It’s been a long year with many amazing games, players, champions and fan creations. Today GameSkinny is going to take a look at all of them and give you our picks for who came out on top. We will be covering Team of the Year, Player of the Year, Series of the Year, Rioter of the Year, Champion of the Year, Skin of the Year, Game Type of the Year, Event of the Year, Fan Creations of the Year, Community Site of the Year and Journalist of the Year.
Team of the Year
Winner: Samsung White | Runner Up: KT Rolster Arrows
The honor of Team of the Year goes to the Season 4 World Champions Samsung White. After struggling throughout all of 2014 to defeat their sister team Samsung Blue they finally won when it counted in the World Championship Semifinals and advanced on eventually winning the Summoner’s Cup. They peaked at just the right time finishing the World Championship with a 15-2 record only losing games to Team Solo Mid and Starhorn Royal Club.
Player of the Year
Winner: Dandy | Runner Up: Mata
Play of the Year honors go to Samsung White’s jungler Dandy. Unargueably the best jungler in the world and often the driving force behind the Samsung monster it is hard to argue with his dominance of both Korea and the World. Dandy favoured aggressive play-making junglers like Lee Sin, Kha’zix or his famous Rengar. He put on a clinic in Game 4 of the World Championship FInal and proved exactly why Rengar was always a must ban champion for teams playing against Samsung White.
Series of the Year
Winner: OGN Summer Finals KTA vs SSB
Runner Up: World Championship Semi-Finals OMG vs SHRC
Rivaling the 2013 OGN Champions Summer Final for the greatest series of League of Legends ever played, the 2014 Champions Summer Final takes the Series of the Year award. A completely back and forth series between the KT Rolster Arrows and Samsung Galaxy Blue came down to an epic mirror match. Seriously, if you don’t watch any other League of Legends games from 2014 this one is well worth it.
Rioter of the Year
Winner: Deman | Runner Up: JPShub
Everybody’s favourite caster Leigh “Deman” Smith wins our award for Rioter of the Year. Never a bad word to say about Deman, coming from a long casting career that started back with Battlefield: 1942, he continued to bring his top-tier casting to EU LCS and the Season 4 World Championship. Despite leaving the Riot family to rejoin the team at ESL he is no less loved and we wish him all the best in 2015 and beyond.
Champion of the Year
Winner: Gnar | Runner Up: Braum
This guy had a “Gnarly” release with some cool lore and an awesome launch event and webpage to boot. Oh, and he’s a yordle! Beyond his launch many players wondered how effective this little guy would be with his unreliable transformation mechanic. Gambit Gaming top laner Darien seemed to be the first of many to realize his potential and played him to over a 60% winrate shortly after his release.
Skin of the Year
Winner: Dunkmaster Darius | Runner Up: Project: Yasuo
Riot finally acknowledged the dunk squad with their Dunkmaster Darius skin release. Sporting a broken basketball hoop in place of a giant axe and a Team Noxus jersey, Darius is ready to take on all comers. You can now get all the tasty resets by putting your enemies bodies through your hoop.
Game Type of the Year
Winner: Urf | Runner Up: Legend of the Poro King
The most popular game mode this year by a landslide was the new Ultra Rapid Fire or URF mode. It didn’t matter what champion you picked there was always something ridiculous to discover with no cooldowns and infinite mana! After having almost 15% of the champion pool deemed too overpowered to play in URF mode was shut down all too soon and has been begging to come back ever since.
Event of the Year
Winner: World Championship | Runner Up: IEM Katowice
It should only make sense that the best international event of the year should go to the Season 4 World Championship. However IEM Katowice in March was our runner-up over IEM San Jose and All-Stars. It featured a more diverse international lineup and an undefeated by the slumping KT Rolster Bullets, proving that Korea was still very much ahead of the west.
Fan Creations of the Year
Winner: Instalok | Runner Up: ohnips
Youtubers Instalok top this years fan creations list. Performing parodies of hit songs and even some of their own originals consistently has put them over the top in terms of popularity among the League of Legends player base. Check out their version of Dangerous by David Guetta featuring one of our other winners! Listening to them while you play ensures you’ll have fun, even when you’re losing.
Community Site of the Year
Winner: Surrender@20 | Runner Up: onGamers
Surrender@20, run by the bearded bandit @Moobeat is our top fan site for 2014. Covering everything from PBE Updates to Tier lists a Dev Tracker and more, Surrender@20 is the one stop shop for everything coming to League of Legends before it hits the live servers!
Journalist of the Year
Winner: Richard Lewis | Runner Up: Kelsey Moser
An integral part of the League of Legends community, whether you love him or love to hate him, Richard Lewis snags our Journalist of the Year award. Breaking all the news sometimes before even the teams knew what was going on! The majority of the League of Legends community has warmed up to Richard over the last several months, but several still oppose his ways of bringing news into the public domain. We wish Richard continued success in 2015!
Do you agree with the choices? Who would you have picked in this 2014 round-up? Let us know on Twitter or in the comments section below!
Published: Jan 12, 2015 11:05 pm