All-Star Preview – Challenge Formats

Over the last few months, Riot's temporarily given the community access to alternate game modes, vaguely claiming them as means to gather data on specific game elements. At least one reason for their experimentation's now clear: the same Summoner's Rift variants will now be used to showcase players from around the world in a more light-hearted Challenge counterpart to the All-Star Invitational tournament. Ten to twelve players will play four different game modes between two teams cobbled together from five vastly disparate regions and cultures – for fun, for glory, and for personal bragging rights.

Hexakill

The first of the three Summoner's Rift variants adds an additional player to each team – and thus offers the possibility of the namesake Hexakill, where a player nets six unique kills in a single fight. But with only five All-Star players drafted into teams Ice and Fire, somebody needs to step up to bat for each team's ace position, and two names have stepped out of the shadows of League of Legends history for this purpose.

For Team Ice: Misaya. The ace mid laner for China's Team WE during the height of their competitive performance, and the originator of Twisted Fate's now textbook Zhonya's Hourglass tactic. Though retired last year due to the rigors of the increasingly competitive Chinese field, he is still considered a legend of the role.

For Team Fire: Toyz, the Orianna King, whose Shockwaves heralded the Taipei Assassins' conquest of the Season 2 world stage. Though health issues forced him to stand down in the subsequent season, and prevented his re-entry into the pro scene this spring as part of his hometown Hong Kong Attitudes, his occasional streams have demonstrated that his mid lane mastery has yet to fully rust.

Ultra Rapid Fire

URF mode is what happens when League of Legends abandons all pretense of seriousness: no resource costs, drastically reduced cooldowns, more gold, more movement speed, and zero apparent sanity. Who cares about strategy? Rotations still happen, though – constantly, in fact, as nobody seems to know how to make Garen stop once he's started.

But even as everybody's overpowered under URF mode's absurd settings, there is one champion that puts them all to shame: the community has voted in Ezreal as a guaranteed pick for both teams. Now it's in the hands of presumably Doublelift and WeiXiao to demonstrate who is truly the king of bot lane mechanics – with Mystic Shots pouring out faster than auto-attacks, and Arcane Shifts flashing out every few seconds, the Ezreal mirror match is sure to be flashy.

Pick-10

Team compositions are serious business, with more than one team losing a match before it's even begun due to poor compositional construction. But when the audience picks the champions, theory goes right out the window in favor of trademark champions and unexpected combinations.

Team Ice

Thresh, Vayne, Anivia, Lucian, Lee Sin

The biggest news coming out of Pick 10 is, of course, Froggen's long-awaited return to the bird that made his fame. He is expected to draft Anivia given the chance – but is it necessarily the safest pick against Team Fire's incredible mobility? With Bjergsen likely to pilot his OGN Champion Summer winning Zed in opposition, Froggen will be hard-pressed to keep his bird afloat.

Likely pairings: Madlife/Thresh, Doublelift/Vayne, Froggen/Anivia, Archie/Lucian, Caomei/Lee Sin

Team Fire

Thresh, Ezreal, Zed, Lucian, Lee Sin

Gambit jungler Diamond on Lee Sin is a playmaker extraordinaire, coming in from impossible angles to catch his victims out. But Team Fire's top lane is a bit top-heavy: both Shy and QTV traditionally play the role, and somebody's going to have to move down south to help out WeiXiao instead! The one that remains will get to try his hands at the AD carry role, as both sides have two Marksmen, rather than traditional top lane bruisers.

Likely pairings: QTV/Thresh, WeiXiao/Ezreal, Bjergsen/Zed, Shy/Lucian, Diamond/Lee Sin

1v1

Though the specifics of the 1v1 showcase has not yet been revealed, last year's All-Star Shanghai demonstrated what it might look like. The duel between individual players will be settled in one of three ways: first blood, first turret, or first to 100 CS. Last year, Toyz handily won his set by thorough abuse of Caitlyn's waveclear and turret-pushing range – but the prototypical Magma Chamber map used back then had since been scrapped. It remains to be seen if a replacement's since been made.