State of the League

Another weekend, another round of competitive League of Legends events for us. Before diving into the recaps, I have to say 2012 has been pretty great for competitive League, and we're barely even into the year. The number of tournaments and events we've been able to see has been simply fantastic, and most teams have stepped up to stream more of their scrims. That said, things are definitely getting tense; whether you're watching tournaments, scrims, solo queue streams or, y'know, something else, the teams prepping for the IEM World Championship definitely seem more on edge than those that aren't.

With all that in mind, there was a lot going on this weekend. Since you probably have a life and probably couldn't watch it all on your own, we're going to recap it here. So, y'know, spoilers. You've been warned, mofo. If you want to watch the games without doing the reading, click those links and they'll take you to the VODs.

The qualifiers for IPL4 wound down this weekend, with the four teams to make it past the qualifying round and into the Las Vegas tournament being decided. As has been the case throughout the qualifiers, this round had its share of upsets. Can you call them upsets when we're at the quarterfinals? Anyway:

• The Kings of Europe, Counter Logic Gaming.EU, battled the, erm, not kings of Europe, against All authority. Turns out it doesn't matter how royal your team is, as aAa came out ahead in this one. Upset level: minor. While many had pegged CLG.EU to win it all, aAa is a very good team. It's like when Dignitas beat CLG.NA during the Curse Invitational; you probably didn't expect it, but you knew it was possible.
• KoE runners up Moscow 5 (so... the Dukes of Europe?) took on Monoesports. Again, past results cannot guarantee future success; Mono came out on top in what was a rather bitter matchup. Upset level: Major. M5's had North America's attention lately, with many feeling they're among the best teams in the world. Mono was relatively unknown coming into this event (see: SotL ep. 24 for proof -- 18-minute mark), so for them to take down M5 is significant.
• TCM-Gaming competed against Curse Gaming, who were busy with two competitions this day (see below). Curse came out the victor of this one, ensuring a trip to Vegas in the process. Upset level: Nonexistent. Curse is among the top five NA teams at the moment, so to see them qualify shouldn't have come as a shock to any.
• v8 esports faced Team EZ. EZ had performed well in this tournament, previously beating SK Gaming, but v8 has performed even better, coming out over Sypher and, ultimately, winning this matchup. Upset level: Not there. v8's been gaining steam over the last few months, so it wasn't too shocking for them to come out ahead here.

Update: It looks like v8's the winner of this tournament, defeating aAa in the final round (Curse, sadly, was forced to forfeit due to coinciding travel resulting from the Curse Invitational). The v8 boys will have their expenses paid when they head to Las Vegas.

Wrap up is over! Here're the teams you'll see at IPL4:

Meanwhile, also in San Francisco, Team Dignitas took on Curse Gaming for some serious cash: $20,000. For those who prefer reading to watching (people after my heart, by the way), Reign of Gaming's Kelcytastic has a write up of the event. Otherwise, you can take a look at this video of the first game. I'm sure the second game will be right behind. Right, Curse? Right?

Oh. Um... if you just want to know who won, it was Dignitas. Dignitas won the money.

[Sources: IPL; Reign of Gaming]