As we approach Riot’s Season 3 World Championships, tournaments all over the world are being held to find the strongest team to represent their region. Between July 17th to August 29th 12 teams from Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macao competed in the Season 3 Taiwan Regional Finals with the 1st place team representing them at the World Championships.

Group Stages:

The way the group stages is set up is similar to the way OGN Champions is set up. Each team must play a best of two against every team in their group. If a team goes 2-0, 3 points will be rewarded to the winning team. If the 2 teams split 1-1, then each team is rewarded with 1 point and teams who go 0-2 will receive no points.

Group A: Gamania Bears and Taipei Snipers tied for first place with a 9-1 score only losing the 1 game to each other.
Group B: ahq e-Sports Club took first place with a perfect score of 10-0 while Wayi Spiders took second going 6-4.

Bracket Stage:

Only the top 2 teams from each group will advance to round 2 of the winner’s bracket while 3rd and 4th from each group will start from the loser’s bracket. In the bracket stages teams will play a best of three all the way through to the finals. Winners of round 2 in the winner’s bracket automatically advances to round 4, the semi-finals. The team from the winner’s bracket will start with a 1 win advantage against the winner of the loser’s bracket in a best of 5 in the grand finals.

Round 1:
At the bottom of the brackets TPA took a free pass to the next round due Team yoe IRONMEN forfeiting. The next series was between team e-Sports Dragons Pro and Cyber Games Arena LEGENDs. CBA Legends dropped the first game of the series against EDP’s mid lane Cassiopeia , Zac, Shen combo and crushing game 1. CBA bounced back and took 2 wins and the series with a Trundle and Anivia combo.

Round 2 Winners:
With their 9-1 score from the group stages Gamania Bears faced off Wayi Spiders from Group B. Wayi Spiders crushed the Bears in Game 1 with a double AD composition including Ezreal mid and a Vayne/Fiddlesticks bottom lane. The Spiders took a clean 2-0 sweep and sent the mighty Gamania Bears into the losers bracket.
In the next series TPS faced off the current GPL champions, ahq e-Sports Club. TPS brought back one of the top ADCs from season 2 with a Corki/Fiddlesticks lane and destroyed ahq taking the series 2-0. From the winners bracket Wayi Spiders and TPS automatically advanced to the semi-finals of the tournament.

Round 2 Losers:
Newcomers Gamania Bears faced the blink of elimination against former Season 2 World Champions, TPA even if  the team seemed to be a shadow of its former self with all of the original lineup save for Bebe having left the team. TPA’s new line up had a weak showing GPL Summer by ending the season 19-9 and taking 3rd place compared to their spring season performance of going 27-1 and taking 1st place. Gamania Bears used Fizz to dominate TPA and swept the series with a 2-0, taking away the only chance for TPA to play in the Season 3 Championships.

Round 3 Losers:
Continuing from the bottom of the bracket, Gamania Bears faced the GPL Summer Champions, ahq. The Bears ran AOE compositions with Orianna, Rumble, and Renekton and took yet another dominating 2-0 taking down ahq. Gamania had cleaned up the bottom side of the bracket with ease against well-known teams and headed into the semi-finals with some new found confidence.

Round 4 Winner’s Semi Finals:
Going into the semi-finals, TPS was currently 11-1 in this tournament against Wayi Spiders who are 8-4. First in the first game TPS, used an AOE composition consisting of Orianna, Jarvan, and Twitch to crush the Spider into pieces. In Game 2 TPS brought out a season 2 favorite, Shyvana. Due to her recent buffs, Shyvana gained amazing object control powers and securing another 2-0 for TPS. TPS was then off to the grand finals with a 1 win lead.

Round 4 Losers Semi Finals:
Crawling back from being 0-2’d by Wayi Spiders, Gamania Bears had been stomping the lower bracket and ready to get their revenge on the team that sent them there. To start off the series, Gamania Bears picked Fizz again and combined with hyper aggressive play, it gave the first win to Bears. During the second game Wayi Spider took the win with their Orianna/Jayce pick along with a jungle Nunu terrorizing Lee Sin in the jungle. With the series split 1-1, Gamania Bears played a Orianna/Rumble/Varus combo, chaining their ultimates together and crushing their way to the Grand Finals to face off TPS.

Grand Finals:

The best of 5 between Taipei Snipers and Gamania Bears decided who earned the opportunity to represent Taiwan in Riot’s Season 3 World Championships. Coming from the winner’s bracket, TPS started the series 1-0. TPS played an AOE composition with Sona/Orianna/Kennen but with a Rammus jungle. Gamania bears was able to pick off people easily with the Nocturne/Ahri combination. With the team fight presence of Zac and Varus, Gamania was able to tie up the series.

In game 2 Gamania picked up Ahri and Varus again, with their momentum from winning the first game they were able to scroll through TPS’s AOE composition once again. TPS ran a hard initiation composition with Diana/Zac/Nami paired up with the massive AOE damage from Twitch. Tieing up the series 2-2 the next match decided it all for TPS and Gamania Bears. The Bears once against brought out their now known pocket pick, Fizz. Fizz combo’ed up with Zac/Jarvan/Sona was a deadly composition that made short work of all teamfights. And it won Gamania Bears a ticket to the World Championships.

The brackets ended up as so:

Credit to Leaguepedia for the brackets.

Look forward to future information on Gamania Bears and other participants of Riots Season 3 World Championships!

Signing out, Charlie “Charlie” Lipsie!