League of Legends Glossary

• Nexus – In League of Legends, the main structures in each base that spawn minions. A team wins by destroying the opposing Nexus.
• Inhibitor – In League of Legends, the key structures in each base apart from the Nexus and turrets. Each team gets three (one for each lane.) Destroying an opposing team's inhibitor causes friendly super minions (with increased health and damage) to spawn for a period of time in that lane.
• Turret – In League of Legends , structures that attack enemy minions that come into their range and will also attack enemy champions if their targeting system is tripped. Also provides vision. Destroying an enemy turret awards bonus Gold and removes the turret's vision. Each team gets 11 turrets (three outer, three inner, three in front of their inhibitors and two turrets to defend the Nexus – these last two must be eliminated before the Nexus becomes targetable.)
• Baron Nashor – An extremely strong epic monster in League of Legends that regularly needs multiple team members to take down. Slaying it awards bonus Gold and awards all living members of the team Hand of Baron, which grants bonus Health Regen and empowers nearby allied minions to make it easier to destroy enemy turrets.

Season 4 (2014) League of Legends World Championship
Quarterfinals
Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (BEXCO), Busan, South Korea
October 3rd – 6th

For the week or so leading up to our quarterfinal, Jessica basically took on the role of den mother/manager. Among other things, she let us know what we should and shouldn't say to the Korean press and suggested some fresh combinations of the clothes we'd brought, while we let her watch scrims, get some League tips and see what we were like both in a competitive and streaming environment (the latter being simulated, since we had a stream blackout for the most part on purpose and of course wanted to give no hints that she was basically in our camp), from Sneaky and Meteos' lowbrow dirty humor to Hai, Balls and Lemon being more quiet and Aurora's and my cleaner but still energetic act including our K-Pop radio DJ personas.

Being under the same roof as her allowed us to find out a bunch of things about her, including what her "no-makeup face" looked like in person or how Hai was more comfortable cooking than she was. We did also found out just why she had been the one besides Taeyeon who had been considered to be Girls' Generation's leader when the group was formed - she wouldn't open up easily to just anybody, but she strove to do all she could for people who had earned her trust.

She did still help us get Korean food so we could keep sampling it, but in keeping with the North America vs. Korea theme, she made sure we had at least one American/Western meal a day - something even the "When in Rome..." types like Aurora and I had no objection to. Pizza and burgers were definitely part of that, and we had added fun one afternoon when we had Goobne fried chicken while going over some of Girls' Generation's classic commercials for it.

We also allocated one night for meeting up with Girls' Generation again - first, each of us would meet one or more Soshis who wanted to see us, and then we'd meet up.

"Would you like to come with me after we finish today?" Jessica asked Aurora as we were arranging the meetings. "I've got something for you today since I know you're an avid dancer."

This was true - one of the things Aurora liked to do in queue while she was streaming and had K-Pop playing was follow along to the dances with her upper body (while still seated) - although she had shown she could do the full dances when her viewers requested it - and she had confirmed that dance was one of her big interests apart from League of Legends.

"Of course!" Aurora replied. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I know you wanted to get critiqued on your dancing and also make sure you stayed active to keep your stress low." Jessica said, her smile growing. "So I figured I'd work a bit too and get some help for both of us - as I have on multiple occasions - from our resident expert."

"Oh, Hyoyeon?" Aurora asked. When Jessica nodded, she cheered, "Yay! Thanks a lot! I don't expect her to go easy on me, but I know I'll be better for it."

Meanwhile, as we split for the moment, Sneaky and Meteos went to see Yoona, Sooyoung and Seohyun, Balls and Lemon went to meet Sunny and Yuri, I went to meet Tiffany again and Hai went to see Taeyeon as each of the Soshis had requested.

"I know this is cliché, but it really is about feeling the music and letting it take you over, isn't it?" Aurora asked, after they'd had some fun with Red Velvet's Happiness and freestyled to Big Bang's Last Farewell in a room at a studio.

"Oh, yes." Hyoyeon replied. "Even more so when you're tired. And then from there, I find that it helps if you can add something of yourself in there - your energy, your attitude and so on - then that helps too."

