Esports | Clash Royale | Team Liquid — The 3-1 World Final at Shrine Expo Hall

On December 7, 2019, Team Liquid and W.EDGM played the Grand Final of the second Clash Royale League World Finals on the stage inside Los Angeles’s Shrine Expo Hall. Supercell’s publisher-run championship had brought together six teams from the China, Asia, and West leagues, with a $400,000 prize pool and $150,000 for first place. Clash Royale turns a deck of eight troop, building, and spell cards into a real-time contest over three towers. Each game is normally won by destroying the opposing King Tower or, when time expires, by taking more towers; the December 2019 Season 6 environment used the November rule change that shortened games to five minutes, including two minutes of overtime and triple Elixir generation in the final minute. The team final was first-to-three sets rather than one continuous game. Team Liquid’s KaNaRiOoo and Surgical Goblin won the opening two-versus-two set 2–1 over Nuomici and SoloMan, then KaNaRiOoo defeated Higher 2–0 in the first individual set. SoloMan kept W.EDGM in the match by beating DiegoB 2–0, reducing Liquid’s lead to two sets against one. Surgical Goblin then met Nuomici in the fourth set and won 2–1, completing Team Liquid’s 3–1 series victory before a fifth set was needed. KaNaRiOoo, Surgical Goblin, and DiegoB were the three Liquid players fielded in the final; Egor was also registered for the World Finals but did not play in this series. W.EDGM used Higher, SoloMan, and Nuomici, preserving the team identities and handles published for the event rather than later roster histories. The result moved the CRL team world title from 2018 champion Nova Esports of China to the West representative and gave Team Liquid the Golden Crown Trophy. The Shrine’s Moorish Revival auditorium and adjoining Expo Hall remain on West Jefferson Boulevard beside the University of Southern California, leaving the championship tied to a still-recognizable Los Angeles building. Sources: Supercell recap, https://supercell.com/en/news/team-liquid-wins-clash-royale-league-world-finals/ ; Supercell event and roster announcement, https://supercell.com/en/games/clashroyale/blog/esports/2019-clash-royale-league-world-finals-teams/ ; official World Finals broadcast, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmBlEI-aDoo ; Bleacher Report match account, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2865903-team-liquids-top-plays-prize-money-from-2019-clash-royale-league-world-finals ; Supercell November rules update, https://supercell.com/en/games/clashroyale/blog/release-notes/november-update ; official venue record, https://www.shrineauditorium.com/the-venue/ . Photo: Андрей Романенко (Andrey Romanenko), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; photographed February 26, 2020, showing the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall complex after the event.