Worlds 2020 Preview

The League of Legends 2020 World Championship is scheduled to take place over a period of 5 weeks, between September 25^th – October 31^st. This event is the epic finale of the season and will feature 22 teams from all over the world. These are some of the strongest competitors in the game, with the mention that each official region was offered the chance to send at least one team. Otherwise, we might have seen a lot more South Korean, Chinese, European and North American teams, and far fewer competitors from regional leagues that aren’t as strong as these 4. Personally, I prefer Riot’s way of doing things because it makes Worlds more interesting to viewers who might have ignored it otherwise.

Worlds 2020 Competitive Format

The competitive format of Worlds 2020 has 4 stages:

Play-In Round 1

This stage is scheduled to take place between September 25^th – 28^th and features 12 teams. These teams are divided into 2 groups of 6. All matches are Bo1. The winner of each group advances to the Group Stage.

Play-In Round 2

This stage is scheduled to happen between September 29^th – 30^th and features the 2^nd – 4^th place teams from each group of the first Play-In round. And once again, two teams qualify for the Group Stage. The main difference between this stage and the previous one is that here, matches are Bo5 instead of Bo1.

Group Stage

This stage will take place between October 3^rd – 11^th with one break on the 7^th. It consists of 4 groups of 4 teams each. All matches are Bo1. The best two teams from each group advance to the Playoffs.

Playoffs Stage

This stage will take place between October 15^th – 18^th, 24^th – 25^th, and on the 31^st. The format is single-elimination, as usual. All matches are Bo5.

Worlds 2020 Participants

Worlds 2020 features 22 teams. Of these 22 teams, 12 are already waiting in the Group Stage. The other 10 will need to compete in the Play-In rounds for a chance to play in the tournament.

Main 12 Teams

These are the competitors that are already qualified for the Group Stage of Worlds 2020:

G2 Esports
Machi Esports
Suning
DAMWON Gaming
JD Gaming
Rogue
Fnatic
G Esports
Team SoloMid
DragonX
FlyQuest
Top Esports

There are a lot of strong teams among these 12 but arguably, each group has two favorites. In most cases, those two teams will likely be the ones to advance to the Playoffs. In each of the 4 groups, a participant is yet to be decided. However, the strength of the 3 existing participants is so great that the 4^th will have an almost impossible mission to achieve. So even before the Play-In Stage ends, we can pretty much tell who the key competitors are.

Group A: G2 Esports and Sunning
Group B: DAMWON Gaming and JD Gaming
Group C: Gen.G Esports and Team SoloMid
Group D: DragonX and Top Esports

In Group C, an upset may occur if Fnatic shows up in excellent shape and manages to win against Gen.G Esports or TSM.

Play-In Teams

The Play-In teams are the following:

INTZ
Legacy Esports
MAD Lions
SuperMassive Esports
Team Liquid
LGD Gaming
PSG Talon
Rainbow7
Unicorns of Love
V3 Esports

The obvious favorites here are Team Liquid and LGD Gaming. And because they will compete in separate groups, there’s a high chance that these two teams will qualify for the Group Stage of Worlds 2020 in the first round of the Play-Ins.

Photo credit: Riot Games