Imagine Dragons teams with 'League of Legends' for $2.3m tournament

Chart-topping US music group Imagine Dragons is contributing theme song "Warriors" for this year's edition of the annual League of Legends World Championship, taking place in locations across south-east Asia.

Five-strong teams from around the globe compete for part of a $2.13m prize pool, having come through regional qualifying tournaments in order to compete with rival crews.

The current group stage runs until September 28 and is being held in Taipei, Taiwan and in Singapore, whereupon eight surviving teams travel to the Sangam Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, for the finals held between October 3 and October 19.

With the music accompanied by an animated video that plays upon the "League of Legends" fantasy mythos as well as its international appeal and tournament location, Imagine Dragons served up the video via Twitter announcing that it was "our favorite game."

Californian developer Riot Games, which is majority owned by Chinese internet firm Tencent, and at the start of 2014 was seeing nearly 70 million people play the free "League of Legends" every month, is also offering "Warriors" as a free download from its website.

Riot had in June provided an eight-track album from a band of its own creation, Pentakill, whose personnel included heavy metal musicians Jorn Landen, ZP Theart (ex-DragonForce), and Derek Sherinian (ex-Black Country Communion).

Warriors - 2014 World Championship animated music video: youtube.com/watch?v=fmI_Ndrxy14
Warriors download on the League of Legends website: leagueoflegends.com/en/esports-event/warriors