Worlds 2020: new Play-in format, Qualified Teams, Schedules and Updates
The 2020 League of Legends World Championship is about to start and we finally know who will be the participants of the most atypical edition of the tournament.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vietnamese teams won’t be able to participate this year and thus, we will have 22 teams, instead of the usual 24. This has led to a modification in the Play-in stage, which makes it a bit shorter in order to adjust the competition to this loss.
Now, instead of having four groups with three teams each, we will just have two groups with five teams each, where the last-qualified team will be eliminated, and the remaining four jump to the Main Event.
This is the main atypical characteristic of this year’s World Championship, and to this, we have to add that some of the most legendary organizations haven’t made it and won’t be playing the tournament, such as Cloud9 or T1, and there won’t be any World Champion teams like FunPlus Phoenix or Invictus Gaming playing either.
But let’s go with the schedule and teams that will be actually competing in Shangai:
Table of Contents
Play-in
September 25th – 30th
The format of this phase is a Single Round-Robin, with Bo1 series.
As we mentioned before, ten teams will be starting in this phase, divided into two groups were the last-qualified teams of each group will be automatically eliminated. The best team, nevertheless, will automatically qualify for the Main Stage.
The rest of the teams will have to fight between each other: the 3rd and the 4th qualified of the group will fight in a Bo5 series. The winner of this series will face the 2nd team of the other group. Finally, the winners of each Bo5 will qualify for the Main Stage, and the rest are eliminated.
Teams participating in the Play-in stage:
- LPL (China): LGD Gaming
- LEC (Europe): MAD Lions
- LCS (North America): Team Liquid
- PCS (Southeast Asia): PSG Talon
- CBLOL (Brazil): INTZ
- LCL (CIS): Unicorns of Love
- OPL (Oceania): Legacy Esports
- LLA (Latam): Rainbow7
- LJL (Japan): V3 Esports
- TCL (Turkey): Papara SuperMassive
Main Event – Groups
Round 1: October 3rd – 6th || Round 2: October 8 – 11th
In this phase, 16 teams from which 12 are already qualified and four are coming from the Play-in stage will be divided into four groups of four teams each, based on a seeding system.
This Double Round-Robin stage will have all Bo1 series between the teams. There cannot be teams from the same region in a single group. Each group must have teams from different regions.
After facing each other twice, only the top two teams of the groups will advance to the Knockout Stage. The 3rd and 4th qualified are eliminated.
Teams participating in the Groups stage (seeding order):
- LPL (China): TOP Esports || JD Gaming || Suning
- LEC (Europe): G2 Esports || Fnatic || Rogue
- LCK (Korea): DAMWON Gaming || DRX || Gen.G
- LCS (North America): Team SoloMid || FlyQuest
- PCS (Southeast Asia): Machi Esports
- Four qualified teams from the Play-in Stage to be determined.
Main Event – Knockout
Quarter-Finals: October 15th – 18th || Semi-Finals: October 24th and 25th || Finals: October 31st
In this phase, we will have only eight teams remain: the top two teams from each group.
Through a new draw, the first-qualified team of each group will face the second-qualified team of any of the other groups. Matches between teams from the same group are not possible.
Matches here are single-elimination, Bo5 series, which means that the winners of their series will advance to the next phase, while the losers are eliminated from the World Championship.
Remember that the 2020 World Championship will be played in Patch 10.19, but Yone and Samira will be disabled.
UPDATE SEPTEMBER 15TH:
The Groups Draw has already been done, you can check what teams will face each other during the Play-in and Groups stages here.
