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 (陳彙中), 22, who quit school to game professionally.
Photo: CNA
The other four of the five members the team fielded in the playoffs were Wang Jung-tsan (王榮燦), Chang Po-wei (張博為), Sung Kuan-po (宋寬柏) and Liu Wei-chien (劉偉健), who is from Hong Kong.
The two reserve players were Lin Ying-po (林穎波), the only female member of the team, and Chiu Po-chieh (邱柏傑). 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.
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
Air and rail traffic around Taiwan were disrupted today while power cuts occurred across the country as Typhoon Kong-rey, predicted to make landfall in eastern Taiwan this afternoon, continued edging closer to the country. A total of 241 passenger and cargo flights departing from or arriving at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport were canceled today due to the typhoon, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. As of 9:30am, 109 inbound flights, 103 outbound flights and 29 cargo flights had been canceled, the company said. Taiwan Railway Corp also canceled all express trains on its Western Trunk Line, Eastern Trunk Line, South-Link Line and attached branches
Typhoon Kong-rey is forecast to make landfall in eastern Taiwan this afternoon and would move out to sea sometime overnight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 9am today, Kong-rey's outer rim was covering most of Taiwan except for the north. The storm's center was 110km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost tip, and moving northwest at 28kph. It was carrying maximum sustained winds near its center of 184kph, and gusts of up to 227kph, the CWA said. At a news conference this morning, CWA forecaster Chu Mei-lin (朱美霖) said Kong-rey is moving "extremely fast," and is expected to make landfall between
RSS