Tales of the Lane Final Day Recap

Tales of the Lane is a community funded tournament that replaces Kings of Europe this time around. With several top teams competing, only four made it to the live event. Though favored heavily to make it to the grand finals, SK Gaming and Moscow 5 were made examples that Europe will have no stagnation of pro-scene and that others are willing to climb the ranks to the top of the region. With a fabulous theme, glorious battles, and a roaring crowd, the teams were pumped and gave us a showing rivaling some of the greatest games of League of Legends we've seen yet.

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DRAFT DETAILS AND TEAMS HISTORY



Game 1:

The battle of the up and coming top EU contender vs. SK Gaming would leave long time SK fans weeping as things started off grim. The match starts off with SK trying to contest their own red, but losing 2 comrades in the process, feeding the enemy carries to a 2-0 starting lead.

Eclypsia keeps the pressure up at all times and though behind initially, SK Gaming still is not an inexperienced team. They hang in there, Ocelote fights as hard as he can by poking with the monstrous AP nidalee spears but eventually gets picked off and meets his demise.

Although Eclypsia seem to have trouble in applying enough pressure to end the game off their advantage, they eventually pick up baron and force a painful end for SK gaming.


Game 2:

Trying to enter this fresh, things weren't looking any better entering this game. Eclypsia end up kicking things off 2-0 yet again, braving aggressive dives and seizing the first turret in less than 5 minutes, with the second inner turret going down in less than 8. The lead is absolutely brutal from Eclypsia, proving they are no team to be messed with and a top European team.

10 minutes in, we find Eclypsia still in a steam-rolling position, picking up free dragons left and right. Eclypsia abuses the advantage of the lanes by sending their jungler off to split-push, acquiring the most farm of anyone on their team (which was still leaps and bounds richer than anyone on SK's team). Unfortunately, SK would receive an early exit to the 3rd-4th place match and suffer miserable defeat.

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DRAFT DETAILS AND TEAMS HISTORY



Game 1:

Curse EU rarely enters the spotlight, but everything would change once they face the Russian powerhouse in game 1. Although entering not so confident, Curse takes the aggressive role early and gets first blood on Angush's Jax with a successful gank from Malunoo, putting the character you want least up ahead.

Darien, taking desperate, measures, uses two fortitude elixers in lane just to try living and farming, but Jax pulls ahead and also, conveniently for Curse, has a much better late game. Things wouldn't be looking up any time soon as an oracle burn goes down on Diamondprox, who got caught facechecking the bottom middle brush. Curse looks to have things in full control, pulling off 2 for 0 trade at the dragon fight.

Although things are looking rough, M5 pulls it together and manages to take a dragon after some attention is diverted to top lane, but on top of a farmed Angush, Extinkt is no joke this game either; in fact, he's a 3-0 terror at the 20 minute marks.

Some impressive plays come out of M5 trying to bring it back into this one, such as Genja's wall slam on the oracle target, picking it off, but Curse EU picks off solid fights at every turn, absolutely melting M5 when it came to late and taking game 1.



Game 2:

The game starts off action-packed as Moscow 5 desperately attempts to justify their pride; a huge fight erupts kicking off the first match with a 2 for 2 trade. Moscow 5 comes off on top, however, as their kills went onto Alex Ich as opposed to Malunoo for Curse.

More bravery commences as Diamondprox pulls off a dive onto Angush, killing him and getting executed by the turret in the process. As the game goes on, Curse.EU isn't willing to give up a game this series and pulls ahead at every turn, with a 13-4 score at the 21 minute mark. Curse EU capitalizes off of this and just crushes down M5, picking up baron for, essentially, free.

The game ended in a convincing 20-5 score with M5 having no turret, warranting one of the biggest upsets in LoL E-sports history.

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DRAFT DETAILS AND TEAMS HISTORY



Game 1:

Luckily for SK fans, they launched things in this series by putting up a much better fight against Moscow 5 than they did Eclypsia. Right off the bat, SK grabs first blood with a solid gank for Ocelote, putting Alex Ich quite behind initially. SK keeps up the momentum by commencing a dive onto Darien bottom, staying very slightly in the lead. Slightly being the key word, M5 were not willing to let SK get the best of them and acquired a kill every time SK managed to grab one themselves.

SK finds themselves pulling back ahead again leading into the midgame with a 2 for 1 trade at dragon, but loses the dragon ultimately to M5 with SK taking a tower top. Olaf is SUPER STRONG at this point with a 4-1 score and a Warmogs Armor before 15 minutes!

Though SK pulls off a beautiful and convincing fight that would look to give them the victory, they overstay their welcome, with M5 capitalizing on their blunders, eventually snowballing the game in M5's favor and giving up game 1 of the set with a colossal throw.

Game 2:

As one would imagine, no team wants to get 4th place, and being a constant 1st place finisher in their respective region, Moscow five was not going to suffer defeat to SK gaming. They pull convincingly ahead in the early game, stomping it up 6-0. There was no epic turnarounds for SK this game, and things looked sour throughout the entirety of it. SK being the very emotional team, suffers much distress after throwing the first game in any series historically, and this one proves to be no different.

Making many mistakes and simply giving up any bleak attempt at survival, M5 gets punished repeatedly, falling way behind and getting picked off at a game-ending baron without the strength to even attempt to fight. Despite the hopeless nature of the game's outcome, they try to hold on desperately, but everyone knew that the game was already over. M5 swiftly ends the game afterwords, crowning themselves with the bronze for this tournament.

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DRAFT DETAILS AND TEAMS HISTORY



Game 1:

There are not many series' that end up as deserving as a title for a final match-up than this one. Nail-bitingly close and suspenseful, we ahead into the grand finals with two teams no one expected to make this far, having predicted a Moscow 5 vs. SK gaming finale. The game starts off cautiously, as no one wanted to give it up early. After 8 minutes of passivity, Tabzz finally manages a first blood.

The game would continue to roll on at a slow pace, with still one kill to zero at the 15 minute mark. Curse does manage to lose the first turret of the game, also giving up a kill and keeping the game remarkably close. Though Angush is generally masterful with Jax, as the game proceeds, he isn't able to prevent himself from becoming insta-gibbed by Tabz. This isn't enough of an advantage to pull too far ahead, though.

After a 40 minute stalemate, Eclypsia mans up and dunks everyone in the vicinity, seizing the advantage of horrendously long spawn times to try to end the game. Although Curse was in more control than Eclypsia till the very end, Eclypsia ends up taking the first game of the series.

Game 2:

Tension is high and the adrenaline is rapid. Eclypsia manages to pick his trademark champion, Fizz, going into this game. Not following the passivity of the first game, a long and hard-fought level 1 fight unravels with nearly everyone escaping, Curse narrowly picking up the first kill, and a whopping 16 summoners being burned!

When mechanical skill isn't enough, you use mind games to turn the tides in your favor, and Curse does just that. Pulling off a masterful bait top, Angush makes himself out to be prey, setting up Malunoo for an impressive bandage toss that would grab the kill for Curse, with Angush's Olaf living with 29 HP. Close fights like this commence everywhere, with narrow escapes causing a 1-4 deficit for Eclypsia in what would normally be absolutely even trades.

After a rough fight at dragon, Curse manages to pull way ahead, taking the lead to 7-2 in their favor. Despite Kujaa's fantastic Janna efforts, they couldn't take that fight in their hands. Though Eclypsia realizes the gimmick in Curse's composition, they would prove too poor to simply armor stack their way to victory and fall to Curse in Game 2, bringing the first game 3 of the night.