Meet the fans at the Worlds 2015 Finals
Capping off a month-long stretch of international competition, the 2015 World Championship Finals hosted at the Mercedes-Benz Arena, Berlin, held unique surprises for visiting fans. A life-sized Baron Nashor statue, a Worlds graffiti mural being painted as fans watched, plus a fanart exhibition all added to the event’s festival flavour. Before the all-Korean face-off between SKTelecom T1 and KOO Tigers got going, we once again headed into the crowd to meet the fans.
THREE-FINGER SALUTE
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We have no trouble finding Jax, even without the light from his lamp. Cosplayer Olivier “Zarffyn”, who runs the costume workshop Finngarh Prod, opted not to deal with lugging the Grandmaster’s signature weapon through airport security on the trip over. “I wanted to bring the lamp with me, but I was too scared of the airport security,” he tells us, “plus the lamp is one-meter-90 so it doesn’t really work.”
The impressive costume took roughly six weeks to construct, he tells us, with the sculpting of the hands and feet posing the biggest challenge. He did a custom sculpt of both and then covered them in latex to approximate the skin-like texture. You can view photos of the build process on his FaceBook page. Rather than using the original Jax splash as his reference, he modelled his design after Jax’s costume from 2014’s New Dawn cinematic.
“I didn’t find the reference for this so I had to watch [the New Dawn cinematic] and pause every half second to get all the shots I wanted,” says Zarffyn.
Zarffyn is originally from Switzerland, but happened to be in Berlin so decided it would be fun to check out the Finals. Even though SKT’s former top laner Impact was famous for playing Jax back in the Season 3 World Championship, the Grandmaster at Arms hasn’t made an appearance in this year’s tournament. It’s doubtful that SKT will resurrect the pick.
“Yeah, it’s really sad,” says Zarffyn. “I’m kind of unemployed right now because of that. I’ll cheer for the first time that picks me because they have to get back to basics, back to something that works. Pick me!”
DA WHEEL MVP
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There’s no League knowledge exam you have to pass to gain entry into the 2015 Finals.
Severin “Monzambano” (pictured above in lower right) is new to the game, having just started playing six months ago. He’s got a soft spot for the Sad Mummy. “My main champ is Amumu,” he tells us. “I like him because he’s small and smart. He’s sad but he’s fun to play. I like his sadness. In a certain way I think you can annoy people with his sadness and with his curse. That’s fun.”
Monzambano doesn’t know any of the teams competing. He doesn’t know who Faker is. In a way, he’s the esports equivalent of people who go to see movies who’ve managed to dodge trailers or other spoilers and are just excited to enjoy whatever the experience holds, utterly fresh. Coming to the Finals sounded to him like a fun excuse to get away with friends and he’s looking forward to his introduction to esports.
“I saw that the World Championship was here in Berlin and thought, let’s go!” he tells us. “It’s my first real esports event. I thought there’d be very many cosplayers and, yes, I see some and it’s very much like I expected it, very many people. It’s fun!”
Even though he encountered a bit of difficulty negotiating his wheelchair through some of the transport legs, Monzambano’s buddies were happy to help him mind various gaps along the way from their home back in Switzerland. Teamwork OP.
Monzambano’s friend Edwin “Rolling Beast” (pictured above in bottom left) is likewise attending his first esports event, but he’s been following the scene a bit longer. “This year I’m really into esports,” he says. “I was watching it every week. My favourite team was Origen, but SKT is just too strong. They’re scary. But Origen was the first team to get a tier-two turret off SKT at least. This is my first tournament. Seeing all the people here, it’s really different from what you see on TV. It’s crazy, it gets you hyped. I saw Sp4zie earlier, he walked past me, I watch his stream sometimes!”
Even with Origen getting knocked out of contention in the Semifinals, Rolling Beast can’t wait for the top lane matchup between KOO’s Smeb and SKT’s MaRin. He even has a prediction. “I think MaRin will come out on top,” he says, “Because with MaRin, it doesn’t matter who he picks, he can pick anyone and he’s still amazing. You can give him a bad matchup and he’s still going to win fights.”
BEST MOM EUW
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It’s one thing to beg your mom to take you to the World Championship Finals and get a “yeah, sure, fine, whatever,” but 10-year-old Berlin resident Eliano “Flugstier” got even luckier. After hearing the event mentioned on the radio, his mom recognized the name of the game he plays every day and asked him if he was interested in going.
“I don’t know a lot about this game, but he plays it every day,” she says, laughing. “He likes to try out different champs and play with his friends, but it also makes him angry sometimes.”
Flugstier has just picked up a Championship Thresh statue from the merch tent outside and is buzzing about the day ahead. “I think the coolest thing is that I can be at the Finals because it is fun to learn from the best of the world,” he tells us. “Faker is very nice. I learned [from watching him] how to be good with Zed because he is one of the best Zed players. He is very productive and gets really quick kills.” Speaking of Faker, the SKT mid laner scored bonus points by pulling out Flugstier’s favourite champ Olaf in the Group Stages.
With the EU LCS studio being located in Berlin, who knows, maybe this up-and-coming young Summoner can continue watching the pros up close until he reaches their level. He’s just Bronze V at the moment, but he’s on the ladder and has nowhere to go but up. Then his mom can take all the credit for his success based on that one time she took him to the 2015 World Finals in Berlin.
Jason Killingsworth is a senior writer for Riot Games, based in the company’s Dublin office. He can be found on Twitter @RiotWhiski and has previously written an in-depth retrospective on Worlds 2014 and about the history of lane-swaps in professional play.
