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Nova Esports Emerge As World’s First Wild Rift Icons Global Champs

Nova Esports Emerge As World’s First Wild Rift Icons Global Champs

Chinese team Nova Esports became the first League of Legends: Wild Rift world champs after a landslide win over their fellow compatriots J Team at the inaugural Wild Rift Icons Global Championship, held in Singapore over the weekend.

The grand finals were live-streamed online and boasted a best-of-seven format. 

J Team started out strong with control over the map and drew first blood, courtesy of midlaner, Luo “Berry” Junyao.

Nova clearly struggled in the early minutes but a fight over the Elder Dragon 15 minutes in saw the turn of the tides for Nova after they drove J Team away in a strategic masterstroke and took control of the Drake. 

That extra boost gave Nova the impetus to launch an offensive against J Team, diving through their rival’s turrets to immediately destroy J Team’s base to take the first win of the first Wild Rift Icons Global Championship. 

In Game Two, a more confident Nova took first blood against J Team, harvesting a gold lead in the early game. 

But J Team were eventually able to corner and pick off three Nova players to chip away at their gold lead. 

Nova would take the Elder Dragon but a lapse in their attention led to J Team taking control of the map, allowing them to take the Baron and a turret from Nova. 

But their control would be short-lived as Nova rebounded to fend off an attack on their base and the team quickly punished J Team to take the second game with a 7-5 kill lead. 

Game Three was an easy stroll in the park for Nova, despite J Team trying to launch a counter attack. 

The game wrapped up in just 18 minutes with Nova notching a massive 28-13 kill lead. 

J Team tried hard to wrestle control of Game Four and while they did gain an early upper hand, it was Nova which took first blood; its jungler An “Long” Xulong also took his 100th kill of the tournament in Game Four. 

Still, J Team kept up their aggression in a bid to maintain control in the midlane but Nova kept their cool to pick off their rivals slowly and methodically. 

The 17 minute mark saw a 5v5 squirmish that resulted in Nova pulling ahead slightly – the team pressed their advantage and made for J Team’s fountain, sealing their win as the world’s first Wild Rift Icons Global Champions.

(Source: Riot Games)

Nova took home the lion’s share of the US$2 million prize and Long was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament. 

In a post-match interview, Long said that while the team’s victory proved that he’s the best Wild Rift jungler in the world, he still hopes to grow and continue to improve. 

J Team, despite their almost perfect run in Wild Rift, had to settle for second place – not bad for a team that wasn’t even supposed to compete in the competition. 

*Featured image from Riot Games

By Samantha Chan \ 12:00, 12 July 2022

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