The United States vs. Europe rivalry set its course with Cloud 9 taking on Fnatic to begin the quarterfinals. Fnatic dashed the chances of the lone remaining American team by a 2-1 score, including a rather one-sided victory in the final game to close it out. Fnatic have now gone 16-4 in maps since the end of the Summer Season, and have only lost one match out of those to Vulcun at the beginning of the championships.

"We were planning the first game a lot, and we were expecting to win it," said Fnatic midlaner Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño, who had defining plays with his Kassadin in Game 1 and Game 3. "I thought we would go to a third game. There we had a strategy that we prepared, we went for it again, and they pretty much had no response for it. We showed [our strategy] in the first game and they had no response, so in the third game we did the same and they hadn't come up with anything."

"We tried to make plays, we tried to do dragons, tried to force down turrets, and catch people out, it just didn't work out for us," Cloud 9 Captain Hai "Hai" Lam. Lam says going into the match that they thought they had answers for Cedeño's Kassadin, but in hindsight should have banned him before Game 3.

"When you're in the middle of the game, you just forget about some things like that," he said. "It was a misplay by our part, we just didn't think it all the way through."

Cloud 9's loss to Fnatic continues the streak of no North American team ever beating another North American team in a best-of-3 or best-of-5 series in the history of the World Championships from Season 1-3. Team SoloMid's third-place finish in Season 1 is the highest placing thus far.

On the same side of the bracket, Royal Club and OMG had their own history going, as both teams played in the Chinese Regional Finals just weeks before the World Championships, with Royal Club taking the finals over OMG. Although OMG had impressed many in the group stage with wins over SKT1, Royal Club would prove too much yet again, led by Jungler Liu "Lucky" Jun-Jie's 14 KDA as the highest of any player at the championships.

"I think we just did better than OMG today, but that they're still one of the best teams in the world," Royal Club Captain Pak-Kan "Tabe" Wong told GameSpot. Wong says that they practiced heavily with SKT1 prior to their games. "They crushed us every day, every game we played. We improved really a lot during our practice. I hope to face SKT1 in the finals, but we have to focus on Fnatic."

Cedeño says that Fnatic's own practice against both Chinese teams has quite beneficial for their outlook at their upcoming games.

"We've practiced against the Chinese teams a lot, and I was not scared actually," he said. "I think they are good, but they play really aggressive. It's a play style that where, if you get used to it, it's really easy to win when you have a small advantage. It's all about that, and if we do it well I think we'll win."

On the top side of the bracket, SKT1 won a quick 2-0 series over Taiwan's Gamania Bears, while Russia's Gambit Gaming took Najin Sword to the limit in a three-game set. The loss by Gambit leaves Fnatic as the only team remaining from either the North American or European LCS.

"Gambit [are] really good at teamfights, but not so good at lane phase," Najin Sword AD Carry Kim "PraY" Jong-in. "So we tried to prolong the lane phase, and that's how it worked for us."

The United States vs. Europe rivalry set its course with Cloud 9 taking on Fnatic to begin the quarterfinals. Fnatic dashed the chances of the lone remaining American team by a 2-1 score, including a rather one-sided victory in the final game to close it out. Fnatic have now gone 16-4 in maps since the end of the Summer Season, and have only lost one match out of those to Vulcun at the beginning of the championships.

"We were planning the first game a lot, and we were expecting to win it," said Fnatic midlaner Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño, who had defining plays with his Kassadin in Game 1 and Game 3. "I thought we would go to a third game. There we had a strategy that we prepared, we went for it again, and they pretty much had no response for it. We showed [our strategy] in the first game and they had no response, so in the third game we did the same and they hadn't come up with anything."

"We tried to make plays, we tried to do dragons, tried to force down turrets, and catch people out, it just didn't work out for us," Cloud 9 Captain Hai "Hai" Lam. Lam says going into the match that they thought they had answers for Cedeño's Kassadin, but in hindsight should have banned him before Game 3.

"When you're in the middle of the game, you just forget about some things like that," he said. "It was a misplay by our part, we just didn't think it all the way through."

Cloud 9's loss to Fnatic continues the streak of no North American team ever beating another North American team in a best-of-3 or best-of-5 series in the history of the World Championships from Season 1-3. Team SoloMid's third-place finish in Season 1 is the highest placing thus far.

