League of Legends. You’ve probably heard of it before. League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game. Since its release in 2009, it has amassed hundreds of millions of players worldwide. In essence, it’s a pretty big game.
And a special day is just around the corner: October 5th. On this day, the 2021 League of Legends World Championship, League’s most prestigious tournament, will be broadcasted for all players to watch. 22 amazing teams from numerous regions of the world will clash head-on to decide which team is the best of the best, and here is a list of all the participating teams:
LPL (China):
EDward Gaming
FunPlus Phoenix
Royal Never Give Up
LNG Esports
LCK (Korea):
DWG KIA
Gen.G
T1
Hanwha Life Esports
LEC (Europe):
MAD Lions
Fnatic
Rogue
LCS (North America):
100 Thieves
Team Liquid
Cloud9
PCS (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, South East Asia):
PSG Talon
Beyond Gaming
LCL (Commonwealth of Independent States – Russia Based):
Unicorns of Love
LLA (Latin America):
Infinity Esports
TCL (Turkey):
Galatasaray Esports
CBLOL (Brazil):
RED Canids
LJL (Japan):
DetonatioN FocusMe
LCO (Oceania):
Peace
But how does the tournament work? Truth be told, this is my first time following Worlds, so I’m kinda new to the format, too. However, I’ve got the basics down:
There are three different stages in the tournament. The first one is the Play-Ins. In this stage, teams will fight to qualify for the next stage, the Groups. Here, more teams will be added in, and they will all fight for spots in the final part of the tournament, the Knockouts. Finally, teams will be knocked out of the competition until only one supreme team remains, the 2021 League of Legends Worlds Champions. But this is just a bare-bones summary. Do you want to know about the specific details? Keep on reading.
In the Play-Ins, ten teams will fight for spots in the Group stage. Specifically, these teams: Beyond Gaming, Cloud9, DetonatioN FocusMe, Galatasaray Esports, Hanwha Life Esports, Infinity, LNG Esports, PEACE, RED Canids, and finally Unicorns Of Love. They will be divided into two 5-team groups. In these groups, each team will play every other team once, and the top team in both sections earns the chance to play in the next stage. But the other teams still have a chance to get in. The third and fourth best teams in each group will battle head-on, and the winner will fight the second-best team. These matchups will all be decided by a best-of-five series. The final winner of this series of games will earn their own seat in the next stage. Because there were two groups, four teams (top team in each group and the best team from the second, third, and fourth in each group) out of the initial ten will advance to the Group stage.
Now let’s talk about the Group stage. This one is pretty simple. There will be a total of sixteen competing teams: the four teams from the last stage and twelve new teams which are: EDward Gaming, FunPlus Phoenix, Royal Never Give Up, DAMWON Gaming, Gen.G, T1, MAD Lions, Fnatic, Rogue, 100 Thieves, Team Liquid, and finally PSG Talon. These sixteen will be split into four 4-team groups, and each team will play a single game with everyone else in their group. The best two teams in each group will advance to the next stage, giving us our last eight teams of the tournament.
Finally, the Knockouts. The final eight teams will all be placed in a single-elimination bracket where each matchup will be decided by a best-of-five series of games. The first round of games will be the quarter-finals of the tournament. The next round will be the semi-finals, and the final round of course will be the finals of Worlds.
Now, this is a pretty complicated process, so it isn’t your fault if you don’t get it all. For a rerun of the information, watch Worlds 2021 Format Explainer. The tournament will be broadcasted on Twitch and various other streaming platforms. The tournament is going to be hours upon hours of amazing gameplay and commentary which will be incredibly entertaining and even educational for aspiring players.
