LoL Rift Rivals gets Red hot in 2017

The 2017 League of Legends Rift Rivals event has come to a close in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. ASUS ROG was there as a major sponsor and contributed to all of the tournament PCs through our Powered by ASUS program. This allowed local system builders to ensure that every PC met the athletes’ demands with a Prime Z270-AR motherboard and Dual Series GeForce GTX 1070 OC edition graphics card.

We weren’t there just to support the competing teams, though; we also went to interact with the fans. Our booth was filled with demos of our latest gaming products, and it was a great opportunity to see the new ROG Zephyrus gaming ultrabook, the upcoming ROG Strix Hero laptop for MOBAs, and the ROG Swift PG248Q high-refresh gaming monitor in action.

Modeled like an Olympic event, Rift Rivals Red called for the regions of China, South Korea, and Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau to each assemble their top four teams. Those teams competed against rivals from other nations for tournament gold and national pride. ROG is a proud sponsor of three of the teams: South Korea’s SK Telecom T1, and Taiwan's ahq e-Sports club and J Team.

This year’s competition was a great reminder of one of Yogi Bera’s most memorable quotes: “It ain't over till it's over.” The first day started with six round-robin matches among the three regions. South Korea took an early lead with a 3-1 record, while China followed with a even 2-2 split, and TW/HK/MO saw a rough start at 1-3. Taking a closer look at the results for our sponsored teams, SK Telecom T1 was part of South Korea’s success by beating Taiwan’s Flash Wolves. The Taiwanese ahq e-Sports club lost to China’s Royal Never Give Up, and J Team suffered a similar loss versus the South Korean Samsung Galaxy team.

Day two kicked off with a fresh set of round-robin matches, but it also represented the start of a roller coaster ride that would carry through to end of the tournament. China’s balanced performance from the day before collapsed, and the country failed to pick up a single win. Meanwhile, TW/HK/MO showed an adaption in strategies after the beating it had taken on day one, aiding a turnaround of fortunes that yielded a 3-1 scorecard. The South Korean teams continued to play consistently, putting forth another 3-1 record. Their national success was once again aided by SK Telecom T1, which was victorious over China’s Team WE. The TW/HK/MO dominance was fueled in part by the winning efforts of J Team over China’s EDward Gaming. Ahq e-Sports club dealt South Korea its only defeat of the day by vanquishing KT Rolster.

Going into day three, South Korea’s masterful 6-2 performance across the opening days had it safely seeded in the finals, leaving China and TW/HK/MO to fight for a spot in the final face off. It proved to be another tumultuous day, but China’s teams did not let their morale falter in light of a brutal second day. They came to the best-of-five match with lessons learned and determination, and their drive lead them to a 3-2 record in the final matches with TW/HK/MO. It was a mixed outcome for our sponsored teams: J Team lost the opening match to Team WE, and though ahq e-Sports club held its ground beating EDward Gaming, it simply wasn’t enough to overcome the reawakened team China.

Day four saw the revitalized China face a rested and deft South Korea. But the day off for South Korea simply wasn’t an advantage against a team that had channeled Yogi and found its moxie. China took the finals 3-1, and SK Telecom T1 suffered its only loss of the tournament against Team WE. China entered the semi-finals at 2-6, but like Disney sports movies about scrappy teams, it was able to pull everything together to win it all.