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Taiwanese online game
team bags US$1m prize
MILLION-DOLLAR GAMERS: The seven-strong team
battled against South Korean and Russian rivals to seize victory in ¡¥League of
Legends,¡¦ played by millions worldwide
By Jake Chung / Staff writer, with CNA
Taiwanese video gaming team the
Taipei Assassins hold up their trophy after beating their South Korean rivals in
the League of Legends Season Two World Championship finals in Los Angeles,
California, on Saturday.
Photo: CNA
A Taiwanese video gaming team defeated its
South Korean rival 3-1 in the finals of an international online video game
competition in Los Angeles, California, on Saturday, bagging the top honor and
US$1 million in prize money.
The Taipei Assassins (TPA) dueled against South Korea¡¦s Azubu Frost in the Grand
Final of the League of Legends Season 2 World Championship, forcing the South
Korean team into an untenable position early in the third round before clinching
the match in the fourth.
The seven-strong team were led by Chen Hui-chung (³¯·J¤¤), 22, who quit school to
game professionally.
The other four of the five members the team fielded in the playoffs were Wang
Jung-tsan (¤ýºaÀé), Chang Po-wei (±i³Õ¬°), Sung Kuan-po (§º¼e¬f) and Liu Wei-chien (¼B°¶°·),
who is from Hong Kong.
The two reserve players were Lin Ying-po (ªL¿oªi), the only female member of the
team, and Chiu Po-chieh (ªô¬f³Ç). All the members are between 19 and 23 years old.
Despite general pessimism over TPA¡¦s performance at the outset, the team¡¦s
successive defeats of South Korea¡¦s third-seeded NaJin Sword, second-seed Moscow
5 of Russia and first-seed Azubu Frost, helped them clinch a decisive victory.
The Taipei team advanced into the Grand Final on Wednesday after defeating the
Moscow 5, the Season 1 champions, in two straight games.
Saturday¡¦s competition was watched live by nearly 20,000 people at the center,
with a number of Taiwanese making the journey to Los Angeles to cheer on the
team.
Interestingly, the cheering from the audience was almost all for the TPA, due to
an incident on the part of Azubu Frost. Regulations prohibit players competing
on stage from looking backward at a giant screen that shows an entire map
without the fog-of-war settings. Azubu Frost broke that rule during a pause when
a problem with the team¡¦s microphone was being fixed.
The team was docked 20 percent (US$30,000) of their total prize money for the
indiscretion, which Riot Games said would go toward the company¡¦s charity
program in South Korea.
The competition had 12 teams from around the world competing for total prize
money of US$2 million.
The game, developed and published by Riot Games for Microsoft Windows, is based
on the popular ¡§Defense of the Ancients¡¨ map for Warcraft 3, a video game
developed by Blizzard Entertainment. League of Legends has more than 2.4 million
registered users in Taiwan and more than 70 million users worldwide.
Commenting on the playoffs after the competition, Liu said he was happy the TPA
team had been able to secure the championship against great odds.
Chen also expressed gratitude to the company Garena for providing training, as
well as company sponsors, adding that it was because of their support that the
TPA team had been able to get where they are today.
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