She then said, "You're definitely good - I can tell you practice a lot."

"Oh, thanks, Hyoyeon unnie." Aurora replied, going red but smiled. "That means a lot coming from you. Although you mentioned fatigue - I think that's where I need to improve the most, in my fitness. I do look after my weight, but I don't always train for endurance. Balls is the best of us in that department."

"It's okay - just be thankful you don't have to deal with my condition." Jessica said, making Hyoyeon nod since they knew she was talking about her anemia. "Believe me, there's nothing worse than wanting to practice something and not being able to as much as I would like."

"Oh, I know Hai would agree with that because he's got the wrist problems." Aurora said.

"Here's something I sometimes do. Instead of constantly trying to work on one song at a time, try a medley, or if you feel adventurous, try a random play segment where you don't know what's coming." Hyoyeon told her.

"Oh, that sounds fun! I'll kep that in mind." Aurora replied. "Note to self: If I ever teach or coach either of you League of Legends, I'm going to take a page out of that book, heck, maybe even for myself, and suggest you mix in an ARAM or two."

Jessica and Hyoyeon both laughed.

When we met up later that night just to relax and shoot the breeze, Tiffany revealed that she'd been teaching me a dance too while Taeyeon revealed that she's also been teaching Hai during our individual outings. We didn't share what we'd worked on then, but everyone was going to find out soon enough.

At about the same time as Girls' Generation went out to Guangzhou, we packed bags and went out to Busan, opting for the high-speed train up there, which was about 2 and a half hours, or the same time as it had taken for us to fly from Seoul to Taipei for our group stage games.

Among the many things it had hosted beforehand, the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (BEXCO for short) had also hosted the 2011 World Cyber Games, and the League tournament there had actually been the last international tournament that a North American team had won with Korean teams in the field before we had won All-Stars. Back then, the winner had been Chicks Dig ELO playing for the US, composed of TSM's Reginald and Xpecial, CLG's Chauster and Saintvicious and then Dyrus (at the time with Epik Gamer).

We had two thrilling but ultimately harrowing nights before it was our turn as Western teams lost hard-fought five-game series against Eastern ones. First, Fnatic fell to Oh My God after OMG barely won a base race in Game 5, and then Counter Logic Gaming fell just short against Samsung White after the bottom lane duos (Imp and Mata for SSW, Doublelift and Aphromoo for CLG) had gone back and forth all series.

As we entered the venue on match day and saw the crowd, I felt like we were going behind enemy lines for the first time since we'd played Fnatic at All-Stars in Paris. But the fact that we had continued to prepare well and had support from home, not to mention the fact that Jessica was traveling with us basically as one of us and hand picked us to win, gave us courage. In addition, Tiffany publicly picked Cloud 9 the night beforehand - as she later told us, it was both because she believed in us and because she didn't want Jessica to suffer any vitriol by herself.

The series did not start out well, with Faker being vintage Faker and taking Game 1. However, we managed to collect ourselves and win Game 2 in order to get right back on even footing before some superior teamfighting allowed us to take Game 3, putting us on match point.

Jessica was watching from the crowd wearing a green coat over her new C9 team shirt, with the coat's hood up to cover her face. She was enjoying listening to the Riot broadcast to hear what they were saying about us. She looked down at her phone to see us backstage in high spirits, with Hai talking to us animatedly.

"You know all that tension we talked about?" He was saying. "We're putting it into them."

"Yeah - Lemon and I were watching the player cams and they look like they're a little messed up. I think they need to win the early game or else they're vulnerable to tilting." Balls said.

"I they're going to put more emphasis on making proactive plays to right themselves and get their momentum back. If we can stay one step ahead of them and punish them for their aggression, we're into the semifinals." LemonNation said.

"Good God, we really do sound like we're the Ice Princess's team." I said, with a nervous but sincere laugh. I was having fun - it was just surprising to feel our own menace.

"Well, it's certainly not a bad thing to have her so-called coldness right here." Hai replied. "But more importantly, this is what they did to other Western teams for way too long. It's payback time."

