Team Dignitas and League of Legends: On the Road To the Championship

Although young in years, the League of Legends squad from Team Dignitas has a rich and involved history in the game. Not many know it, but the team has traveled a long way, figuratively and literally to get where they are now, back in contention for a top spot in the League Championship Series.

 

- Season 1 -

It all began on February 18th 2011, in Europe when Team Dignitas put together a team of six people to try and gain a presence in the League of Legends eSports scene. At any rate this group of gamers was short lived and lasted only two months until April 2011 when Team Dignitas decided the League of Legends scene wasn’t for them and the roster was let go.

For five months they focused their efforts on other games like Battlefield 3, Counterstrike and StarCraft 2. In September of 2011 Team Dignitas felt it was again an appropriate time to try their hand at the LoL world by investing in a competitive group called Team Rock Solid. Urged on by Leigh “Deman” Smith (who we all know so well as the accomplished EU Shoutcaster) and Joe Miller, Team Dignitas acquired talent that has thrived ever since.

The most well-known of those players include:

Middle: William 'Scarra' Li (Currently still with Team Dignitas)
Jungle: Joshua 'Jatt' Leesman (Currently with Riot Games as NA Shoutcaster)
AD Carry: Michael 'imaqtpie' Santana (Currently still with Team Dignitas)
Top: Joe 'Voyboy' Esfahani (Currently with Curse Gaming)
Support: Patrick 'L0cust' Miller (Currently with Team Summon)
Manager: Michael 'ODEE' O'Dell 

 

- Pre-Season 2 -

The next month in October, the Team Dignitas LoL squad participated in its first competitive tournament at IGN ProLeague Season 3 (IPL3) and finished first with a record of six wins and only one loss, which would be to Epik Gamer. Their performance thrust them into a tie for second in the overall Circuit Rankings between Team Solo Mid (TSM) and Epik Gamer.

Before the year was out, Team Dignitas played in two more tournaments, IEM Season 6 Global Challenge and Rampage King of the Hill Series. Their efforts placed them fourth overall in the Circuit, but enkindled the beginnings of the storied rivaly between Team Dignitas and TSM. 

At that point in December, Jatt, the team Jungler decided to leave the team, stating: "Due to real life commitments and time constraints, I can no longer keep up with the rigorous practice schedule required to be a pro gamer."

However Jatt's connection to League of Legends remained strong as he joined Riot Games in February 2012 as an Associate Game Analyst and is now a Shoutcaster for LCS matches. Needing a new Jungler, Christian 'IWillDominate' Rivera stepped up to fill the spot in January 18th 2012. 

 

 

- Season 2 -

To start Season 2 off Team Dignitas participated in multiple European tournaments like IEM Season VI Global Challenge Keiv and IEM Season VI World Championship. During their stay in Europe their efforts secured the third overall place in the NA Circuit.

Once back home in the states, Daryl "wingsofdeathx" Hennegan was taken on as a substitute but soon left to join Epik Gamer and is currently a subsitute for TSM. Another major roster change was the departure of their top laner Voyboy to Counter Logic Gaming Prime (currently known as CLG) In order to fill the hole that Voyboy left, Team Dignitas acquired Alberto 'Crumbzz' Rengifo from Curse Gaming.

Three weeks later, the new roster played in the MLG Spring Championship and held their own, winning enough to maintain their third Circuit place but taking a loss to their long time opponent TSM. Hoping to expand their knowledge of the game, in June 2012 Team Dignitas took their team to to stay in Korea and practice against the Korean teams in Azubu the Championship Summer 2012.

Unfortunately they were unprepared for the new and unorthodox strategies, and Team Dignitas took tenth place, last overall. A part of the difficult loss could be attributed to IWillDominate's health and immune system issues, which sent him to the emergency room twice.

After a rough loss in the tournament, Team Dignitas left Korea with a new sense of direction and purpose, and participated in the IGN ProLeague Elites. There they played numerous games against teams including Team Legion, TSM EVO (formerly known as Epik Gamer), Meat Playground, and finally Team Dynamic for the first place prize.

A short time later in July, the Team Dignitas support player L0cust left the team to be replaced by Jordan 'Patoy' Blackburn.

A month later, the squad took the roster change completely in stride at the MLG Summer Championship. At the tournament Team Dignitas had two byes and beat out CLG and Team Dynamic to meet Curse in the grand finals. Rather than compete via a typical match, the two teams decided to play an ARAM (All Random All Mid) match instead of the usual 5v5 on Summoner's Rift. Team Dignitas and Curse hoped to split the prize money and do away with the pressure, but MLG had a different opinion on the decision and both teams were disqualified. In their official statement, MLG said that "competitors may not intentionally Forfeit a Game or conspire to manipulate Rankings or Brackets."

Recieving no Circuit points nor prize money, Team Dignitas turned to their next endeavor at the Season Two Regional Finals as a part of PAX Prime in September. In Seattle they beat six of the eight teams but were defeated by their rival TSM.

With a second place finish, Team Dignitas was invited to play in the Season Two World Championship in Los Angeles California in October, to compete against teams all over the world for the largest prize pool yet of two million dollars. Regrettably Team Dignitas was again outplayed by European and Asian teams CLG EU (currently known as Evil Geniuses), Saigon Jokers and NaJin Sword and placed last in the championship.

 

-Season 3-

The end of the second season in December brought some new changes to Team Dignitas, as their Jungler IWillDominate was banned from the game due to toxic behavior ingame. Crumbzz then moved from Top to Jungle in order to take control of the position. A little more than a week later Alan 'KiWiKiD' Nguyen took up the role of Top lane.

While this new roster practiced in the offseason, on February 3rd Team Dignitas announced the addition of Team Pulse, to essentially become a 'B team' that the original roster could scrimmage with, helping both teams grow and become better. However two months later in April an article on team-dignitas.org gave the news that the team had some roster changes and couldn't find a replacement and sadly they decided to disband.

Taking part in the Spring Split of the League Championship Series, Team Dignitas finished with a third place win rate, but in the playoffs was defeated by Good Game University and forced to play in relegation matches in order to continue to compete in the LCS. Up against Team Summon, Team Dignitas allowed only one victory in a best of five before earning their place back in the LCS.

Since then, Scarra joined the North American All-Star team in the AP Mid role. They were defeated by China in the first round, and in the losers bracket were able to come out on top of the European LCS team. Unfortunately, the Korean team's skill proved too much and the All Star team finished in fourth place. After a few weeks of vacation, Team Dignitas has been practicing hard to be able to earn a top spot in the LCS Summer Split against new teams Velocity and Cloud9, as well as the powerhouses Curse, TSM, CLG, Team Coast (formerly known as GGU) and Vulcun.

 

Team Dignitas has a lot of history, and with the hard work and practice they have been putting in, they've got nowhere to go but first place!