League of Legends: tales of nostalgia and youth watching the 2014 World Championship

Strange nights

I’m blessed to have friends who keep strange hours. Fighting existential angst and a busted sleep schedule, I might knock on Steven and Tim’s door, only to find Steven staring dead-eyed at his Engineering homework, and Tim hunched over his most recent fantasy novel. If they were asleep, I’d start a Skype call with Liam or Justyn back home, or get in touch with Larry Morris – the only human being I’ve met who has willingly become nocturnal.

“League?” I would ask, and so it would begin.

Whenever there was homework to be done, girlfriends to ignore or anxiety to combat, we’d be grinding games, blasting that night’s meme song (Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone”, more often than not) and waiting for the Blitz hook to come off cooldown.

Which brings us to the 2014 League of Legends World Championship.

2014 was the year of Korea. The Finals was held in Korea, and the entire tournament was marked by two Samsung squads who dominated the rest of the teams, up until they met in the Semifinals. Samsung White took the entire tournament, nonchalantly crushing every team they came across, and this tournament is still considered the moment Korea truly exerted its authority over the other regions, remaining dominant up until the 2018 World Championship.

Steven’s a TSM fan, and Tim and I now and forevermore support C9. Going into the tournament, both teams had shots to make it out of Groups, and we contented ourselves with watching the previous night’s games after we’d shuffled out of bed the following afternoon. However, after both our teams rolled into the World Championship Quarterfinals – coming face-to-face with the two Samsung squads – we decided we might as well stay up and experience the whole thing live.

Steven, Tim, Larry, and I pooled our resources, amassing a veritable treasure trove of diabetes and heart disease. Energy drinks, chips and salsa, pizza, soda, pop-tarts, gummies… it was like Thanksgiving had come early to the trailer park. Between the stress and cornucopia of carbs available through my meal plan, I’d already gained about thirty pounds since starting college, and I wasn’t planning on stopping anytime soon.

The night came on, and we waited, running the previous week’s games in the background as we blew through a couple of games of our own. I think we lost. We lost a lot. Pretty soon, though, the ungodly hour had finally rolled around, and we packed up our laptops and headed for the lounge.