up finals matches of Worlds history, a Western team versus an Eastern team. Europe versus China. Eastern teams are widely regarded in the League of Legends community as the best in the world, and for the last seven years at Worlds there have been no Western teams that made it into the finals to compete with an Eastern team. This year with Fnatic making it into the finals, there was a chance for a Western team to finally win.

“Definitely an exciting finals this year,” senior Brady Gebbie said. “One of the more exciting matches I’ve seen in a while.”

With an extreme amount of hype, there was also the possibility of an extreme amount of disappointment. It turned out to be quite the let down for Eastern backers.

Invictus Gaming swept Fnatic, 3-0. Just like that, China was the World Champions of League of Legends for 2018.

“I was kind of let down by the fact that Fnatic got swept without much of a fight,” senior Brian Belt said. “It was sort of anticlimactic.”

While Fnatic looked very strong all throughout the tournament, they couldn’t come close to competing with Invictus Gaming who played smart and strategically against Fnatic in the finals.

“I felt IG had complete control of the series. Their macro-play was better going in and it showed,” Mr. Mark Novotny said. “I would much rather have had a five-game series, but kudos to IG!”

Despite another championship going to an Eastern team, history was still made for Western teams.

Cloud9, a North American team, made it into the semifinals, which hasn’t been done since 2011. Out of the four teams in the semifinals, three of them were Western teams. Two European teams and one North American team to be specific. This year was also the first time a Western team made it into the finals since 2011, which was the year Fnatic actually won the championship.