Mercedes-Benz Unveils League of Legends CLA Art Piece Inspired by the Summoner’s Cup
Just before the 2025 League of Legends World Championship kicks off, the brand drops the League of Legends CLA Art Piece — a sculptural rework of its CLA model that nods to the Summoner’s Cup and more than a decade of esports legacy.
The project comes out of a collaboration with Riot Games. Designers and metalworkers build the piece together, shaping it from the CLA’s frame but stripping it of anything functional. The surface gets a silver chrome finish with blue sapphire details and fine gold trim, mirroring the look of the Cup itself. Along the body, every Worlds-winning team from 2011 to 2024 is engraved—a quiet archive of competitive history carved into metal.
The timing isn’t random. Worlds 2025 runs from mid-October to early November across Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu. Mercedes-Benz steps in as the official automotive partner and uses the reveal to set the tone before the tournament even starts. The car becomes a symbol, a way to link the precision of high-performance design to the intensity of professional play.
Reactions land fast. Design insiders talk about materials and execution. Esports fans read it as a statement—proof that gaming culture now sits comfortably inside the world of luxury branding. Others see the whole thing as a slick marketing stunt, a high-gloss collectible that says more about sponsorship strategy than creative exchange.
Still, the conversation keeps circling back to the same point: gaming’s no longer a niche. One line of thought says the CLA Art Piece marks esports’ full arrival inside the luxury design ecosystem. Another sees it as Mercedes-Benz testing a new kind of relevance, shifting from car culture toward digital and creative communities. Both feel true. The collaboration ties a tangible object to a global tournament and uses design media to reach an audience that actually cares about form, texture, and story.
This moment hints at how brands now navigate gaming. They don’t need to mimic the memes or the fan energy. They can translate gaming into physical design and let it live in galleries, pop-ups, and editorials. Through Worlds 2025, the CLA Art Piece sits as a marker. It carries the names of past champions and the polish of a luxury house into an arena built for performance and fandom. Time will tell whether it becomes a permanent cultural artifact. But for now, it clearly shows how far gaming has already come.
