Through the Jungle: August 8-12

Welcome to “Through the Jungle.” In this series, I will look at and recap six of the biggest news stories from the League of Legends world.

NRG eSports terminates the contracts of their League of Legends Roster

The implosion of NRG all begun after the team failed to qualify for the 2017 Spring Split of the League Championship Series. It all began when their junger Lucas “Santorin” Larsen announced he was leaving the team. That was soon followed up by an announcement from the team’s mid laner, Lee “GBM” Chang-seok, that he would be doing the same. Soon after, the organization announced they had completely severed ties with all of their League of Legends players, adding that they are all now unrestricted free agents who are free to look for, and sign on, with any new team. It was rumored that NRG had a clause in the player’s contracts that stated if they were relegated, NRG reserved the right to terminate all contracts, and NRG has clearly enacted that right.

EU LCS Playoffs Preview

The EU LCS Playoffs begin on Aug. 13, and we previewed all the action that will be going down. The article linked above goes team-by-team discussing their path to the championship, and how they managed to secure a coveted spot in the playoffs. G2 Esports will be leading the charge as the number one seed and the favorite to win it all, while on the flipside, former first place team Fnatic struggled to even qualify, dropping down to fifth place in the final week of regular season play. You can read more about the playoffs by following the link above.

NA LCS Playoffs Preview

Just like we did for Europe, we took a look at North America’s top contenders and what the road looks like for them. Their action kicks off on the same day as Europe, Aug. 13, after the EU matches conclude. Obviously, Team SoloMid, who has defeated every team in the playoffs twice in the regular season, are the favorites to win it all, with Immortals showing the most potential at stopping that. Cloud9 sits as the third seeded team, who will have to play TSM in the semifinals if they win in the quarters. C9 is striving for their third LCS championship, and both of their previous titles came after 3-0 sweeps of TSM in the finals. It should very interesting to watch, and you can read more about Team Liquid, Counter Logic Gaming, and the rookies Team EnVyUs in the article above.

FORG1VEN to start for H2k in Playoffs

H2k-Gaming had themselves quite a final week of regular season play. They swept both of their scheduled series and took down Fnatic in a tiebreaker on their way to securing themselves the fourth seed for playoffs. All of that was done with Konstantinos “FORG1VEN” Tzortziou in the lineup. The Greek AD Carry had not seen playing-time since the beginning of the split, and was called in to replace the injured Aleš “Freeze” Kněžínek. With virtually no practice, the team was able to win every map, and now with Freeze still injured, FORG1VEN has earned the nod and will be in the H2k lineup when they face Fnatic in the quarterfinals.

Riot Brazil unveils new tournament platform

Riot Brazil has announced a major step forward in the matchmaking system with the debut of their all new “Play Along” platform. The goal of this new project is to make it easier for players looking to improve, and possibly go pro in LoL, to find matches that are around their skill level. Gamers can team up with others who are level 30 and have completed the required ten ranked games and compete in tournaments. Players can only be on a team with people within two ranked tiers of them to increase fairness. Winners of the tournaments will receive 250 RP. You can read more about the schedule and rules in the full article linked above.

Riot reworks their Chroma Skin program

In Riot’s “Ask Riot” community program, the topic of Chroma Skins came up, and Riot made some new announcements regarding the subject. Chroma skins can now be purchased individually, though they are still available to be bought in bulk with a discount. Color schemes and textures have been “revamped,” and they also introduced a new pricing structure. Any one individual skin can be bought for 290 RP, though Riot also unveiled sales that will happen twice a year. The first sale will go from Aug. 25 to Sept. 8, and the second will be announced at a later date. During these periods, players can purchase individual chroma skins for 2000 IP. Here is some of what Riot had to say regarding the new program:

“We’re excited about these changes and are set on continually improving chromas and making them a fun feature for your favorite skins”

You can follow and get in contact with the author Ryan Kish on his Twitter account.