North American Season Two Regional Finals
Challenger Circuit - Seattle, Washington - Website
Thursday, August 30, 2012 - Sunday, September 02, 2012
Summary
After a long, hard-fought schedule, eight teams in the North American region qualified via their season two circuit points for the right to compete in the regional finals. The top three placing teams would qualify for a spot in the World Championships in Los Angeles in October 2012. Held over four days at PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington, the regional finals' single elimination format heightened the tension for each game.
Team SoloMid (TSM), Dignitas, and Curse entered the tournament as strong favorites with their recent tournament performances. CounterLogic Gaming's (CLG) time training in Korea and past history of success also augured well. Rounding out the eight were Team SoloMid's second team Evo (TSM.Evo), Team Dynamic (TD), Team Legion, and Monomaniac Ferus (formerly mTw.NA, who qualified after a tiebreaker series against Orbit the previous week). The favorites all progressed out of their first matches, with only Legion able to take a single game from their opponents.
In the semi-finals, TSM took out Curse 2-1 in a close-fought set that saw fantastic performances by each team's AD carries. The drama continued with Dignitas and CLG battling for supremacy in a match-up between two Korean-trained teams. After a farm-filled win in game one, Dignitas brought out a poke comp of Gragas, Nidalee, and Caitlyn, which led to an epic, back-and-forth, 76-minute game two, the longest in competitive League of Legends history. Dignitas eventually wore down CLG, and secured their spot in the finals and World Championships.
In the first third-place match, CLG debuted an unorthodox triple Teleport/Promote strategy that put immense pushing pressure on Curse's turrets. The honed backdoor tactics of CLG spread Curse thin, and they were able to take game one, and a more standard game two to secure the final place in the World Championships. The finals saw TSM roll over Dignitas 2-0, refuting both Dignitas' poke comp and their good natured trash talking, and taking the $40000 first place prize money.
Besides qualifying for the World Championships, the top three teams, TSM, Dignitas, and CLG, also secured themselves a spot in the Season Three Championship Series as salaried teams.