Intel Extreme Masters Drop 'League Of Legends,' Riot Games Announces Another International Tournament

Intel Extreme Masters, one of the oldest esports events currently running, has announced it will no longer feature League Of Legends. The tournament series started in 2011 and helped develop the League esports scene into what it is today. Without IEM, Xpeke would have never backdoored the enemy Nexus, solidifying Fnatic as one of the top esports teams. Moscow5, one of the best teams to ever play the game, dominated their first international event at IEM Hanover in 2012.

IEM has struggled to be relevant in the League of Legend scene for a couple of years now. In the early years of Riot Games and esports, there were very few international tournaments with large prize pools. In seasons one and two of League, there were very few teams who duked it out at these small events. IEM was the first corporate-scale esports event, which brought the best teams in the world to play on a giant stage in front of hundreds of people. Since then, the scene has blossomed into the behemoth it is today, and we wouldn’t have any of that without the original Intel Extreme Masters.

Now that League of Legends fans can watch the best talent in each region play weekly in the LCS, there’s no real need for IEM to have League. In a post on reddit saying their goodbyes, MBCarmac, the guy who’s been running IEM for the last seven years, said members of the team “have taken a decision not to schedule IEM events around Riot's LCS calendar.” Riot refused to pause LCS for IEM Katowice this year, so there’s just no way for them to have an international-level esports event when the best talent is all busy.

IEM Katowice in 2016 featured none of the main North American teams and only a few European contenders. Thirty-minute delays between games and shoddy production values plagued the broadcast. The poor talent pool and incoherent streams have made being an IEM League of Legends fan difficult.

At the same time the reddit post was released, Riot Games announced another international tournament called Rift Rivals. Three of the best teams from each region will play in five tournaments in different continents all around the world. Riot Games doesn’t need IEM to run an international tournament; they do it fine on their own. Its production team is second to none, it has perfected the art of fancy AR graphics popping up on stream and rarely even have stream delays.

Now that there are no giant international tournaments for League of Legends left, Riot Games is left to run esports events any way they see fit. The biggest problem I’ve found with esports is that unlike the MLB and baseball, video game companies own the games they create. Other baseball tournaments exist because nobody owns the IP of a baseball glove. In esports, if you want to play a game, you have to play by that company’s rules.

I’m not a big Counter Strike: Global Offensive or Heroes Of The Storm fan, so I won’t be watching IEM anymore. It feels sad, like it’s the end of an era for older esports fans.