Week of February 7th, 2013

This week brought to us what many North American and European e-Sports fans have been waiting on for years. Thursday was the opening day for the Season 3 League of Legends Championship Series, or LCS for short. What exactly is the LCS? Well it's the first professional league in Europe and North America in which 8 salaried teams in each region will complete weekly League of Legends matches in a 22 week long season culminating in a playoff series where the top teams from each region will face off for a spot in the million dollar League of Legends World Championship Finals tournament.

Before the existence of the LCS, top tier players in League of Legends and other video games would have to rely on money from sponsorships and tournament winnings as a source of income. But these weren't exactly the most reliable of income sources. As such, most players would have to split their focus between spending time improving their game and working a standard job. Now with the LCS, these players can focus 100% of their time on their gameplay because they will now be receiving a full salary to live off of from Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends. We are now one step closer to making professional gaming a viable career choice in the same way that established professional sports players are seen.

For such a momentous occasion, the first week of LCS matches is chock full of rivalry matches. In the both regions, 8 total matches were played over the course of two days. In the North American series the most intense matches came from Curse Gaming (Crs), Team Solomid (TSM), and Counter-Logic Gaming (CLG). The season opener was the match between Team Solomid and Counter-Logic Gaming. The rivalry between these two teams stems back all the way to the Season 1. Right from the first 3 minutes of the game, CLG was pulling all the right moves and placing insane pressure on all three lanes. Everything seemed to being going in CLG's favor who eventually forced TSM to surrender. Day two started with the match between CLG and Crs. The last time these two teams met in competitive play Crs lost to CLG at the Season 2 North American Region Finals and missed out on the chance to play in the Season 2 World Finals. On top of that, 3 of the starting members for Crs are former members of the CLG lineup who were dropped by CLG's current team captain HotShotGG.You could say that Crs had a lot more motivation to win this match than CLG. And they delivered! From start to finish Crs completely outclassed CLG and proved to all North American fans that they would be the team to beat this season.

Across the Atlantic in Cologne, Germany, the European LCS began it's matches on February 9th. On day one the top 4 teams would face off against each other, and they are Gambit Gaming (GG), Evil Geniuses (RG), SK Gaming (SKG), and FnaticRC. The opener would be the match between SKG and Fnatic. The matchups between these two teams are now known in the e-sports world as "el Classico". This rivalry is one of the oldest in all of e-Sports dating back to the days of Counter-Strike 1.6 in 2003. The last time these two met was at IEM Katowice where Fnatic pulled off a last minute upset victory despite being behind for the majority of the match, knocking SKG out of the tournament. After a disappointing appearance at the Season 2 World Finals and IEM Katowice, SKG needed this win in order to restore hope in their once great franchise. Similar to their previous meeting, SKG would be in control of the game for the majority of the match. However they're inability to close out matches would come back to haunt them allowing Fnatic to once again barely sweep past them. The next match up would be between Season 2 Favorites GG and EG. Both of these teams are considered two of the best teams in the world at the moment. At the Season 2 World Finals they both made to the semifinals before being defeated. As expected the entire match was back and forth between these two teams, however it was EG who was able to snatch the win.