Fnatic’s UK academy team Fnatic Rising retained their Forge of Champions title to make them the clear dominant force in UK League of Legends.
They beat Diabolus 2-0 in the Summer 2019 Forge of Champions best-of-three final yesterday, going 23-13 in game one and 30-19 in game two.
This means Fnatic have secured all four UK League of Legends titles this year: two UK League Championships and two Forge of Champions.
Fnatic Rising’s Swiss top-laner Brian ‘Bando’ Ferrando was named MVP of the finals; mid-laner MagiFelix was voted Unsung Hero.
MnM beat Phelan 2-1 in the latter stages of Forge of Champions, while Diabolus defeated Barrage 2-1 and then went on to reverse sweep MnM 2-1 to secure their place in the final. But it was Fnatic who emerged victorious there.
Fnatic Rising won the UKLC at Twickenham Stadium in the Summer. They also reached the EU Masters semi-finals, but were knocked out by Giants Gaming.
Forge of Champions returned with a different qualification format this time round. It’s a UK League of Legends competition open to both rising and more established teams that runs in between seasons of the UK League Championship (aka UKLC, which was focused on nine of the best teams UK League has to offer).
The UKLC recently ditched its tower format in favour of a round robin style system, dropping the number of participating teams to eight.
We wrote: “Do you remember that time we beat Fnatic?” UK orgs, players, coaches and managers, you have the chance to be able to say that next year. Don’t let the opportunity go to waste.”
Perhaps next year the competition will step up and Fnatic will have a harder time staying at the top.
The UKLC/Forge of Champions initiative represents Riot’s biggest commitment to the UK to date with a multi-million pound, multi-year investment in UK esports as of last year.
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.
