Remembering the challenger promotion tournaments

Nailbiters

While the 3-0 series’ certainly built hype for the next split, the real power of Relegations lay in the close games.

We got to see a battered CLG – the archrivals to TSM even before the establishment of the LCS – pushed to the brink by Curse Academy. Down 2-0, CLG looked hopeless. They had already dropped out of playoffs, losing 3-0 to Curse – Curse Academy’s big brother organization – and seemed truly out of options. To see CLG relegated to challenger felt surreal, a laughable pipe dream to anyone who had followed League since its conception.

The games that followed lived up to all the hype deserved by an organization of CLG’s stature and legacy. This remains one of the best series’ this writer has ever witnessed.

And across the sea, the Unicorns of Love (“UOL”) captured the hearts of fans after going down 0-2 against Millennium. The Millennium squad had itself held third place in the EU LCS before falling off late-season. It looked hopeless for the rookies; they were outmatched and facing a proven squad with only one game left to give.

Then Vizicsacsi broke out Poppy in the top lane, ushering in another mind-blowing series. UOL went on to become a household name in the league – competing in multiple EU LCS finals and unleashing their “organized chaos” across the league.

Up until they lost their spot during franchising.

While relegations never matched up to the hype of Worlds, the little tournament at the end of each split had something that Worlds and MSI never would.

Struggle for survival

Teams could consistently underperform at Worlds and come back to dominate their region (looking at you, TSM). The same was never true for relegations; it couldn’t be.

Losing an LCS spot was devastating for an organization which had sunk thousands or millions of dollars into advertising, acquiring talent, and drawing sponsors. The comparatively low viewership of the Challenger Series made it exceedingly difficult to invest in competitive, LCS-level talent.

Losing relegations could easily mean the death of any organization. Former Worlds semifinalist Origen said it best, following their own relegation in 2017.

The viewership for the two most-watched games in the aforementioned series’ tells the story of the Challenger scene all too well. A VOD for the group stage at Worlds 2015 (a month or so after Relegations had concluded) has 500,000-700,000 views. Keep in mind this is the group stage: the least-watched segment of Worlds at that time. The third game in the CLG/Curse Academy series? Roughly 70,000. Game 3 of the UOL series sits around 140,000 views itself, mostly due to the novelty of the Poppy pick.

The Challenger Series had always suffered from low viewership, and few fans were particularly interested in watching the last-place teams – that season’s disappointments – fight for their lives. Yet fight they did, and Relegations supplied us with some of the best series’ and storylines in the history of the esport.

A Few Final Thoughts

There is no place for Relegations in this dawn of franchising. Today’s LCS and LEC are simply too large for a legacy organization with millions invested in the scene to disappear following an uncharacteristic underperformance.

Ironically, relegations has been relegated, an artifact from a smaller, more punishing league. We will soon forget these stories: ancient organizations brought to their knees by plucky newcomers, the last-minute rallying calls for teams who refused to die, the anguish and heartbreak of a year in the lesser scene.

We have stability now, and fans should rest easy knowing that their team will return each year, fresh and ready to take on their old rivals.

But stability comes with a cost, and relegations footed the bill.

Have any moments you remember from Relegations/Promotions? Any other thoughts on the piece? Comment below!