The 20024 League of Legends World Championships have already begun and now the heavy hitters are taking to the stage as the main event kicks off this week.
It all starts with the Swiss Stages which is the hardest part to predict. With randomised match-ups and best-of-ones, you know there’s going to be chaos and upsets.
This makes selecting your Pick’Ems a nightmare, you need some luck to get perfect predictions for the eight teams that will survive but hopefully this guide can help you a little bit.
How does the LoL Worlds Swiss Stage Format work?
Using the seeding of all qualified teams, random match-ups have been selected for the first round which are as follows:
Bilibili Gaming vs MAD Lions Koi
Top Esports vs T1
Gen.G vs Weibo Gaming
Fnatic vs Dplus KIA
Team Liquid vs LNG Esports
Hanwha Life Esports vs PSG Talon
FlyQuest vs GAM Esports
G2 Esports vs Pain Gaming
I put my personal guesses as to who will win each match-up in bold too to help with your esports predictions.
From here, teams will be randomly drawn against another team with an identical record. So for example, BLG and T1 would both be 1-0 and could then face each other. This keeps happening until a team reaches either three wins or three losses.
Win three series, and you’re through to the Knockouts. Lose three series, and your season is over.
There cannot be any rematches within the Swiss Stage this year so we will always see new match-ups. And while the first two rounds are best-of-one, the rest will be best-of-three because these series will decide who will qualify or be eliminated.
In total, eight teams will qualify for the Knockouts and the other eight will be sent home.
What teams are most likely to make it through the Worlds Swiss Stages?
Let me say this first. The way the random draw works, there’s a very high chance that at least one Western (European or North American) team makes it out of the Swiss Stage. You may be tempted to pick all eight Chinese and South Korean teams but that probably won’t happen. All it takes it one Western vs Western or Eastern vs Eastern match in the final round to ruin that idea.
Still, there are at least a few locks. LCK and LPL champions HLE and BLG are almost definitely making it through. On top of that, LCK second seeds Gen.G had an incredible year with a record-breaking win percentage so not only are they likely to go through, they’re also most people’s Pick’Em choice for a 3-0 record.
Then, it gets tricky. But if we had to pick just one more team it would be the LCK’s T1 just because Faker and their prestigious record. Even though they’re 4th seeds, T1 usually perform when the pressure is on.
And from there, it’s a total gamble.
There’s the other LCK team we haven’t mentioned, Dplus who did beat T1 to get here but it was in a wild series full of mistakes from both teams. They do have Showmaker who will always give them the edge but their inconsistency could come back to haunt them.
You have three more LPL representatives in Top Esports, LNG Esports, and Weibo Gaming. All excellent teams with bags of potential but they are also all inconsistent. TES has a great squad but I do worry how mid-laner Creme will perform at his first LoL Worlds and Tian has been eliminated from Worlds early numerous times. LNG have been given the boost of Scout finally getting his VISA sorted to play but that saga might have interrupted their practice. And 4th seeds Weibo are just risky to pick in general as a squad that has very high highs and very low lows.
Moving to the west and North America appeared to be on the up but after 100 Thieves’ shocking performance in the Play-Ins, the region’s public perception has taken a hit. Still, FlyQuest and Team Liquid are very solid teams and very evenly matched. If you’re picking an LCS team to go through it’s essentially a coin flip but I’m personally leaning towards TL. They have main stage international experience this year from MSI (FlyQuest was eliminated in Play Ins for that event) and I just think FlyQuest are more vulnerable with their heavy reliance on confidence-based players Bwipo and Inspired.
As for Europe, G2 Esports are by the far the strongest team in the region and in my opinion the Western team you should expect to qualify for Knockouts. But again, crazier things have happened. Fnatic have struggled to close off leads domestically which will really leave them struggling internationally unless they have made drastic improvements. And MAD are actually a good dark horse to pick, we always see Play-Ins help some teams perform better thanks to the extra stage games on the current patch and they had some excellent performances to qualify for the Swiss Stages.
As for the remaining wild cards, PSG Talon could also be a decent dark horse choice but they face an uphill battle. At the very least they might cause an upset or two. And unfortunately, I just can’t see GAM or pAIN Gaming making it through at all. It would be a huge shock if the latter even won a game, it’s unlikely but you never know with Worlds.
Every year, the tournament holds surprises and I don’t see why this will be any different. That’s why I’ve chosen two Western teams for my Pick’Ems as I’ve selected these eight teams:
- Gen.G
- HLE
- BLG
- LNG
- G2
- TL
- DK
- T1
