Pro gaming, as we've discussed before, is one of the easiest professional sports to get into. While you still need to be extraordinarily skilled and get extremely lucky, you can simply play and play and end up as part of a team. You don't need to wait for it to be light outside, you don't need sports equipment (unless you count a basic gaming PC) and you don't even need a team to live near you. You just need to play.

And now there's a new opportunity to go even further as part of your play. Instead of just dominating online, you can now dominate in real life – if you're good enough. The top 16 teams in ranked 5v5 play by 26th July, will be entered into an online tournament, taking place at the same time as the regional playoffs in Europe and the US.

At least the guy at the front didn't think he looked cool with his arms folded. 

If you manage to make it to the semi-final of the online play, your team will be flown to Seattle, USA or Cologne, Germany (depending on whether you're on EU or NA servers) and compete live, head to head to see who's the best of the amateurs. The reward? A chance to become a pro team, by playing in the Spring Promotion Tournament next year, which will pit you against real ranked, pro teams.

For most of us, this is a pipe dream, but we can at least watch along for the excitement. The online tournament portion of qualification is set to take place between 3rd-4th August and will be broadcast live.

KitGuru Says: I fall in and out of love with LoL too much to ever get far in ranked. I do a few games with some pals, get annoyed and uninstall it and then do it all over again 3 months later. Any of you particularly good?

[More info here. Thanks PCGamesN]

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