With the League of Legends World Championship 2015 just around the corner, let us take a look at previous winners and their mid laners, then and now. So far, there have only been four World Championships, also known as Worlds. Only twenty players have the luxury of calling themselves a world champion, four of which are mid laners. While a lot of the winning teams have fallen apart with players going to other teams or retiring, all four champion mid laners have a shot at qualifying for Worlds 2015.

Season One - xPeke on Fnatic

The well defined meta we know today was not dominant. It was made and only practiced in Europe, allowing them to steam roll through the North American competition at Worlds 2011. The winners were Fnatic, consisting of Maciej "Shushei" Ratuszniak in the top lane, Lauri "Cyanide" Happonen in the jungle, Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño in the mid lane, Manuel "LaMiaZeaLoT" Mildenburger on marksman, and Peter "Mellisan" Meisrimel on support. This line up practically invented the meta we know today and snowballed it into the largest victory at the time. After awhile, however, the bot lane, LaMiaZeaLot and Mellisan, both retired from esports, and Shushei parted ways with Fnatic but never found success after. Cyanide and xPeke stuck together, winning multiple EULCS titles, before they both left the Fnatic organization. Cyanide retired to become a streamer while xPeke had another idea. He left to create his own organization, Origen, and after forming a new team of established players and fighting into the EU LCS, he has his eyes on Worlds. After placing second in the regular season, things are looking up for the young team of veterans.

Photo Courtesy of Warlegend

Season Two - Toyz on Taipei Assassins

The clear winner for first place was Azubu Frost. They were extremely dominant, getting out of groups 3-0, and eliminating crowd favorites Team WE from China in the Quarterfinals and CLG.EU from Europe in the Semifinals. On the otherside of the bracket, however, was a team that dominated Taiwan, which was small in the pro League scene at the time, Taipei Assassins, consisting of Wang "Stanley" June-Tsan in the top lane, Alex "Lilballz" Sung in the jungle, Kurtis "Toyz" Lau in the mid lane, Cheng "bebe" Bo-Wei as marksman, and Chen "MiSTakE" Hui-Chung as support. They made it to the Semifinals against Moscow 5, the only team people thought could beat Azubu Frost. After dropping the first game, TPA brought it back 2-1 in a very convincing fashion, making them the unexpected underdogs in the finals. To everyone's surprise, they took it over Azubu Frost 3-1, creating the greatest underdog story League of Legends has ever seen. Now, with MiSTakE and Lilballz with casting jobs and bebe retired, Stanley and Toyz continued their careers on Hong Kong Esports, who recently placed second place in LMS and defeated their previous team in the semifinals of the 2015 Taiwan Regional Finals. One more best of five win, and they will qualified for Worlds.

Photo Courtesy of Inven

Season Three - Faker on SKT Telecom T1

A new team exploded into OGN, now known as LCK. In their first split, Spring 2013, they took third place in the regular split. In their second split, they took first. With these victories, they got first seed in the 2013 Korea Regional Finals, where they took it almost flawlessly over KT Rolster Bullets. This team was SKT Telecom T1, consisting of Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong in the top lane, Bae "bengi" Seong-ung in the jungle, Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok in the mid lane, Chae "Piglet" Gwang-jin as marksman, and Lee "PoohManDu" Jeong-hyeon as support. At the 2013 Worlds, SKT dominated in the group stage, only dropping a single match to OMG, the chinese runner up. SKT mopped the floor with Gamania, the Taiwanese champions, moving on to the semifinals against Najin Black Sword. Technically, NJBS was the first place seed for Korea with SKT being the third. After a back and forth series, SKT put their game faces on and took game five in only 27 minutes. With their momentum, SKT 3-0'd Royal Club, the Chinese Champions in the finals. SKT dominated OGN for one more split before they started struggling. In OGN Spring 2014, SKT lost to Samsung Ozone in the finals. After one more split of failure and failing to qualify for Worlds 2014, Impact and Piglet moved on to North American teams while PoohManDu became a coach for Invictus Gaming, a chinese team. Faker and bengi remained on SKT, combined with their sister team, and dominated LCK and placed second at the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational. Even though the playoff finals have not happened yet at the time of this article's publication, SKT have secured a spot at Worlds, either by winning the finals or having the most circuit points.

Photo Courtesy of lolesports

Season Four - PawN on Samsung White

After the year of SKT in Korea, Samsung decided to make a change with their two teams. Samsung Ozone was considered the brother team, or the team that produced more results, while Samsung Blue was the sister team. After Bae "dade" Uh-Jin supposedly underperformed on Ozone, the company swapped him for Samsung Blue's mid laner Heo "PawN" Won-seok. This trade proved phenomenal. Samsung Blue, with newly acquired dade, proceeded to only drop 4 games in the OGN Spring 2014 playoffs while Samsung Ozone placed third. The Samsung orginization then dominated Korea, with Samsung Blue placing second and the newly renamed Samsung White placing third in OGN Summer 2014. At Worlds 2014, both of the Samsung teams steamrolled their pools, with only Blue dropping a single game to Fnatic. Both teams went 3-1 against North American teams, meeting each other in the semifinals. This was the moment of truth. After the trade of dade, Blue always seemed to beat White. The team of Jang "Looper" Hyeong-seok in the top lane, Choi "DanDy" In-kyu in the jungle, PawN in the mid lane, Gu "imp" Seung-bin as marksman, and Cho "Mata" Se-hyoung as support, beat their now sister team, moving onto the finals against StarHorn Royal Club, where they won 3-1, dropping only two games the entire tournament. After Worlds, all ten of the Samsung players left Korea entirely to play for Chinese teams. PawN is now on EDward Gaming, the team thats been dominating China for over a year now. After aquiring PawN, EDG has gotten first at every tournament they have attended, which includes 2015 Demacia Cup Spring and Summer Season, 2015 LPL Spring and Summer Regular Season and Spring Playoffs, and taking first over SKT and Faker, the previous world champion mid laner, at 2015 MSI. EDG are the favorites to win the 2015 LPL Summer Playoffs as well, which would secure their spot at 2015 Worlds.

Photo Courtesy of lcsfanzone

Season Five - Who's Next?

With each of the previous World winning mid laners either going to 2015 Worlds or fighting for their spot, it is interesting to see how the game as evolved. Will their be a new, fifth mid lane world champion, or will one of the previous winners reclaim their throne? We will have to wait until October to find out.

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