LoR Masters Europe - Chronicles of Shurima: Moments and Memories

Jul 9, 2021

Over the course of several gruelling weeks, the top countries in Europe have battled for pride and glory, and now finally we have our new Legends of Runeterra Masters Europe champions. Huge congratulations are in order for GRANRODEO, Uçan Protein, and Fight4Revenge of Turkey who were able to overcome initial hurdles and surprise all of Europe with a truly dominating and well deserved win.

Although GRANRODEO and Uçan Protein are commonly found among the highest ranked competitors on the European ladder, this is the first time they’ve been able to translate that success to a tournament environment. The tournament’s innovative 3v3 format, with the unique seven deck lineup and pick and ban phase, did little to intimidate these players, who were able to adapt, understand, and conquer the strategic challenges imposed by said format and consistently perform throughout the group stage and knockout rounds.

The story of the Turkish team begins well before the start of LoR Masters Europe: Chronicles of Shurima tournament. In the first iteration of the tournament last November, Turkey narrowly missed out on qualification, with Czechia’s Pokrovac overtaking GRANRODEO by one LP on the deadline, leaving Turkey out of the tournament. Fight4Revenge was also unable to bolster his team’s qualification efforts, as he was actively involved in mandatory military service at the time..

This all changed this time around, with a concentrated group effort from GRANRODEO, Uçan Protein, and Fight4Revenge securing Turkey a spot among Europe’s best in the top 16. Although Turkey ultimately secured a formidable ninth seed, they had a challenging group stage draw that put them up against first seed Germany, eighth seed Italy, and the dark horse sixteenth seed Lebanon. Prior to the start of the tournament, this was a difficult group to predict. Germany, led by Teddy314, the highest ranked player by a large margin throughout the qualification period, was unanimously expected to win Group A. The second team that would make it out to the knockout rounds alongside them was somewhat of a mystery. Would it be a powerhouse nation like Italy, with experienced veteran Meliador at the helm? Would it be Lebanon, the tournament underdogs, riding on the success of superstar player Sorry? Or would it be Turkey, who would finally be able to turn their tournament misfortunes around and find success with captain GRANRODEO showcasing his leadership qualities?

Group A started off unexpectedly, with both Turkey and Lebanon upsetting the higher seeds to claim their first wins on day one. Turkey rounded off the first weekend of the Group Stage with a stylish win over Lebanon while piloting an extremely off-meta Zed Elusives deck in the process. Upsets continued to be a dominant theme throughout the tournament, with the final day of the Group Stage seeing both Turkey and Lebanon clinch their place in the top 8, eliminating Germany in the process. This would hold true in every other group as well, with tournament favorites such Spain, France, Czechia and reigning champions Portugal all missing out on qualification to the final weekend, ending their tournament hopes on the final day of the Group Stage.

Turkey’s tournament dominance was far from over, as they continued their good form eliminating the United Kingdom in the quarterfinals with a quick 2-0 victory. Going into the semifinals they were up against Ukraine, a team who has surprised many by winning a decisive final series against the tournament favourites, Spain, to make it out of Group B. They then went on to knock out Ultraman’s Belgium in an intense quarterfinal matchup.

During the semifinals, Turkey would have surely been ecstatic to find themselves piloting Azir/Irelia into Ukraine’s Trundle/Lissandra Control for game one, as the speed and pressure Azir/Irelia applies is usually too much for the slower control deck to handle. Despite this, Ukraine was able to flip the table and win game one, forcing Turkey to win the next two games if they wanted to advance to the finals. Somehow, Turkey managed to do just that with an unexpected win in game two piloting Azir/Irelia into Ukraine’s Thresh/Nasus. This was followed by a decisive game three win with a perfectly piloted Discard Aggro performance to secure Turkey’s spot in the finals.

On the other side of the bracket, the battle was just as fierce with tournament favourites Poland facing off against Finland in the semifinals. Poland had dominated what was considered the most difficult group in the tournament, before taking down Russia in the quarterfinals with a nail-biting reverse sweep. However it would be Finland who would produce the final upset of the tournament, beating Poland’s Ezreal/Draven with the unrelenting pressure of Freljord/Shurima Overwhelm in game three of the series.

When the tournament first started, few would have expected a Turkey vs Finland final. But as the weeks passed, this outcome seemed less and less of a surprise. Both teams continued to rise to the challenge, showcasing exceptional competence, both in their clean and calculated play, as well as their in-depth understanding of lineup building and the pick and ban phase strategy. Similarly, Zoe/Vi slowly gained traction as one of the staple decks in this complex tournament format, and Finland’s unique Tri-Beam Improbulator version was the cornerstone of their lineup strategy. With this in mind, it was no surprise to see Finland opting for this deck to start things off in the Best-Of-Five finals. Turkey seemed entirely unphased however, as they bagged back to back wins against it to secure a commanding 2-0 lead in the series.

With Turkey at Championship Point, just one win away from glory, Zoe/Vi was locked in by both teams and there would be a mirror match to decide it all. Although the decks were fairly similar, the game plan for both countries could not have been more different. Finland opted for a board-centric approach, using Cosmic Inspiration to buff their units and attempting to create pressure by sheer stat value. Turkey opted for a more invoke-centric strategy, utilizing starshaping early to prepare an onslaught of high mana threats to win the battle in the late game. In the end, Turkey’s strategy and gameplan prevailed, winning the decisive game 3 and cementing themselves as the champions of LoR Masters Europe: Chronicles of Shurima with a dominating 3-0 sweep of Finland in the finals.

This second iteration of the LoR Masters Europe tournament series offered us dozens of hours of truly high-level competitive Runeterra action, and you’re able to revisit and analyze it all in this complete VoD playlist on Youtube.