1st - - Fnatic RC
                                           2nd - - Copenhagen Wolves
                                           3rd - - Team ALTERNATE
                                           4th - - mouz eSports
                                          5th - - PlayZ Gaming

The THOR Open - the first LAN tournament on the pre-season 3 patch. What initially promised to be an exciting tournament dwindled down due to a few setbacks. One major issue was the teams that participated in the tournament were not big names and, frankly, it was perhaps a little too early into the new patch for anyone to be whipping out exciting builds and strategies (although imagine if they had held it a week earlier: Black Cleavers everywhere). Every game looked more or less like a game from Season 2, with the exception of the occasional Warwick pick and an abundance of Crystalline Flasks. While the games of the tournament were well-played, they were also rather one-sided and not particularly engrossing. The inexperience of the attending teams showed and it didn't help the overall quality of the tournament that some of the games didn't make it to the stream (including Fnatic's semifinal and the third place match).

What was most rewarding about the THOR Open was that it cast a spotlight on the up-and-coming teams in the EU scene. The second place finishers, the Copenhagen Wolves, brought a solid line-up to the Rift, particularly in their top and mid laners, NeeGodBro and Bjergsen. The new team (founded in August and having their first LAN appearance in November) was very solid, enabling them to thoroughly beat down better-known teams like ALTERNATE and mouz. Yet even the third and fourth place winners had moments of glory and one could see how with more practice and tournament-caliber experience might in the future rocket into the top tier. The Copenhagen Wolves were particularly exciting and it will be nice to see if they can make through the Riot Season 3 EU Qualifiers.

And then there was Fnatic. After their IPL5 performance, very few people wouldn't have bet on them to win. They did just this without dropping a single game. It was the Fnatic show all the way through, and none of the other teams could do anything about it. Fnatic was simply on another level; they had the experience and skill to smackdown the other teams almost effortlessly. While Fnatic fans were probably happy to see them unequivocally dominate the competition, it didn't make for the most dynamic of tournaments. Still, congratulations to Fnatic on their victory and to the THOR Open for putting together a successful eSports event. Let's just hope that next year we have the opportunity to see greater challenges and the birth of epic sagas.

Team to Ward Watch: Copenhagen Wolves
The Copenhagen Wolves came into THOR with something to prove. Their 3rd place finish at Dreamhack Winter was their first major accomplishment as a team. Not too shabby considering their current line-up only came to be in October. While the competition at THOR wasn't the most fierce, the Wolves still managed to make their way to the finals, displacing the well known Team ALTERNATE along the way. Many people will criticize them for going 0-3 against Fnatic during the whole tournament, but that doesn't mean they didn't show potential. Fnatic have been doing extremely well lately, and the Wolves are still young. In game one of the finals, the Copenhagen Wolves actually managed to establish a decent lead against Fnatic. It was only through rookie mistakes that they managed to throw this lead away and eventually lose the game. With a little more practice, the Wolves have the potential to iron out these newcomer nerves and go toe-to-toe with the more experienced EU teams. In many of their games each lane looked quite strong - they just lacked finesse. It won't be too surprising if the Copenhagen Wolves qualify for the Championship Series but only time can tell.

Honorable Mention: Fnatic
Fnatic have been on a roll. They cleaned house recently, winning DreamHack Winter, as well as taking second place at IPL5, beating the reigning Season 2 champions Taipei Assassin's twice in two separate series. The best way to describe their recent dominance is their team has just clicked. Even if xPeke loses mid, sOAZ can carry from top, or if sOAZ loses top, Rekkles and nRated can carry from bot. If a team focuses on shutting down one of their lanes, another just picks up the slack and carries them to victory. Unfortunately for them, Rekkles will not be able to compete in Season 3 due to the age restriction Riot is enforcing. Even so, Fnatic is still an exceptionally strong team. As long as they find a decent AD Carry for Season 3, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with.


