There are some moments that you walk away from remembering forever.

Throughout Worlds 2015, we’ll be re-visiting some of our favorite moments from past World Championships and discussing what made them so special.

In case you missed it, make sure to check outĀ Part 2 and Part 1.

Moment #7 – OMG vs Fnatic

Group C at the 2014 World Championship was pure chaos. LMQ was undefeated on Day 1 after beating OMG and Fnatic. After Fnatic lost to LMQ, they immediately beat Samsung Blue, but also lost to OMG.

It was shaping up to be an incredibly close finish to the Group. But none could have imagined the difference between advancing was THIS close.

OMG vs. Fnatic was an instant classic. Many remember the amazing ending, but forget the hour long build up to SoaZ’s famous backdoor attempt. This game was balanced on a razor’s edge the entire way, and swung back and forth like a pendulum.


Faced with Cool’s 50-minute split-pushing Zed, Fnatic opted to ignore his threat and went for a Baron forĀ their map pressure. In exchange, Cool was able to grab Fnatic’s middle Inhibitor. But Fnatic was a truly terrifying late-game team, and pushed in together, trying to claim Inhibitors of their own.

Fnatic’s slow push managed to work, and they got two Inhibitors during their Baron Buff to put them in an advantageous position. A game of chicken involving Fnatic’s respawned mid Inhib, and OMG’s top Inhib, ended in a blood bath with three members of Fnatic dead. Despite the huge team fight win for OMG, super minions knocking at their Nexus prevented them from going to end the game.

The same dance started again, with Fnatic this time rushing Baron and trying to shove for OMG’s base. While Fnatic was able to siege and get two Inhibitors, they stumbled on the bottom Inhibitor and lost a team fight massively 4 for 0.


“They’re gonna win.”

The commentators pronounced Fnatic dead, but xPeke managed to hold his Inhibitors alone against the entire OMG team, long enough for his team to respawn.

And then SoaZ went for it.


But Fnatic didn’t get it.

OMG was able to get enough people back to save their Nexus — just one auto-attack from going down. OMG knew they had the advantage from their consecutive team fight wins, and from there, seized control of the game until they emerged victorious. From that point, Fnatic would have a very tough road to advance from Groups.


To truly capture how special this game was, you have to watch it all. There were so many close moments, so much high tension that truly makes this one of the most exciting games in professional League of Legends history.

Moment #8 – xPeke vs. Dade duel

Going into this match, FNC, LMQ, and OMG were at a three-way tie with two games left in Group C — FNC vs. SSB and LMQ vs. OMG. Fnatic’s loss to OMG earlier would setup a must-win game against the heavily favored Samsung Blue (despite Fnatic’s win against them earlier in the tournament).

After a fairly even early game, Fnatic and Blue turned the game into a map control one, with teams often trying to catch each other in rotations. Dade managed to catch xPeke out on the rotation, who in truth was likely just trying to farm golems and bot wave. But xPeke managed to get the best of him.


Though the duel was incredibly exciting, and xPeke won the battle, they lost the war. Samsung Blue won the game and Fnatic was eliminated from Groups.

Moment #9 – Alliance perfects NWS

Alliance had high expectations placed on them coming into Worlds. They were the first (and still only) team to win the EU LCS other than Fnatic, after defeating Fnatic in the Finals. And with that win, they finally looked like they deserved the “superteam” tag that had been bestowed upon them.

Thus far in Group D at the 2014 World Championship, NaJin Shield had looked like the team to beat. They were 4-0 after defeating Cloud9 and Alliance, as well as KaBuM! esports twice. Alliance and Cloud9 were tied after four games at 2-2 — Cloud9 beat Alliance the first time, and Alliance ran it back the second time to even up their records.

If there was a way to avoid a tiebreaker, it would have to be through a win over NaJin Shield by one of the Western teams.

And so it was coming into this game that the hope of Europe was placed against the might of Korea, in what seems to have become a time-honored tradition. But this time, the script was flipped.

Europe looked like the powerhouse, and Korea looked like the underdogs.


Throughout the game, Alliance executed a perfect macro level strategy. It was slow, methodical, and honestly maybe overly cautious — but the win was dominant. Over the course of the game, Alliance didn’t surrender a single objective or kill over the entire map.

It could have been a sign of good things to come, if not for Moment #10ā€¦

Next week we’ll take a look at some more of our favorite moments from previous Worlds. What are some of your favorites? Let us know on Twitter and in the comments below!