On the same side of the bracket, Royal Club and OMG had their own history going, as both teams played in the Chinese Regional Finals just weeks before the World Championships, with Royal Club taking the finals over OMG. Although OMG had impressed many in the group stage with wins over SKT1, Royal Club would prove too much yet again, led by Jungler Liu "Lucky" Jun-Jie's 14 KDA as the highest of any player at the championships.

"I think we just did better than OMG today, but that they're still one of the best teams in the world," Royal Club Captain Pak-Kan "Tabe" Wong told GameSpot. Wong says that they practiced heavily with SKT1 prior to their games. "They crushed us every day, every game we played. We improved really a lot during our practice. I hope to face SKT1 in the finals, but we have to focus on Fnatic."

Cedeño says that Fnatic's own practice against both Chinese teams has quite beneficial for their outlook at their upcoming games.

"We've practiced against the Chinese teams a lot, and I was not scared actually," he said. "I think they are good, but they play really aggressive. It's a play style that where, if you get used to it, it's really easy to win when you have a small advantage. It's all about that, and if we do it well I think we'll win."

On the top side of the bracket, SKT1 won a quick 2-0 series over Taiwan's Gamania Bears, while Russia's Gambit Gaming took Najin Sword to the limit in a three-game set. The loss by Gambit leaves Fnatic as the only team remaining from either the North American or European LCS.

"Gambit [are] really good at teamfights, but not so good at lane phase," Najin Sword AD Carry Kim "PraY" Jong-in. "So we tried to prolong the lane phase, and that's how it worked for us."

The week of World Championships games has produced 204,413 tweets under the #Worlds hashtag, including averaging 8,400 tweets-per-hour for the matches of Cloud 9 vs. Fnatic and Najin Sword vs. Gambit Gaming, says Nate Smitha, marketing analyst at Simply Measured, a social media analytics and reporting platform. #Worlds trended 28 times in the United States during this time period, for a total of 7 hours and 10 minutes. Last week, GameSpot reported that the League of Legends on Reddit was the most trafficked hub of any on the site for last Sunday's kickoff to the World Championships.

The Semifinals will begin tomorrow at the University of Southern California's Galen Center, home of the Championships for last season. Watch the event providing interviews every day of the championships.

From: www.gamespot.com

China's OMG, Russia's Gambit Gaming, South Korea's SK Telecom SKT1, and Fnatic with players from all over Europe are the four teams to qualify into the bracket stage. While OMG and SKT1 ran away with Group A, the deciding spots from Group B came down to the final day of games between the top five teams. They will now face off against the four regional winners which have an automatic berth into the quarterfinals, with OMG playing fellow Chinese team Royal Club, Fnatic taking on Cloud 9 from the United States, Gambit against Najin Sword, and SKT1 verse Taiwan's Gamania Bears.

"I think the Chinese are the unexpected region so far, they've been playing really well," . "We played Royal and have watched OMG play--they put insane pressure on the map and really know how to push an advantage. The Chinese teams are the ones to watch out for the most."

What looked to be a lost game for Gambit against Vulcun, and with it an automatic bid by Korea's Samsung Ozone into the brackets, was turned around after mistakes by the Americans in the mid-game. Gambit came back to secure the victory and force a one-game decider with Ozone to determine the last spot. Led by captain Alexey Ichetovkin's Kassadin, Gambit defeated Ozone for the second time at the Championships, and secured themselves into the bracket stage.

"We should lose that game, the game was lost," Ichetovkin told GameSpot about their match against Vulcun, thinking their tournament life was coming to an end. "But we were fighting till the end."

#147;I was much more prepared for the game against Ozone and it paid off. I asked [Fnatic]#147;s XPeke about the matchup and the style beforehand.#147;

Gambit will now go up against Korea's top seeded team Najin Sword in the first round of the quarterfinals, the team he wanted to face the least.

"I don#147;t want to go against Najin Sword," Ichteovkin said before the brackets were drawn. "We don't know anything about them, we have no information. We've scrimmaged all the teams except Najin."

A transatlantic battle waits ahead for Cloud 9 and Fnatic, as America's far and away number one team is faced with a hungry European squad who has only lost one game at the championships thus far.

