This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

　　It may come as a shock to discover that the Intel Extreme Masters Shenzhen event featured a League of Legends tournament. This is unsurprising, considering the contributing editor who recapped the event didn't seem to know either. The Reddit post finals discussion thread of the best of three between World Elite and Edward Gaming was replete with comments that shared the same sentiment: IEM Shenzhen's League of Legends tournament didn't receive much attention. The thread went on to debate why that might be the case, and the conclusion seemed to be that the event was "just" a tournament featuring four Chinese LoL teams, and no international competition, so no one cared.

　　The reality is that you didn't hear about the event because it wasn't supposed to happen in the first place—or at least not in the form it eventually took. In its original incarnation, the LoL event at IEM Shenzhen, was just supposed to be a showmatch between two teams, OMG and World Elite, one of which didn't even make the finals.

　　It might seem suspect to say that the IEM Shenzhen LoL event wasn't supposed to happen, but let's compare IEM Shenzhen to the same scale event that happened last year, IEM Shanghai. Many people know that World Elite won the Intel Extreme Masters Shanghai tournament a year ago, and that tournament had the same format—a best of three bracket stage with only four Chinese teams. The main difference between the better known IEM Shanghai and this year's IEM Shenzhen is in the prize pool. IEM Shanghai featured a prize pool of $30,000 to be split among the four participating teams. IEM Shenzhen, meanwhile, only awarded a total of $5,000 to the top two participants, an amount so small that it isn't even listed on the bracket page of the IEM Shenzhen event.

　　So while the StarCraft 2 event at IEM Shenzhen received the same prize pool as it did at IEM Shanghai, and even the Hearthstone tournament, new to the event this season, received a prize pool of $10,000, the League of Legends tournament prize pool was dwarfed by one sixth of the amount from last year and not even mentioned on the main information page. $5,000 dollars doesn't make sense for a League of Legends tournament that previously featured a pool of $30,000—but it does for a show match.

　　World Elite holds up their first place prize of $3,500 for a photo op.If IEM Shenzhen's LoL event wasn't supposed to be as large as it was originally, it's also unsurprising that it wasn't well-publicized. A press release notifying interested parties of the event went out on July 10th, only three hours before the first qualifying matches were scheduled. At this time, the event announcement also appeared on the Intel Extreme Masters website. There have been no additional news posts relaying details about the LoL event since, while the SC2 and Hearthstone tournaments have received ongoing updates.

　　This wasn't the first mention of the tournament in China, however, as websites like PC Games and Tatazu released the schedule earlier that week. To confuse matters, the initial schedule announced by ESL and Intel Extreme Masters differed from the one published in China. The teams had the information that the World Elite and Invictus Gaming match would take place at 19:00 China Time on the 10th of July (13:00 CEST), and the OMG and Edward Gaming matches would take place at 21:00 China Time (15:00 CEST) on the 11th. The press release came with the following graphic.

　　The bracket graphic provided with the press release and the initial news on the Intel Extreme Masters website represented the proposed schedule for the event. The tournament games were rescheduled so that the semifinals (also called the "preliminary" or "qualifying" matches because they took place online) would not interfere with the ongoing LPL matches that took place that week. The matches were changed so that WE could both play in LPL on the 11th and play in the preliminary IEM Shenzhen matches on the 10th. The matches on the 11th were delayed two hours so that Edward Gaming could attend the early LPL matches on that day and have time to prepare for their qualifier.

　　These changes didn't have any immediate ramifications on the flow of the tournament other than puzzling the small western viewerbase that happened to check the IEM website in time to tune in. To start the tournament off, the set between World Elite and Invictus Gaming was rescheduled to the 12th of July because of Tencent server errors—the standard kind of LoL tournament delay the community has come to expect. On July 11th, however, when Edward Gaming vs OMG took place, miscommunication between ESL Asia and the teams was evident.

　　OMG announced to fans on their weibo several hours before the event was set to start that their match against Edward Gaming was postponed to the 12th at 20:00—the time at which the WE vs iG games was actually rescheduled—shortly before deleting the post and updating the information with the actual time (21:00 on July 11th). Edward Gaming's public relations tried to council the fans who flocked to their weibo at 21:00 after reading OMG's updated post, but could only tell them that they had no idea when the event would start.

