Breakdown of group and play-in stage at League Worlds

Right after the LCS Summer Finals concluded, the draw for the group and play-in stages at Worlds kicked off.

Madison Square Garden was the place where the stage was set for League’s biggest international event. 16 of the world’s best League teams were drawn in four groups of four, in which each group must have only one team from each pool and region.

Pools, groups, play-in stage

Pool one teams are the major region champions. (GenG, Cloud9, JDG, Rogue)

Pool two teams are the LEC, LPL, LCK runner-ups, and PCS Summer champions. (G2 Esports, Top Esports, T1, CFO)

Pool three are the LCK and LPL Regional finalists alongside the LCS runner-up and VCS Summer champions. (DWG KIA, EDG, 100 Thieves, GAM Esports)

And pool four is made up of the four teams that will advance through the play-in stage. The play-in stage is made up of two groups which contain:

Fnatic, EG, and DFM among others in group a and RNG, DRX, MAD and SGB in group B. Only four of the 12 teams in the Play-In stage will qualify for the group stage.

Group A

The time has come when every group at Worlds is a group of death. When you take in consideration that the current World Champions are the LPL’s third seed and the current MSI winners are in the Play-In stage, every group will be tough. Group A is a copy of the 2017 group draw, with the script being written by Riot. Jensen, Faker, and Scout meet up again five years later with the same teams despite taking different paths. Gumayushi and Viper are top five bot laners in the world, and Berserker is looking to prove himself with C9 after years on the bench behind Gumayushi on T1 Academy.  Since this is the only group with no LEC team, we might get Fnatic placed into this group. The group of death will have four world-class ADCs in a bot lane meta. How hype would that be?

Group B

G2 and Damwon Kia are once again heading on a collision course. After facing off in the quarter and semifinals the previous years, this time we get the restructured rosters in groups. The best mid-jungle duos of 2019 and 2020 will look to regain form against the goliath that are the LPL Summer champions JDG.

Group C

What timeline have we come to if Rogue have the best chance for a Western team to come out of groups? They stomped G2 in the LEC finals and get slotted in a group with TOP Esports, the LPL second seed. If DRX are the team to complete this group after the play-in stage, then Rogue’s task doesn’t seem impossible. 

Group D

As the LCK first seed, Gen G are comfortably slotting in group D. While 100 Thieves and CFO don’t pose much threat, there is a good chance 2022 MSI winners RNG place in this group. Anything can happen in the best-of-one matches, but this looks like the easiest group to forecast in this year’s competition.

Header: Riot Games