Pulsefire Ezreal changes the meta. New lane compositions. Good sportsmanship all around. Teams show what they are made of. All this and more in this week's Tournament Showcase.

Hello Summoners and welcome to this week’s Tournament Showcase. This week we will cover the IPL5 qualifiers, the Solomid Invitational, the 4PL, and the in2lol King of the Hill.

Riot continues to maintain League of Legends as a top esport with quick maintenance and fair updates. Balance changes, new skins, and even new champions keep LoL feeling fresh and new. The balance changes have always proved able to change the metagame, but this week it was a skin that brought new champions into the tournaments. With a new patch bringing balance changes and a new champion the players were eager to try out new strategies and champions.

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The teams have finally settled down from all the swaping and switching they have been doing. Two of the top teams in League being in Korea has given the newer teams a chance shine. Orbit and Legion in particular have made big names for themselves in knocking some of the bigger names out of the tournaments this week. Curse.NA has been practicing hard in their gaming apartment and it has shown in their victories this week. 4not and Team Dynamic are still improving their team coordination. mTw.NA has backed up their strong debut proving that a skilled enough team does not need experience to do well. CLG.Black and TSM.Evo have not been able to prove themselves as strong as their father teams, lacking champions in their rosters.

On the European side of things there are good manners all around. SK displayed a level of sportsmanship we can all aspire to in their match against M5. DDoS’ing has been a major problem for the LoL community and it’s up to the players to keep playing through all the negative attitudes. Moscow5 has been having trouble lately in just getting all of their team members in the same game, let alone showing us the level of play that won Kiev. Fnatic is finally starting to get into tournament form after losing two of it’s members. Teamless is starting to show that they can be a real threat when they play their best. CLG.EU has proven to be a top European team, we will have to wait to see if Korea has made them stronger, or taught them a different meta.

A single player in a single game can change the metagame of League of Legends. This week it was Riot with a skin that made some changes. We can all remember the case of Vladimir who got his legendary skin after some minor buffs that secured him a spot as first pick for some teams. In his case and Galio’s these new skins also came with nerfs that took the “must pick or ban” away from them. Pulsefire Ezreal is the newest and most expensive skin comming from Riot and it has had a large impact. PFE came with a new summoner icon and them in addition to the in game model and sounds, leading to many pro players picking up the skin. Ezreal was not picked very often until this skin came out and many player practiced the champion. This influx of Ezreal picks has lead to a shift in AD carry’s being picked in tournaments.

The patch brought in several balance changes to the champions this week. Orianna got a nice set of changes that has many mid’s practicing her. Ezreal has had a lot of use as well as a few bans ever since he got his new skin. Mundo hasn’t been the same after his nerfs and is falling out of favor in the jungle. Skarner and Shyvana had a few uses in taking his place, but none have managed the performance Mundo has had. Nunu got a nice set of buffs that have secured him a place as support, and may get him back into the jungle. Rumble has come back into the top lane bringing strong initiations to the late and mid game. More teams are leaning away from the safe Corki and Graves picks that have dominated the AD carry position for so long. Karthus is still a first pick even after his nerfs leading more teams to take Morgana to try to replicate the effect in teamfights. Janna is still a very popular support with Soraka, even earning ban from many teams.

More teams means more strategies and they did not fail to deliver this week. AD carry’s went top and even mid this week looking for holes is the established meta. Team used their practiced 2v1 lanes and managed to exploit the weakness of the more common top lane picks. The early advantages get pressed into mid game dominance with teams pushing second tier towers for the price of dragons or first tier towers. Map control is becoming key in getting the initiations that win games. One catch will lead to a 4v5 costing a team towers, inhibitors, or even aces. Watch for more roaming and aggressive pushes in the future.

One player, One skin can change the game entirely. Don’t be afraid to challenge the meta. That’s it for this Tournament Showcase, as always, hat’s of to ya’.