Things are hotting up in the first Forge of Champions, the new UK League of Legends tournament.
The first of four qualifying tournaments kicked off on June 22nd and there’s been a mix of developments, listed below.
Desk talent
Firstly, Riot Games has revealed the talent line-up for the tournament.
The full line-up is as follows:
- Ceirnan “Excoundrel” Lowe
- Rob “GosuDreams” Price
- Jake “Hiprain” Matthews
- Oisin “BloodPenguin” Molloy
- Tadhg “CelticTiger” Brennan (pictured, centre)
- Dan “Foxdrop” Wyatt
- Dan “Aux” Harrison (pictured, right)
- Joshua “Dowsey” Dowse (pictured, left)
The line-up boasts a mix of experienced and up and coming talent, including streamer and presenter Dan “Foxdrop” Wyatt, who also recently became a caster for the EU LCS.
This week’s broadcast will be led by Tadhg “CelticTiger” Brennan, who has been casting League of Legends for three years and hails from Irish Collegiate Esports, player turned commentator Dan “Aux” Harrison, who played with exceL Esports in the past and Joshua “Dowsey” Dowse, who has covered multiple international tournaments across a range of competitive titles.
The trio will offer play-by-play commentary and in-depth analysis over the next three months in the lead up to the Grand Final in September.
Quarter finals prepare to kick off
72 teams have been competing in knockout matches and today will see the very first live broadcast revealing the newly established UK teams and talent.
Forge of Champions consists of four mini-tournaments, each with two stages: The first stage will see up to 64 teams participate in a best-of-one open bracket. Then, the top eight teams from stage one will progress to stage two, where they will be placed with the eight teams from the last ESL Prem split.
The first tournament is now in stage two and quarter finals (see above) are set to take place from 5.30pm this evening (Wednesday June 27th) and tomorrow at the same time (Thursday June 28th). All of the first games were 2-0s.
Two Prem teams have been knocked out in this first mini-tournament so far (Hyperion and Barrage, who claimed Raise Your Governors’ spot).
The semi-finals and the grand final will air on July 4th and 5th July, with the second qualifying tournament starting on July 6th.
Prosfair’s perilous prediction
Misfits Academy support player Tom “Prosfair” Willis made an early prediction:
As we play our first games of the split today I’m going for the most insane prediction of the season. Between now and August 16th I will go exactly 36-1 In Forge of Champions. You can quote me on this.
— Prosfair (@Prosfair) June 26, 2018
Why so certain?
IDK but for last 3 splits of prem + UK Masters I’ve been 1 game off perfect season for every single one, gonna keep up the legacy. If I end without that one loss I will consider it a failure.
— Prosfair (@Prosfair) June 26, 2018
Catch the first set of quarter finalson the LVP UK Twitch channel from 5.30pm this evening (Wednesday June 27th)
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
