The next Legends of Runeterra Standard World Qualifier Open is one week away, and Riot has given us the green light to announce: Mastering Runeterra will be producing the coverage!
Specifically, we'll be working behind the scenes to bring you the combined talents of Spidz, MoonBoy, Gems, SparklingIceTea, Scarzig, and Boulevard for coverage and analysis!
The Runeterra Worlds Qualifier Casting Talent
These will be your hosts on Sunday, August 6th, to cover the Playoffs for the Runeterra World Qualifier Open in each one of LoR's three shards.
APAC: Spidz and MoonBoy
MoonBoy is among Legends of Runeterra's longest-serving casters, covering LoR events even before APAC was a thing – for those of you that are too young to remember, once upon a time LoR had four shards/servers (Americas, EMEA, Asia, and Southeast Asia), until on January 2022 the Asia & SEA shards were merged into a single one, APAC.
MoonBoy was already hosting events for the SEA community (he joined the game around the Bilgewater expansion), and since the shard merger he has cast every APAC Seasonal minus one, and has been part of the casting desk for the Snapdragon Pro series.
Spidz is herself a seasoned competitor, having reached the Americas Worlds Qualifiers in 2022, and with a Top Eight from the Forces from Beyond Seasonal under her belt. You may have seen her casting one of our previous Mastering Runeterra Opens this year, doing coverage for Aegis' second season, or by her detailed VOD reviews from Aegis' third season.
"I’m very excited to cast the WQO," says Spidz, "and hopefully I can bring some good analysis to the table!"
EMEA: Gems and SparklingIceTea
Gems has been around LoR for quite some time: he even got to play the game at a UK convention before release. "I think I have probably one of the longest histories in the game out of any caster," Gems says, "although Boulevard might be close. And I think I'm also one of the few casters that have reached Rank #1 on the ladder several times."
Gems has cast the main community tournaments for EMEA, a few from APAC, cast the EU Masters (which used to be an official, EMEA-only tournament in which three-player teams from each country competed against each other) alongside Freshlobster, organized his own community Tournaments averaging 200+ sign-ups, and even finds time to run a Discord server for the LoR UK/Nordic community. Like Spidz, you may have seen Gems at the desk of our Mastering Runeterra Open during this year's first season.
He is also a partner in crime, alongside LoR Report's Marshall, of one of LoR's most infamous memes: the Shurima Cars!
Rejoining Gems on the EMEA desk (they have cast events together for years) will be SparklingIceTea.
"I've been casting, doing live tournament broadcast production and organizing tournaments in LoR since open beta," says SparklingIceTea, "casting for pretty much every other tournament under the sun, mainly EMEA but also Americas." He did coverage for Beyond the Bandlewood Masters of EMEA, the last ever Seasonal (before they became the Runeterra Opens as we know them today), the Fight Night tournaments, and a ton of grassroots tournaments, including our Mastering Runeterra Opens.
Like Gems, SparklingIceTea is also an experienced tournament organizer, running his own Tournament series, "Monday Madness" (although they rarely take place on Monday these days!) where players have to compete against each other with random decks.
Americas: Boulevard and Scarzig
Scarzig is another of LoR's longest-time casters, having covered Runeterra events since the start, and like Gems (who was already casting fighting games championships before LoR) one of the few with prior casting experience. "I used to cast Duelyst tournaments," Scarzig says, "and I'm also currently casting for the Pokemon TCG."
Boulevard made a name for himself in the grassroots scene in the LoR's first year, and was given an analyst role on the Cosmic Creation Seasonal (the Seasonal which our very own MajiinBae won) – Boulevard shocked the desk by correctly predicting that Tahm Kench, a champion brought by less than 20% of the top-cut lineups, would be in the winning lineup, and since then has covered no less than fifteen Seasonal-level events.
This coming World Qualifier Open will be the third time this year that Boulevard and Scarzig appear together – and they have already joined forces in the Legends of Runeterra's 2022 World Championship.
"I'm really excited to work with Boulevard once again," Scarzig says. "His knowledge and my hype always make for an excellent show!"
Other Worldly Qualifying Facts
The next Legends of Runeterra Open Worlds Qualifier will take place on two days:
- The Open Rounds on August, Saturday 5. These are as open as it gets: any LoR player (yes, even you!) can participate if they so wish: there are no ranking requirements nor inscription fee. Just bring three decks that don't share the same champions or region pair, and you're good to go! Check the in-game Tournament tab for details.
- The Playoffs on Sunday 6, with the top-cut players from the Open Rounds duking it out in single-round elimination to earn a seat at Worlds 2023.
Watch the Day Two coverage:
Coverage for Day Two should start at:
- APAC: 11:00 am, Singapore time,
- EMEA: 10:00 am, BST,
- Americas: 12:00 pm, ET.
Please keep an eye on Riot's official announcements, though, for the exact times. Timezone math is hard, that's all we're saying! =)