This year’s League of Legends World Championship hasn’t even started yet, and North America is already finding ways to chalk up wins. Earlier today, Team Liquid support CoreJJ became the first international player to crack the top 100 of the European server’s solo queue leaderboard ahead of the tournament.
Traditionally, players from overseas who are attending Worlds will compete on the host region’s solo queue ladder, while fans and analysts alike track their progress before the tournament kicks off.
CoreJJ reached the top 100 mark with a winrate of 69 percent and an overall record of 87-39, according to League stats website Lolvvv. In traditional CoreJJ fashion, his most-played champions throughout his climb were engage-heavy supports including Thresh, Leona, and Rakan. No champion was utilized more by CoreJJ than the newly-reworked Amumu, however. With 18 games on the Sad Mummy, CoreJJ made the most of the champion’s recent buffs in his rise up the European solo queue ladder.
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Thus far, only four international players have reached Challenger tier on the European server: CoreJJ, his lane partner Tactical, Cloud9 jungler Blaber, and 100 Thieves’ substitute top laner Tenacity.
In addition to all three North American Worlds representatives, some minor region teams, including the CBLOL’s RED Canids and TCL’s Galatasaray Esports, have also made their presence known on the server. All four Worlds representatives from Korea’s LCK will be flying to Iceland later this week, according to a report from Korizon.
The player that currently inhabits the top rank on the European solo queue ladder is Team Vitality’s substitute AD carry Comp. International players will have about six weeks to dethrone him at the apex of the Challenger tier.
The play-in stage of this year’s League World Championship is set to begin on Oct. 5. CoreJJ and the rest of Liquid will start their tournament run on Oct. 11 when the Worlds group stage begins.
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