"Heck yeah." Lemon said. Then, looking in his notebook, he said, "No prizes for guessing the kind of comp we're going to aim for - but I'm guessing you guys don't mind one bit, right?"

"Uh-uh." Aurora replied with a grin.

We picked Zed for Hai, Lee Sin for Meteos, Leona for me (an unconventional pick that I had become known for), Lucian for Sneaky and Morgana for Aurora, while banning out Faker's famous LeBlanc and putting him on Orianna. At the start of the game, both we and SKT decided to group and invade in order to steal parts of the each other's jungle and get wards.

"Oh, they've got the same idea." Aurora said as we got into a larger bush she saw SKT standing in another one within range of a ward that one of us had put down.

"Yeah, we might be able to get something if we play this right." Hai said. "Throw Binding, let's see if we get anybody. Carlo's on point - don't go in unless we can lock up somebody and kill him."

"Got it." We said.

"Here goes..." Aurora said, lining up her skillshot as she saw them start to move.

We saw her fire it off and saw it connect - and we all jumped a bit when we realized who it was.

"Oh, it's Piglet!" Aurora yelled.

"We can take it. Go, go, go, go, go!" Hai said briskly.

Leigh "Deman" Smith (EU LCS): Binding lands onto Piglet! The early chain CC comes in and Hai gets first blood! The fight continues with Hai continuing to get Shurikens across the team and Faker trying to trade back, but nobody else goes down. But Cloud 9 will take that any day of the week!

Joe Miller (EU LCS): Absolutely. Faker may be better mechanically, but he will take time to catch up...Hai recalls and comes back with the extra Longsword and potions.

It did indeed give Hai a cushion that he took full advantage of as he was consistently able to outtrade Faker early, often shoving him under his own tower and chunking that tower to about half of its HP.

"Bengi looks like he's going mid - I think he wants to get Faker going. I'll come in to match him - if it's a 2v2, that works for us." Meteos said a few minutes later.

"I'll keep eyes down there for a TP counter-gank." I said. "Just got my Level 6 and think I can shove out Impact so that he doesn't see me going."

"Sounds great. Save your ulti for then if you can, all right?" Hai asked.

"That's what I figured. Would be awesome if we could get both Faker and Bengi." I replied.

Deman: Bengi is here, but Hai gets away and now here comes the counter-engage as Meteos also comes in. Carlo also teleports in off to the side - Solar Flare goes off and lands on Bengi and Faker! They get on towards Faker and Meteos gets him down! Bengi's trying to run away, but Carlo locks him up and gets the kill! Beautiful play by Hai, Meteos and Carlo right there and Cloud 9 are off to a 3-0 start!

Joe: They're going for this middle turret as well and they're going to get it! Hai gets the last hit on it and that's more money in his pocket...that's an early 3,000 Gold lead for Cloud 9 and the holders are in trouble early!

Sam "Kobe" Hartman-Kenzler (NA LCS): It's not just the fact that it's 3,000 Gold up at this stage. It's the fact that that outer middle turret has been taken, and that frees up Hai to roam early on that Zed because SKT does not have too much vision to spot him moving between the lanes. So if Cloud 9 plays this right, this mid lane control could snowball into other lanes quickly.

Jessica had been watching with quiet elation, for once glad to hear groans from the crowd as the SKT fans continued to get antsier. When she saw Meteos quickly recall and grab Mobility Boots and a Sightstone while I purchased Distortion Lucidity Boots, she quietly but visibly smiled, silently cheering. It was our version of the classic vision control strat that we had worked on a lot over the previous months with Aurora and Meteos both going for early Sightstones so they could get vision all over the place. And since I liked to go with Distortion Lucidity Boots, which also further reduced cooldown on both my Flash and my Teleport, then not only could we keep eyes on the enemy and get more advantageous skirmishes and fights, including frequent Teleport flanks like I'd done with the mid-lane counter-gank. This worked because we had extra gold available to Meteos, Aurora and me, which meant we afford to spend on map presence instead of combat stats.

And she had seen in person while we were sc that we were very hard to beat when we got to do it as early as we did.

