The league of legends world championship first started back in 2011 and has been running every year since. The World Championship is known as ‘Worlds’ within the Esports betting community. The world championship moves location each year and usually takes place in a number of different cities within a country/region (e.g. in 2019 it was played in Berlin, Madrid and Paris, in 2016 it was played in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles). The winner of the tournament receives the champion title, a cup known as the Summoner’s Cup and they also receive a large payout for their win.

Each year varies in terms of the number of teams entered into the World Championship. The range of entered teams is between 8 and 24. 

 

League of Legends World Championship Odds

The latest odds for the League of Legends World Championship will be available shortly.

 

World Championship Tournament Format

The world championship tournament format varies slightly each year. Below we will go through the 2018 tournament from qualification to crowning the winner.

 

Qualification:

 

There are 24 professional teams which qualify for the League of Legends World Championship. 14 teams qualify as the winners of the most recent split where a split is one third of the season (3 months). Winning games throughout the split earns each player split points which go towards rewards at the end of each split. Depending on when the world championship occurs depends which split needs to be won in order to qualify for the world championship.

There are 5 teams that were the top 5 championship seeds based on the spring and summer performances in certain regions: North America, Europe, China, Korea and Taiwan/Hong Kong.

There are 5 regional finals winners where the winners of North America, Europe, China and taiwan/Hong Kong qualify for the play-in stage.

The winner of the Korea regional finals will qualify directly to the group stages (the next level after the play-in stage).

 

Play-In Stages:

The Play-in stages take part in 2 stages:

In the first stage 12 teams are separated and placed into four groups (each with 3 teams). The 3 teams in each group then battle it out by placing each of the other teams twice. They only play to one single win for each of the battles with the other teams.The top 2 teams in each group qualify for the 2nd play-in stage and the last team is removed from the competition.

In the second stage, the winners of each group have to fight with a random team that came second in another group and must play to the best of 5 (first to 3 wins). Whoever wins proceeds to the group stages.

 

Group Stage:

The 4 winners from the play-in stages then join the 12 teams that have already qualified. All 16 teams are then divided into 4 groups (each with 4 teams in each group). Each team then plays each of the other teams twice which is the first to 1 win where 1st and 2nd place qualify for the knockout stages and the 3rd and 4th team are removed from competition.

 

Knockout / Playoff Stage:

The remaining 8 teams then have to compete in a knockout competition against each other. All matches played in this stage are the best of 5 (first to 3 wins). There are quarter finals, semi finals and then the main final to determine the winner of the world championship.