Portugal Are Your First-ever LoR Masters Europe Champions

Dec 3, 2020

After weeks of intense competition and exciting games that had us all glued to our screens, we have our first-ever Legends of Runeterra Masters Europe champions. Congratulations to PespsCola, Manittas and CyberDragon of Portugal who performed incredibly throughout and were worthy winners.

The team were considered underdogs ahead of the tournament but made people take notice with a spectacular undefeated run before earning national pride and the $15,000 grand prize after their 3-1 victory over France in the final.

LoR Masters Europe: Chronicles of Targon champion Portugal! 🇵🇹🎉@Pespscola1 @Manittas_ @CyberDragoN_LoR pic.twitter.com/79XfAzpCL4

— Legends of Runeterra (@PlayRuneterra) November 29, 2020

Portugal had endured a tough start in the group stages as they lost their opening games to Latvia and Russia before having to face undefeated Poland. But to everyone’s surprise, they defeated the Group B favourites and did so in a convincing 2-0 victory.

From there, Portugal were unstoppable as they swept their second round of group matches without dropping a single game. And that win streak was extended even further into the knockout stages as they expertly navigated around Italy’s Anivia deck to secure with yet another 2-0 victory in the quarter-finals.

At this point, Portugal were on a 10-game win streak but their semi-final bout with Croatia would be their toughest test yet. Team Croatia had also exceeded expectations and in the quarter-finals they caused the biggest upset of the tournament as they knocked out one of the heavy favourites Germany, a team in which all three members had finished in the top 10 on the ranked ladder.

Portugal added an 11th consecutive victory to their streak before Croatia forced a game three thanks to their control-oriented Lee Sin and Karma deck. However, Portugal eventually pushed through to the final as Croatia’s risky selection of their Deep deck did not pay off.

On the other side of the bracket, two of the early tournament favourites Spain and France clashed in another promising semi-final. Spain put their faith in the Mistwraiths deck that had become increasingly popular throughout the tournament but opted for an interesting Freijlord twist with Troll Chant instead of Pale Cascade. However, France were not phased and proceeded to pick up another 2-0 victory after doing the same to Poland in the quarters.

France had only lost one series throughout the entire tournament so Portugal had their work cut out for them in the best-of-five final. Rather poetically, the series replicated Portugal’s tournament run.

Manittas revealed that before the final he had to run to a friend’s house in the rain because his there was a power cut in his home so he could compete in the final and to make their start even tougher they lost the first match to France. Yet despite all that, Portugal managed to face all their adversity head-on and bounced back with three wins in a row to be crowned champions.

The tournament was full of incredible moments, from surprising decks like’s Czechia’s Mistwraiths win over Germany in the groups to shock results such as Italy’s victory over France.

The LoR Masters Europe gave us a month of entertainment and you can relive the best moments in this recap video below. And if you want to see any of the matches in full, a complete playlist of all the VoDs is available.

We are overjoyed as to how the community have reacted to our first tournament and hope you are all ready for many more competitive events down the road. With Seasonal Tournaments starting soon, you too might be able to follow in Portugal’s footsteps and climb your way up a metaphorical Mount Targon to the summit of becoming an LoR champion.