"We've practiced [with] a few of the international teams such as Gambit and Lemondogs," says Cloud 9's Hartman. "We've been watching all the games from World's, play solo queue, just doing anything we can to prepare. When I watch the games I look for certain things and how teams play, but I don't want to go into what I#147;m looking for."

"Our play style holds up to the other regions and we're not significantly behind like some people like to think we are. Fnatic#147;s been playing really well, I don#147;t really know how it#147;ll go.#147;

#147;Cloud 9 and Gama Bears are probably the two easies [teams to play in the Quarterfinals], but I#147;m really not sure at all," said Fnatic Lauri"Cyanide"Happonen before the brackets were drawn. #147;It#147;s really hard to figure out these teams because we haven#147;t seen anything from them. "It'll be easier for them to research us, but it might be our advantage that we are kind of warmed up from the groups, while it#147;s their first offline event in a while."

The group stages ended with some controversy between Team SoloMid and SKT1, where hometown fans for TSM from SKT1. While players use noise-cancelling headsets, teams competing in the group stage are not inside sound-protected booths which are standard for all games in OGN's Champions League.

Counter Logic Gaming Owner and former starter George "HotShotGG" Georgallidis is not happy with the current setup that Riot Games has for the players.

"Riot, please stop this bulls**t and get soundproof booths," Georgallidis wrote in a scathing statement on "The extra production value is not worth it. Putting the white noise up DOESN'T HELP, so please stop that too. I'm sorry, but this issue has gone on for too long. I've heard countless Barons and ganks as they were happening because of the speakers + audience. In my pro career I can safely safe I've heard GAME CHANGING things from the outside at least 5 or 6 times."

"Ruining the spirit and fairness of competition is NOT worth it. I love Riot and everything they've done for the scene but this just boils my blood to hear about every time. Sympathize for the players, I know a game where it was lost for a team due to players hearing outside noises. Even if there is a small chance of it happening, this is a teams future being diminished because of negligence."

At the time of publishing, Riot Games has not responded to requests for comment.

The Quarterfinals begin today at 3 p.m. EST/Noon PST and continue through Thursday. The Semifinals at the Galen Center begin on Friday. Watch the eventlive

From: www.gamespot.com

The Season 3 finals began with the first day of group matches, where the top two teams from each group advanced to the quarterfinals to meet with the first-place finishers of each region. Teams in the group stage include Team SoloMid and Team Vulcun from the United States, Samsung Galaxy Ozone and SK Telecom T1 from South Korea, Fnatic, Gambit Gaming (Russia), Lemondogs (Sweden), GamingGear (Lithuania) from Europe, OMG from China, and Mineski from the Philippines. Cloud 9 from the United States, Gamania Bears from Taiwan, Najin Sword from South Korea, and Royal Club from China wait the winners in the Quarterfinals.

Games kicked off with TSM taking a quick victory over a GamingGear team who will have a rough road ahead of them these playoffs, and Lemondogs putting up a battle with tournament favorites SKT1.

Things ramped up much quicker for TSM's next match against OMG, a team that is playing outside of China for the first time. OMG AD Carry Guo "San" JunLiang left no question of their tournament inexperience by leading them to two wins over TSM and SKT1. Guo in average gold per game, and second in KDA with 19.

"I never thought we could beat SKT1," midlaner Yu "Cool" JiaJun told GameSpot about their wins. "We've watched all of their previous games and their AP and AD carries are so strong. I think the reason we were able to win against SKT1 was because our Jungler [Yin "LoveLin" Le] played great in the beginning. He was able to get us our advantages."

"We didn't know much about TSM before our game. We didn't put a lot of pressure on ourselves before playing them. We actually have very high expectations for ourselves. I think it's important to have confidence in your own team."

"The biggest thing was that we lost mid," TSM support Alex "Xpecial" Chu. "Fizz vs. Ahri is supposed to be a winning matchup for [TSM Captain] Reginald, and he lost the lane. Ahri got out of control. Today was a frustrating experience and hopefully we learned a lot from it. We've still got six more games, and if we can win five we have a really good shot of making it out of the group stage."

