The venues and dates for the upcoming League of Legends World Championship 2019 have been officially announced, with all that is left to do now is wait and see which 24 teams will earn their spot in the most prestigious League of Legends tournament in the world.
Ninth official League of Legends World Championship
As one of the most popular esports games in the world, League of Legends first became publicly available to play back in 2009, considered by some a copy of Dota, yet with their own characteristics, which made League of Legends similar, yet so different to any other MOBA game. As time has passed, League of Legends started gaining more and more fans and players, which did not take long to reach millions.
At that time, the esports scene also experienced a huge “boom,” which gave Riot Games a great opportunity to bring their game global, which they did by announcing the first official world championship only two years after the release of the game. The first official World Championship took place in Sweden, with a rather small prize pool of $99,500, which was divided between all eight competitors, with the winners taking home $50,000.
As years passed the game grew even further in popularity, and soon we had a long list of professional teams and players that wanted to compete in official tournaments. One thing led to another, and the second League of Legends World Championship already had 12 teams competing and a huge increase in the prize pool, sitting at $2,000,000 in all its glory. After two successful World Championship, Riot Games decided the Worlds will become an annual tournament. Everything else is history.
Format, venues
The 2019 Worlds will feature 24 teams from 13 different regions, who will battle through the gauntlet of the play-in stage, group stage, knockout stage, and finals.
The Play-in stage will kick off in Berlin, Germany, on Oct. 2 and last until Oct. 8, with 12 teams that will be drawn into four groups of three. Competing in a double round-robin Bo1 format, the participant’s goal will be to finish in the top two of their group to advance into the second round, where the remaining eight teams will battle it out in Bo5 matches in hopes to finish at the top and receive the ticket for the main event.
Group Stage of Worlds 2019 will remain in Berlin, moving venues to Verti Music Hall, which will host the whole group stage. Stretching from Oct. 12 up until Oct. 20, the teams will, just like in the play-ins, be divided into four groups, where they will compete in a double round-robin Bo1 matches. Once all will be set and done, the top two teams from each group will advance into the knockout stage.
Just like in play-ins, the main event knockout stage will be played in a single-elimination bracket, Bo5 format, only this time, the matches will be played in Madrid, Spain, more specifically at Palacio Vistalegre. The bracket for the knockout stage will be drawn randomly, with the only two exceptions being that no teams from the same group can be matched against each other and that first-place teams from group stage need to face off against second-place teams.
The grand finals are set to take place on Nov. 10 at AccorHotels Arena in Paris, France, to conclude the 2019 World Championship and serve us with the new League of Legends World Champions.
Full list of venues is as follows:
Play-Ins: LEC Studio: Berlin, Germany,
Group stage: Verti Music Hall: Berlin, Germany
Quarterfinals and Semifinals: Palacio Vistalegre: Madrid, Spain
Finals: AccorHotels Arena: Paris, France
“The gap is closing”
A statement we hear in the League of Legends community ever since the historic win of European team G2 at MSI 2019, meaning that the so-called skill gap between Korea and the “west” is closing. Some may even argue the gap has already closed but has it? With only the best of the best teams in the world lining up to appear in the 2019 Worlds, we might get our answer for that question, but until then, the mythical skill gap is still a hot topic of discussion.