Deman: ManDu is trying to clear on his own, but Cloud 9 are on the move and nobody from SK Telecom is close enough to him. Aurora gets into position and Hai's there as well! Another Dark Binding lands and Hai doesn't even need the Death Mark to get another kill. That ward stays alive as well and now Piglet's getting shoved in!

Kobe: Cloud 9 making the most of the vision advantage that they have created with that early lead and it is growing steadily. Sneaky's now onto the turret and Piglet's trying to recall, but he's not going to get a chance to!

Joe: Another pickup! No fear whatsoever from Cloud 9 as Hai will just dive in and pop Piglet again! It's a 3/0/2 Zed so far, and it's not Faker, but Hai, who's across from Faker!

Kobe: Yeah, if you turn off the name tags and show that scoreboard, you're much more likely to think that that Zed is Faker instead of his opponent - especially an opponent who has struggled with injuries. But those wrists look like they're not bothering Hai one bit. And credit has to go to, as we discussed, the fact that C9 made sure to invest their extra early gold into vision and global presence. They're also going to get that turret and then possibly turn for Dragon, so make it a 5,000 Gold lead, possibly pushing 6,000 soon.

"I'm getting Blade of the Ruined King after this - if someone's out by himself, I'm killing him." Hai said firmly as we did indeed take the first Dragon of the game without a fight.

"Even if it's Faker?" Sneaky asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Okay, nearly in that case." Hai replied. "But I'm almost at the point where I wouldn't give a s**t."

"What's that point - you finish Ghostblade before he gets two items?" Aurora asked.

"Pretty much." Hai said.

It was hard work keeping up our vision control, which included not just Meteos and Aurora but all of us clearing enemy wards (luckily, I liked to do so anyway), but it continued to pay dividends. With 20 minutes gone and no further kills but with some extra turrets and dragons taken (and none conceded), we had a 4v4 in the middle lane while Impact and I had a 1v1 in the bottom lane. I was able to outduel him and take him out.

"Nice, Carlo!" Hai shouted. "Pink ward in their blue side jungle hasn't been spotted - you can use that."

"Got it. Coming in hot!" I called.

"That's what I'm talking about. All right, Piglet, Piglet!" Hai called.

Deman: Meanwhile, in the bottom lane, Carlo takes down Impact as the pressure finally tells there! He used his ultimate there, but he's still got Teleport and uses it quickly. 

Joe: Cloud 9 sees him coming in, but SKT doesn't! Cloud 9 starts the fight - there goes Meteos, who gets a great kick to send Piglet into the front! Hai's onto Faker again with the Death Mark and Aurora also throws out the Soul Shackles as Carlo arrives! Bengi manages to get away, but Cloud 9 clean house and it's a 4-0!

Kobe: Unbelievable play out of Cloud 9, not giving SKT any window back into this game whatsoever! They've also taken out that inner middle turret, turned and started up Baron...this might be them slamming the door and locking it!

Deman: Bengi is trying desperately to get in. He has to try to pull off a heroic steal here - but another Binding lands from Aurora over the wall and Hai just jumps over the back of the pit and cuts him down. Baron is secured and it's surely just a matter of time before Cloud 9 finish this.

Joe: I tell you what, looking at the SKT player cams, they're just reeling...they know they're over 10,000 Gold down in a game they have to win or else their run at a second straight world title is over - and now they're up against a full team with Baron buff.

Deman: Absolutely. And it is always exciting to see a Western team do this well against a Korean team, especially since we've never seen it to this level before, but you can't help but feel for SK Telecom because you get the feeling that this has been painful.

With our lead and Hand of the Baron, we had no trouble knocking out the middle inhibitor turret and inhibitor before turning for the bottom one.

"This is for Jessica!" Meteos yelled as we started on the bottom inhibitor turret, making us all cheer heartily.

"Yeah!" Hai shouted, looking over at Meteos before he turned back to his monitor. "We love you, Jess!"

"Thanks for believing in us, Jess!" Sneaky said. "Heechul, you better be ready to pay up!"

"Oh, yeah!" Aurora said in response, before calling, "Saranghaeyo, Sica unnie!"

"Saranghaeyo, Sica noona!" I yelled, before saying, "Okay, everyone, here we go!"

