League of Legends Column: The Importance of LoL All-Stars

With League of Legends' Season 3 mid-season fast approaching, Riot Games has kicked off voting for the upcoming All-Star game. The short version of it is this: each region votes on their preferred player for each of the game's roles (AD Carry, Mid, Jungle, etc.) and the top voted players are assembled into an all star team representing their region at the tournament. The winning team's region is then granted an additional spot at the Season 3 World Championship.

TL;DR? The All-Star game is a huge freaking deal!

This is especially true for the North American scene, which is what we're going to focus on today. The NA scene has been noticeably lagging behind their Asian counterparts for some time, and this was reflected clearly in the Season 2 World Championships, where NA trailblazers like Team SoloMid were quickly defeated. Fortunately, it seems the NA scene has really picked up its collective game in Season 3, with the LCS (League Championship Series) tournaments showing some strong play and competition from the various teams.

Still, I don't know if we'll be fully ready by the time the Championship rolls around. For this reason, securing a third spot in the tournament to bump up our chances of winning is crucial. Even if you believe the NA scene is ready, why give either of the other regions a better chance at winning?

Voting will continue for about two weeks (you can vote once every 24 hours) and at the current rankings it's become abundantly clear that for better or worse this has become a bit of a popularity contest. This isn't a huge surprise, of course, but given the seriousness of the matter, many of the pros have come out and set team allegiances aside to offer their own picks and encourage fans to vote based on who would be best to represent North America. Obviously, these players would love to see their entire team roster voted in as the All Star team, but that is highly unlikely to happen.

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