RaidBoss Singed Award: sOAZ
Many of the players on Fnatic could've taken this award for their impressive performances throughout the LAN weekend. xPeke made great plays both in lane and teamfights, and Rekkles' farming and positioning was as top-notch as ever. But today the award for being an unkillable badass goes to sOAZ. Why? Well, mostly because teams kept giving him his favourite champion. Okay, so maybe your team only likes to ban heroes they feel they don't play well against. Perhaps Lee Sin isn't on that list. But after the number of games sOAZ destroyed with his top lane Monk, one would think that the other teams in the Thor Open would rush to remove him from the pool. This didn't happen, so sOAZ was a monster throughout the tournament. One of the most terrifying demonstrations of his considerable skill with the Blind Monk was in Game 2 of the Finals. sOAZ was aggressive in lane, hopping around in teamfights, dishing out insane damage and keeping himself and his allies alive simultaneously. League of Legends has some incredible Lee Sin players right now, such as Froggen and Diamondprox. At the Thor Open, sOAZ played like he belonged on that list.

Honorable Mention: Forellenlord
You don't get to 3k ELO for no reason. Forellenlord played very well throughout the Thor Open and seemed to be what carried ALTERNATE to their bronze medal. Lots of impressive looking kills, and a surprising number of excellent escapes. They just tended to come at the expense of his allies' lives. Oh well, you gotta have priorities. #3kYOLOQueue


“See Champion, Kill Champion” Award: xPeke
xPeke’s roaming won Fnatic games. Throughout the entire tournament he favoured champions with heavy roaming potential, including Diana, Katarina, and Ahri. He constantly roamed to other lanes and tipped them in favor of Fnatic where they were previously locked in a stalemate. Even in one-on-one mid match-ups he would dive onto the enemy and get solo kills on unsuspecting opponents. xPeke controlled the tempo of almost all of his matches and did it by killing anything that crossed his path.

Honorable Mention: XL Bjergsen
xPeke wasn’t the only mid player with a predilection for assassin/roaming champs. Bjergsen on the Copenhagen Wolves also made an impression with his dominant lane performance and the immense pressure he was able to apply to other lanes. Arguably his most impressive plays came while he was playing Elise, a champion that is seen more often as a top laner than in mid these days. Using her kit to its fullest, he was able to burst down and assassinate champs when they looked like they might get away. While his overall performance may not have been as impressive as xPeke’s, he certainly killed a lot of champions.


Dora the Explorer Award: Team ALTERNATE
Team ALTERNATE is a very aggressive team. Perhaps they get this from their star member, Forellenlord, who spent a lot of the Thor Open wandering through jungles, looking for kills (and not on Eve/Diana either, for whom this activity is far more safe). While this occasionally made them look like geniuses, it also resulted in some nasty incidents of face-checking or being outnumbered. Every member of ALTERNATE was caught out of position at one point or another, but the worst offender was Metalx in their group stage game against the Copenhagen Wolves when he attempted to rejoin his team through an unwarded river. Instead of his team, he found an unfriendly Evelynn, Cho'Gath, and Ezreal and was summarily executed. Wolves followed this up by grabbing ALTERNATE's top laner Kerp before destroying their middle inhibitor, extending the lead that would win them them game. Not pretty.

Honorable Mention: Wolves Bjergsen (Finals v. Fnatic, Game 1)
Bjergsen's mid-lane strength helped carry the Wolves into the Finals, but that success may have gone to his head by the first game of the Finals against the undefeated Fnatic. In the span of two minutes, Bjergsen's Diana jumped on nRated's Zyra twice and got killed for it both times, giving Fnatic kills on a farmed mid-laner while all Bjergsen got was a support. And these suicide trades came at a point where the Wolves had an early lead. It's possible that more conservative play could've allowed the Wolves to keep their lead long enough to take a game off of Fnatic, but instead there was jumping, killing, and dying. Whoops.

The Thor Open can best be described as a learning experience. This was the first time many of these players were playing extensively with the Season 3 changes. As such, it was clear many of them were still adjusting and not playing to their usual level. This, of course, didn't slow down Fnatic. The biggest question for them at the moment isn't whether or not they are going to qualify for the Championship Series, but rather who is going to replace their ADC Rekkles. The other major takeaway from this event is that the Copenhagen Wolves have a lot of potential. Considering the short amount of time they've been together, if they continue to practice and work on the little things, they certainly have the talent to qualify for Season 3. With Season 3 looming on the horizon, this is the perfect time for teams to make these little changes in hopes of earning that coveted Riot salary.