The lights go down and there’s a palpable change in the air as the video stream comes up. Sound begins to play and cheers go up from the crowd of watchers. Excitement begins to build as the commentators describe the two teams about to face off in the 2014 League of Legends World Championship series.

On Oct. 18 Korean team, Samsung White (SSW), took home a $1 million prize and bragging rights for life after beating opposing Chinese team, Star Horn Royal Club (SHR), in a best-of-five series.

The World Championship was played in Seoul, South Korea, but hundreds of thousands of fans from all over the world, including Central’s club, CWU LoL (League of Legends), watched live from streaming services such as Twitch.

CWU LoL decided to host a free on-campus event in Black Hall on Saturday at 11:30 p.m. to watch the championship live from Korea.

“It’s basically like a big sporting event, but for people who enjoy these games,” Jacqueline Hendrickson, junior law and justice major and the CWU LoL president said. “It’s kind of like the Superbowl for e-Sports.”

E-Sports are organized video game competitions, sometimes on an extremely large scale, like the LoL World Championship. Hendrickson said that unlike the limited range of the NFL’s Superbowl, E-Sports reach across borders.

“Instead of it just being America […] it goes beyond that and it includes the entire world,” Hendrickson said.

League of Legends is currently one of the most popular video games in the world, with an estimated 27 million people playing it every day.

The announcer for the championship started his opening speech in Korean, but finished off sounding like a wrestling announcer. “Are you ready to dig in?” he said, to shouts of “Yes!” from CWU LoL. After a pause he continued, “Are you sure?”

The viewers’ cheers and laughter mingled with the roar of the 40,000 fans attending the live event in Seoul as the first game of the night started.

The winners would be determined by the best of five games; each game is won when the opposing team’s base is invaded and their “nexus” is destroyed.

SSW dominated the first game, despite SHR making the first kill only one minute and 20 seconds into the game. Fans of SSW in the room shouted the team on as they pushed into SHR’s base and destroyed their nexus 24 minutes in.

The second game started slower, but soon the energy ramped up as an SHR player attacked SSW, preempting a team fight that ended in almost every player being taken out. A collective yell erupted from the crowd as champion after champion fell. SSW won the second game in under 30 minutes.

During a short commercial break before the third match, fans at the LoL event stood up, mingled and discussed their predictions for the rest of the championship.

“Korea, 4-0, just like last year,” Jon Garza, senior studio art major, said. “Skillwise, they’re more experienced.”

Mike Millard, senior math major, thought SSW would win, but predicted  SHR would win at least one game in the series first.

“They’re going to pull something out that Samsung White hasn’t seen yet,” Millard said.

SSW’s utter domination of SHR in the prior games seemed to secure their win until SHR made a hard push and, with an explosion of noise from the crowd, took out SSW’s nexus.

The fourth match seemed decided, however, when SHR made an ill-advised move against SSW. The energy level spiked (0 minutes into the game) with SSW strong-arming their way into SHR’s base for a decisive victory.

The CWU LoL gave SSW a standing ovation, clapping and cheering. SSW clinched the series 3-1 and won $1 million.