Joe: The turret goes down and Cloud 9 rush forward! SKT are choosing to make their last stand here, but the fight is already going Cloud 9's way!

Kobe: They've got Piglet already! They're going to do it!

Deman: Shockwave only hits Carlo and Sneaky takes out Faker! Aurora even gets a kill on ManDu and it's absolute carnage in the SKT base! But Cloud 9 stand victorious, all of them! They have dethroned SK Telecom and booked their place in the semifinals...with a perfect game!

We definitely hadn't gone in hoping to win with a literal perfect game (no kills, towers, Dragons or Barons conceded), but as the game progressed, we all quietly challenged ourselves to do so, knowing that while we didn't have to perfect them, it would be an invaluable statement if we could. To actually pull it off was, needless to say, a huge adrenaline rush for all of us.

As the red SKT Nexus expoded and we jumped up to celebrate, Jessica was on her feet, lightly pumping her fists and beaming. She then nodded appreciatively when she saw our opponents and how downcast they were - all five were still seated, either frozen or slumped over, clearly devastated - and how we reacted. We looked from them to their fans in the crowd, many of whom were in tears, and then looked at each other. We then had the same collective thought - while we had been a legitimate threat to win, no one had expected us to basically rip out their collective heart. Quickly, we knew we had one more job to do.

Hai and Aurora were the first two to go over to SKT, and they went to Faker and Piglet (who was the most openly distraught, unable to contain his tears) respectively and encourged them to stand. The rest of us quickly followed suit - I went to Impact, while Meteos went to Bengi and Sneaky went to PoohManDu. It took a minute, but they gathered themselves enough for us to bring them front and center.

We raised our opponents' hands to the crowd, and they managed smiles and bowed before they graciously returned the gesture and raised ours. As we took a bow ourselves, the crowd began to cheer us, and Jessica was among the first to start up our team chant:

"Cloud 9! Cloud 9! Cloud 9!"

Once we got backstage after we'd collected our gear and done our interviews, we found Jessica running towards us with open arms with her jacket temporarily thrown off to reveal her C9 team shirt. We all cheered and shared another group hug with her at the center.

"MVP! MVP!" Hai was chanting, now also raising Jessica's arm like he had raised Faker's.

"Thanks so much for the past week. That was for you, ma'am." Meteos said, high-fiving her.

"Oh, you're more than welcome. Thank you all for the last week too!"

"Hey, let it be said: NA Jessica > KR Jessica." Sneaky said with a big grin.

We all shared a laugh as LemonNation said, "I guarantee you someone typed that in Twitch chat as that last game was going on."

Before we could say anyting else, there was a joyful shout. "Jess! Jess!"

"Jesus, that's Tiffany noona!" Meteos said, his smile growing even bigger.

He was right. Tiffany was coming around a corner and also removing her coat, which she put next to Jessica's, to reveal that she too was wearing a Cloud 9 shirt.

"Oh, my God, Tiff!" Jessica said, seeing her and oening her arms. They shared a big hug as we all smiled and cheered before she gave the rest of us big hugs as well - and I went red but was glad that she saved me for last.

"Holy crap, Fany noona, you were here the whole time?" I asked, stunned like the rest of us.

"Second game onwards." She replied.

"That's good - you wouldn't have been happy with us one bit in Game 1." Aurora said.

"Don't worry about that." Tiffany assured us. Then she looked at all of the players and said, "I'm so proud of all of you. You did it!"

"The players would want to correct us on that, Tiff...We did it." Jessica said. "There's a reason for that..."

"What is it?" Tiffany asked, intrigued.

"This team wants to win it for the group now too." Jessica replied, glowing.

Tiffany's eyes grew wide as she turned to the rest of us. She looked back at Jessica and asked, "Really?"

Jessica's smile only grew as she replied, "I kid you not...I'd barely told Cloud 9 that I was leaving when Hai asked whether we could save scheduling our last performance together until after the final if they won today."

"Oh my...Hai, you didn't!" Tiffany exclaimed, shocked as she turned to him.

"I did." Hai said. "Admittedly, when it came out of my mouth, I knew I sounded a little crazy, but then I looked at everyone else and I knew I wasn't."

