There’s a bit of an inside joke within the competitive League of Legends community, and it’s called Silver Scrapes. However, if you haven’t been watching League of Legends since 2012 you might wonder WTF Silver Scrapes even is. We're here to finally let you in on it.
There aren’t many things that are synonymous with whatever scene you’re looking at within the Esports world. Mostly, because Esports is still a baby. It’s only really been the last five or six years that these communities have blown up to a gigantic and global scale. A bit part of that has been the popularity of Esports around games like League of Legends, and the size of productions that would eventually grow at Riot Games.
On the inside of the finely-tuned League of Legends audience, is one of the weirder inside jokes of all. You’ve probably even heard us bring it up on multiple occasions. Like when TSM took their LCS Semifinals series against C9 to Silver Scrapes, or when FlyQuest beat the Golden Guardians in Silver Scrapes.
We keep using the term in this very article without explaining what it is. Silver Scrapes is a song, technically. In the world of League of Legends, it’s a moment.
How Silver Scrapes Was Born
Back in 2012, the very young League of Legends competitive scene was playing the 2nd ever World Championship in Los Angeles, California.
It may have been Worlds Season 2, but it was truly the first huge step into bursting League of Legends beyond the confines of the Riot Arena. It was the first $1,000,000 League of Legends grand prize (won by the Taipei Assassins), and it was the first LAN Worlds. Everything looked different back then. Phreak didn't have facial hair, and the actual game of League of Legends looks surprisingly dated.
Unfortunately, League of Legends and Riot Games were still trying to figure out how to put on a huge tournament at that scale, and there was plenty of time spent on the “Technical Difficulties” screen. In fact, at one point, there was nearly a two-hour technical break will the live squad scrambled to fix problems at the arena. This was the screen (below).
For the viewers of Worlds Season 2, the technical difficulties screen on the stream wasn't all that bad, but for some reason, the same song played over and over again on a loop while this screen was active. This was exceptionally annoying at first, but by the end of the tournament, the song titled Silver Scrapes was burned into the minds of League of Legends fans the entire world over.
Throughout the event, viewers were exposed to hours of Silver Scrapes, which is only made more obnoxious (or adorable) when you consider the track is less than two minutes long. This extreme repetition elevated the EDM track to insane popularity.
The Song
Made by a young Danny McCarthy, Silver Scrapes was just another composition sold to those seeking some tunes via the song slinging site KillerTracks.
Unbeknownst to McCarthy, the song was purchased by Riot Games for broadcast use and subsequently played more times in front of a bigger audience than almost any other song on the entire planet.
A few years after the 2012 Worlds event, Riot Games did a small profile on the composer, who has since signed over all of his rights and royalties of Silver Scrapes to his partner.
Looking around, it’s difficult if not impossible to find out just how much money Riot Games paid for the song that has since become their competitive anthem and one of the biggest inside jokes in all of pop-culture and Esports.
A Tribute
What does the song mean today though? Well, in order to play tribute to their beginnings, and to celebrate this dumb thing that has truly become synonymous with their game, League of Legends tournaments will play the song Silver Scrapes leading into any Game 5 of a best-of-five series.
This has started the trend of colloquially calling Game 5 of a competitive series “Silver Scrapes” instead of just another number. It means something to the fans, to the players, and even to those hosting the tournament.
Recently, the LCS Spring Finals went to Silver Scrapes, and thanks to this tweet from Riot 3Gregg we can see the entire Chaifetz Arena singing along to Silver Scrapes ahead of the game.
I love esports pic.twitter.com/owQBPtOLWl
— Gregg Travitz (@Riot3Gregg) April 14, 2019
So that’s what everyone means when they talk about blaring Silver Scrapes, or why that weird synth-filled bass-dropping track gets League of Legends players and fans so absolutely pumped up and ready.
One of the greatest “jokes” in Esports history has instead rewritten said history and is now just a huge part of this world.
