Esports | League of Legends | SK Telecom T1 — The 3-2 Worlds Decider at STAPLES Center

On October 29, 2016, SK Telecom T1 and Samsung Galaxy took opposite sides of the League of Legends stage inside Los Angeles’s STAPLES Center. Riot Games’ best-of-five World Championship final ended only after all five games, with the Summoner’s Cup and the publisher-run season title at stake.

The 16-team tournament had moved through San Francisco, Chicago, and New York before the final reached Los Angeles. Riot’s venue guide fixes this stage at STAPLES Center on October 29, rather than at one of the earlier group or knockout venues.

SK Telecom started Lee “Duke” Ho-seong in the top lane, Bae “Bengi” Seong-woong in the jungle, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok in mid, Bae “Bang” Jun-sik as the marksman, and Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan at support. Samsung answered with Lee “CuVee” Seong-jin, Kang “Ambition” Chan-yong, Lee “Crown” Min-ho, Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk, and Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in in the same five roles.

League of Legends placed each team on opposite halves of Summoner’s Rift, where lanes, defensive towers, neutral monsters, and team fights created openings toward the enemy base. A game ended when one team destroyed the other’s Nexus, and three game wins took the series.

SK Telecom won Games 1 and 2, putting Samsung one loss from elimination, but Samsung took Games 3 and 4 to tie the final 2–2. That recovery made Game 5 the only remaining scoring unit: one destroyed Nexus would decide the championship.

In the fifth game, SK Telecom secured two Baron Nashors and two Elder Dragons before breaking Samsung’s base and completing the 3–2 result. Those neutral objectives granted temporary combat and siege advantages, helping the winner convert map control into a final attack rather than adding points to a separate scoreboard.

The tournament ran on Riot’s PC competition environment using Patch 6.18, the version selected for Worlds. No undocumented tournament-client revision, operating system, or machine specification is inferred.

The victory gave SK Telecom its third World Championship and a successful defense of its 2015 title, while Faker received the tournament MVP award. The same building at 1111 South Figueroa Street has carried the Crypto.com Arena name since 2021, but the 2016 record keeps the STAPLES Center name used on the event date.

Photo: “Ship’s prow-like extension of the Staples Center sports arena” by Carol M. Highsmith, public domain, via the Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons; cropped and resized.