Chu believes Group A to be a much more difficult group, stating that most analysts have picked SKT1, OMG, and Lemondogs as the best teams in each of their regions--Korea, China, and Europe, respectively.

"I say we'll get out of group stage, and I firmly believe Vulcun can get out and have a really good shot," said Chu. "I'm 100 percent sure if we were in Group B, we would get out."

Group B saw Vulcun with a big win over Fnatic to start things off, and SG Ozone return the favor soon after. SG Ozone closed out the day against Gambit Gaming, which earned the final spot in the European playoffs after a close decider against Evil Geniuses. Gambit used Vulcun's similar lineup in their game against SG Ozone for their own benefit, getting them a crucial win against one of Korea's best teams.

"I think we were not that nervous, we knew what they were going to do," said Gambit Captain Alexey "Alex Ich" Ichetovkin. "They really suffered versus Vulcun, and we were pretty sure we had an edge. We decided to pick our comfort picks, and we knew [what they would pick] because we picked similar to Vulcun."

Ichetovkin says that Gambit has used their preparation against teams like OMG in the days leading into the event.

"We're scrimming a lot against the Chinese teams, against OMG. They brought a lot to our teamplay and game overall. We've changed a bit about our game. We're pretty confident. I think we should be able to win against the other teams. The only team we#146;re not sure against is Fnatic. They're really good against us."

Day two was headlined by a battle between Gambit and Fnatic for the top spots in Group B. Fnatic has not lost a game to Gambit since the Spring Playoff Finals, having lost all the games in the Summer Season. Ichetovkin's worries came true as Fnatic continued their streak to tie up both teams 3-1 on the top of Group B.

Fnatic Top Laner Paul "sOAZ" Boyer believes the picking phase played a key factor in their win.

"Everyone thought went good for us. I think we really out banned and out picked them, and we played good. I think Gambit is the team we know the most in Europe. We know how to play against them. Gambit is really predictable on their picks."

"We expected a bit more from the Koreans. I think they're really strong individual players but their teamplay is not that good compared to what we've seen before."

Hundreds of thousands of viewers tuned in from around the globe to watch the opening day of the championships on live-stream, though no confirmation could be given on peak concurrent viewers or total views. The #Worlds hashtag trended third in the United States above NFL games at certain times, and at one point there was over 25,000 concurrent users on the League of Legends community hub on Reddit.

Reddit General Manager Erik Martin tells GameSpot that the League of Legends subreddit was the most active subreddit on the entire site yesterday. "It was indeed the most active (by pageviews) subreddit for the day," he said.

Riot Games head of eSports Dustin Beck told GameSpot that the developer has been blown away by the event's reception thus far.

"We're just completely floored by the community's reception as we kick off the group stages of the Season 3 World Championship," Beck said. "We can't wait to see which teams make it out of the Group Stages, and we hope fans enjoy the rest of this week's games as much as we're gonna!"

The group stages continue again tonight and every night at 7 p.m. PST through till Saturday, September 21. Watch the event is live on location provided interviews every day of the championships.

From: www.gamespot.com

The Season 3 finals begin with six days of group stage matches, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the Quarterfinals to meet with the first-place finishers of each region. Teams in the group stage include Team SoloMid and Team Vulcun from the United States, Samsung Galaxy Ozone and SK Telecom T1 from South Korea, Fnatic, Gambit Gaming (Russia), Lemondogs (Sweden), GamingGear (Lithuania) from Europe, OMG from China, and Mineski from the Philippines. Cloud 9 from the United States, Gamania Bears from Taiwan, Najin Sword from South Korea, and Royal Club from China await in the Quarterfinals.

Group A begins with .

Professional players whos teams have been eliminated from the playoffs will be analysts for the event, including Counter Logic Gaming#146;s Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng, Evil Geniuses Stephen "Snoopeh" Ellis, and SK Gaming#146;s Carlos "ocelote" Rodr&iĂłguez Santiago. They will join Riot Games#146; broadcasters Leigh #146;Deman#146; Smith, David #146;Phreak#146; Turley, and Joshua "Jatt" Leesman.

Games started at 3 p.m. EST/12 Noon PST and can be watched live on .

will be providing live coverage and updates every day from the Season 3 Championships.

From: www.gamespot.com