　　(20:57) I don't know the details.

　　(21:02) The stream link may be this.

　　(21:02) Delay. I don't know the time. As soon as I hear I will tell you.

　　(21:04) Guys, you could watch Fireloli stream first. He will come to Shanghai.

　　(21:05) Sanshao will take care of Fireloli. I really don't know when it will start. Let's wait for the matches.

　　About twenty minutes after this conversation, the first game between OMG and Edward Gaming began. At the time, at least three members of OMG were spotted by fans in solo queue. Cool left in the middle of the match, and Gogoing and san were both streaming their games. Gogoing left his stream on for a great deal of the chaos, and san said "What? We have a match tonight?" when a fan informed him that the best of three was about to start.

　　It's hard to say how much leaving solo queue matches and scrambling to enter the tournament client affected OMG when Edward Gaming 2-0'd them again the next weekend, but the evidence of miscommunication between ESL Asia and the teams involved is impossible to ignore. It's likely that the tournament administration saw a discrepancy between the 19:00 and the 21:00 start time and told the teams already aware that it would start at 21:00 that it was delayed, resulting in the confusion.

　　In addition, the casting quality exacerbated rumors that the event planning was rushed. The Chinese casters of the OMG vs Edward Gaming matches, whose VODs can be found here, seemed to have extremely minimal knowledge of League of Legends such that they did not seem to know the names of some of the items in the game.

　　As for the English cast, the initial press release insisted that all preliminary matches and finals would receive and English commentary.

　　Both preliminary matches will be streamed live on ESL TV in the lead-up to the event. Casted by Jason Kaplan...

　　Yet at the time of the preliminary matches between OMG and EDG, the ESL TV LoL Twitch channel was dead, and Jason Kaplan was on Twitter looking for a co-caster.

　　Looking for a Color caster who specializes in the League scene in China!

　　— Jason Kaplan (@JKaplan) July 11, 2014

　　The color casters selected for the event performed well in the Finals, but the fact that the complete casting pair wasn't secured in time for the semifinals, which were supposed to receive an English cast, is an oversight. Unless, of course, the preliminary matches weren't supposed to exist in the first place. In that case, it makes sense that Mr. Kaplan wasn't prepared to cast them at the scheduled time.

　　Jason Kaplan communicating with his co-caster over Skype during IEM Shenzhen Grand Finals.When all the details are amassed, it points to one thing: a rush job. Upon further investigation, that seems to be exactly what happened. The initial scope of the event was only supposed to be a show match between two LoL teams, but the plan was changed, and the new event wasn't given the green light until it was much too late for a larger scale LoL tournament to receive funding, press, and proper planning.

　　The event was only cleared this week.

　　—Chrystina Martel, ESL PR Manager, July 10th, 2014

　　But questions linger—why wasn't a larger event supposed to happen in the first place, and what made ESL decide to go ahead with a four team tournament over a show match without the budget or preparation for one? The execution of the event was confusing for both teams and fans, and it might seem easy to blame ESL, but in reaching out to ESL Managing Director, Michal "Carmac" Blicharz, it sounds like ESL may have been just as much along for the ride as the rest of us. In response to my queries about the execution of the IEM Shenzhen LoL event, Mr. Blicharz provided the following statement.

　　The prize money was budgeted at a point where the plan was to only hold a show match. After ESL Asia received feedback from the teams association, we have decided to add qualifying matches for Intel Extreme Masters Shenzhen and add a slot at the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship event for the winner (which includes travel and accommodation).

　　—Michal "Carmac" Blicharz, 2014

　　When pressed further as to why the initial plan was to only hold a show match, Mr. Blicharz revealed that it wasn't ESL's choice, but that of Riot Games.

　　We have a license for running League of Legends tournaments from Riot Games and we discuss all operations with them directly. We acted according to the guidelines given to us by Riot every step of the way.

　　—Michal "Carmac" Blicharz, 2014

　　Upon rephrasing the question and pressing for further details, Mr. Blicharz only repeated the same information; any decisions pertaining to IEM Shenzhen's LoL event were made by Riot, and ESL only acted within the guidelines prescribed.

