By Ross Ocampo/ reporter

With 67 million users who play every month, many TCC students connect through League of Legends, a popular online free-to-play computer game.

League of Legends’ primary game mode consists of two five-player teams fighting to destroy the other team’s Nexus or “home base.” Between these 20- to 40-minute matches are objectives to help propel a team to victory and towers to defend the Nexus.

Each player controls a character or “champion” with unique abilities used to fight other champions in fast-paced matches.

“My friend Grant and I would always play in the library after we got done studying,” NE student Chris Johnston said. “It was like a routine, and it was always really fun.”

Johnston, a casual player of the game, has been playing since 2013 and regularly plays with his friends.

“We all get on Skype and work together and win games,” Johnston said. “It’s definitely a satisfying and rewarding thing to spend your time doing.”

League of Legends is cooperative, allowing a player and four friends to hop into a game and battle against the enemy team in a fun environment.

“I have met some people at this school who play League of Legends as well,” said TR student Tony Tran, a member of the Gamers United Club on TR Campus. “It was a pretty good way of starting conversations when you see a screen of League on their laptop.”

Along with a huge casual player base, League of Legends has a growing competitive international scene with eight regions spanning Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America.

Each region has tournaments live-streamed on the Internet via popular streaming game websites (Azubu, Twitch, YouTube), where millions tune in to watch professional players battle for glory.

Riot Games, the company responsible for creating League of Legends, is hosting the 2015 World Championship, a tournament spanning the whole month of October and bringing together the best professional teams from multiple regions to fight for a prize pool of over $2 million.

“League of Legends has made a lot of progress, being one of the biggest video games in the world and one of the most followed,” said NW student Coy Cassels, another regular player. “League of Legends is cool because it’s free and accessible to everyone, so that’s how I was brought into the eSports scene.”

Just last year, 27 million tuned in to watch two of the best teams battle in the 2014 World Championship. The year before, 32 million unique users watched the tournament.

“We have gotten into the [competitive] scene, and watching the game played at the most proficient level is amazing and something I never knew I would get into,” Johnston said.

The grand finals for the 2015 World Championship begins Oct. 31 and can be watched for free, streamed in high definition at YouTube.com/LoLChampSeries, Twitch.tv/riotgames and Azubu.tv/LoLEsports.