Edward Gaming was able to rise to become the world champion in League of Legends. Now the Chinese LoL Pro League is back. The prize pool cracks the half-million euro mark.
Many League of Legends fans were eagerly awaiting the kick-off of the Chinese LoL Pro League (LPL). After the underdog Edward Gaming (EDG) caused a record number of spectators at the Worlds and crowned itself the new world champion, it is now back to the domestic league.
The LPL is considered the best in the world, with a total of 17 teams competing and a prize pool of 4.2 million renminbi, or about 580,000 euros. Around 280,000 euros of this will go to the winning team.
EDG keeps team together and gets off to a successful start
There was good news for EDG at the start of the new season as the organisation managed to keep their players. Top laner Xuan Jun ‘Flandre’ Li, jungler Li Jie ‘JieJie’ Zhao, mid laner Ye Chan ‘Scout’ Lee , ADC Do Hyeon ‘Viper’ Park and support Ye ‘Meiko’ Tian thus continue to form the five-man team.
EDG is therefore logically a very hot title contender. On top of that, former star player Kai ‘Clearlove’ Ming joined the coaching team as an advisor. The good work already seems to be bearing fruit, as EDG confirmed their high ambitions in the first match, beating JD Gaming 2-0.
In Europe, the League of Legends European Championship (LEC) starts again on Friday, 14 January. This year, however, FC Schalke 04 will be absent, as the Gelsenkirchen team received a whopping 26.5 million euros from the sale of their starting place. Instead of the Knappen, Team BDS from Switzerland is among the ten teams in the LEC.