　　Then, as a result of feedback the ESL Asia organization received through the Chinese LoL teams organization, L.ACE, the plan was revised, and the tournament itself expanded to accommodate more teams and provide an opportunity for the winner to qualify for the Intel Extreme Masters World Championships, held in early 2015.

　　Ongamers reached out to both Tencent and Riot Games for a statement on the issue, and while Riot Games declined to respond, Darren Zhong, a representative of Tencent Games, provided the following comments.

　　1. Teams were invited to participate in IEM Shenzhen after the LPL Summer schedule had been established.

　　2. We originally planned for 2 teams to participate. After receiving feedback from teams and players, and after making further considerations around the schedule, our team worked with ESL to increase the team participation from 2 to 4.

　　—Darren Zhong, Tencent Games, 2014

　　From this comment, it can be inferred that Tencent and Riot prioritized the success of the LPL Summer over a third party tournament and were initially unwilling to rearrange the schedule to accommodate the participation of more than two teams. This stance is something of an anomaly in Tencent's track record, as they have made arrangements for teams to participate in IEM tournaments during two separate LPL splits in 2013 (IEM Shanghai, and then the IEM World Championships in Katowice). This departure from standard practice no doubt attributed to the rumor that Tencent forbade LPL teams from participating in the Shenzhen LoL event as a result of the teams not being invited to IEM through Tencent.

　　If, as Mr. Zhong stated, Tencent's desire to initially limit the event to a show match was down to teams receiving invitations only after the LPL Summer schedule was established, they can be commended for eventually acquiescing to a change of plans. They checked in with the teams and L.ACE and made it a priority to ensure that the winning Chinese team would get a spot at the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship. The last minute struggle still could have been avoided with clearer initial communication between all involved parties: Tencent, Riot, ESL, and L.ACE.

　　Though L.ACE and the participating Chinese League of Legends teams, OMG, Edward Gaming, Invictus Gaming, and World Elite, have made no official statement on the matter, it's clear that the downsizing of the tournament from IEM Shanghai was unsatisfactory from their perspectives. The teams were willing to divert some of their attention from LPL during a Riot Games World Championship qualifying split in order to potentially win a spot in the Intel Extreme Masters World Championships in early 2015. Invictus Gaming and Edward Gaming, the two teams initially excluded from the invitation, automatically receive seeds into the Regional qualifier for the Riot Games 2014 World Championship as a result of their performances in the LPL Spring Playoffs. As such, it makes a fair amount a sense that they would be interested in devoting some attention to a third party tournament.

　　Given that L.ACE gave ESL and Tencent the feedback they did, it seems likely that Riot Games and Tencent did not properly communicate with these organizations before outlining the guidelines for ESL and IEM Shenzhen. By the time plans changed and feedback reached ESL, preparations had already been made for the event schedule and a budget drawn for a show match. If communication had been a more active part of the initial planning, alterations could have been made to the LPL schedule earlier, and ESL would have had time to prepare and launch the event on a larger scale. This communication breakdown lead to a last minute overhaul of the tournament, confused fans, an unpublicized event, and four teams of players who likely felt somewhat shafted in the end.

　　The major saving grace of the tournament was that the finals featured an explosive best of three between two major rival teams, World Elite and Edward Gaming. Not only did WE retain their IEM title from Shanghai, but they won out against EDG in a best of series for the first time since the latter team's formation. Long time WE fans were elated to see their team take down EDG, and WE was far more interested in the IEM Shenzhen trophy than the check. They brushed past the administrator holding the prize money and dove for the podium to meet their elated supporters.

　　EDG and WE had just split even in a best of two during LPL, and if the tournament had been just a show match between OMG and WE, WE wouldn't have had the opportunity to take a victory from EDG again until the end of the LPL season. If the event had been better organized and publicized, it's hard to say if the finals faceoff would have featured the same teams, but at the very least, more fans on an international scale would have been around to watch World Elite's monumental achievement in a best of three that wasn't even supposed to happen.

　　Thank you to Felon Lee for vital research assistance in this matter.