"I'd like to think today was proof of that." I said with a grin.

"Are you kidding me?" Tiffany replied. "You haven't had to prove to me or Jess since All-Stars that you could win with people counting on you to do it...but yeah, I'd say beating the defending champions and finishing with a perfect game is absolute proof if anybody else needed it!"

She gave me a brief sideways hug as I smiled gratefully.

Jessica noticed and gave us a smile before she told the team at large, "The fact that you choose to put that pressure on yourselves and play for us too in addition to all the people you have rooting for you back home...That's a very idol thing to do, you know?"

"No, I didn't think of it that way..." Hai said, and the rest of us except Tiffany and him shook our heads and indicated that that was news to us too. "But that makes sense. Thanks." He said, and we all nodded.

"Anytime!" Jessica said. Then she added, "Whatever the rest of us might have been wishing for or feeling going into this series, Fany and I at the least know one thing now."

"What's that?" Aurora asked.

Tiffany motioned for us to huddle up and we quickly did so. When we did, she and Jessica looked at each other, nodded and counted, "Hana, dul, set..."

Then they turned to us and said brightly, "Jigemun, C9 Shi Dae! Right Now, It's Cloud 9 Generation!"

The message they sent by modifying their trademark greeting to include us hit us instantly like...because of what we had done, including taking in one of theirs and resolving to win the World Championship for them while their original roster was intact, they considered us to be part of them.

"Yooo!" Hai exclaimed, putting his hands to his head.

"No way!" Aurora yelled, although she made a beeline straight for Jessica and Tiffany and threw her arms around them.

"Holy crap...I'm gonna channel Deman here. 'I do not believe it!'" I shouted.

"Are you serious?" Balls asked in disbelief.

"Wow...that's real cool. Thanks!" LemonNation said, clapping Tiffany and Jessica on the back.

"Oh-ho...yo, we K-Pop now!" Meteos said with a grin.

"I don't know about that, but I'll take being a League idol for sure." Sneaky said, also smiling.

"Come on, let's get you out of here." Tiffany said briskly. "I think you won that hostile crowd, but I still don't know if it's a good idea for any of us to be out in the open too long tonight."

We all nodded. Aurora and I allowed ourselves the liberty, though, of putting on Run Devil Run on our phones as we put our headphones back on, which made everyone grin as we donned our hoodies and jackets.

We simply ordered some food, both Korean and Western, and brought it back to our hotel and up to Hai's room, where he had his laptop hooked to the TV so the nine of us could watch the VODs on a large screen. It gave us a chance to hear what they'd been saying on the Riot cast and gave Tiffany and Jessica the chance to ask us how we'd felt at certain moments or why we'd made certain decisions. It made for the most fun replay reviews we'd ever had to that point.

The following day, Heechul treated us to dinner after we watched Team SoloMid upset Alliance to set up an all-North American showdown in the second semifinal (and with the bet out of the way, Aurora and I were especially thrilled to meet him). As we arrived back at Fraser Place, Jessica had packed her things and thanked us wholeheartedly as she prepared to head back to the dorm. When we got back up to our base, we took time to read her official announcement of stepping down from Girls' Generation. It brought our emotions back to the surface, but it was the end that left us especially slack-jawed:

I want to thank my fellow members, and also my family - my parents, Krystal and Heechul oppa - for helping me through this difficult time. I also want to thank a new group of friends - the players and staff of Cloud 9 League of Legends. I was already a fan of theirs before the World Championships started, but what they did for me personally this past week has made me a fan for life.

Also included was the announcement that their last performance together would be on October 19th at a time and place to be determined.

"October 19th...that's the day of the final." Meteos said. "You don't think..."

"It would be awesome if they performed at the final, but I can't see them wanting to unseat Imagine Dragons - you know what I'm saying?" Aurora asked in response.

"Yeah." I said. "Either way, I think we better stay focused and get ready, because TSM's going to leave nothing in the tank."

We all nodded and then started our replay work.

Quarterfinal Results
Venue: Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (BEXCO)

Semifinal Matchups
Venue: Olympic Gymnastics Arena, Seoul