League international events are set to receive a major revamp in 2023, with both Worlds and MSI changing their formats for this year’s competitive season. Let’s see what these changes are going to be.
Image Credits | Riot Games
League MSI will have a double-elimination bracket
Riot took the decision of changing the format following the restructuring of some minor regions in 2023. Regions like LCO, TCL, or the CIS will no longer have their own spot at MSI. The minor regions that are going to be invited are LLA, CBLOL, LJL, PCS, and VCS.
The four major regions (Korea, China, Europe, and North America), instead, are going to get two representatives per region, meaning that a total of 13 teams will participate in the event, which is taking place in London and confirmed by Riot.
The new format will have five teams, the first seeds from the major region as well as the two seeds from Korea, going directly to the bracket stage, with the remaining teams starting in the play-in stage. The bracket stage, compared to past years, will have double the teams, with eight teams fighting for the title, instead of four.
Not only that, but the MSI bracket stage will also include a double-elimination format, something that has never been implemented in any international League tournaments before.
“MSI is an opportunity for fans to evaluate the relative strength of teams and regions at the midway point of the season,” Riot said in its most recent update. “With this new competitive format, we hope to better deliver on that opportunity, as well as showcase more exciting best-of series, and allow for more player stories to unfold.”
Worlds will have an additional stage to the format
Before play-ins, the premiere international League tournament will have a new stage called the “Worlds Qualifying Series” (WQS). This stage will be a single Bo5 match between the fourth seeds of the LCS and the LEC, with the hopes that western fans can be more satisfied in seeing EU and NA go against each other at international events.
Worlds play-ins will become a bracket format
The 2023 Worlds play-in stage will feature a bracket format where eight teams will participate in this stage and only the top two teams will advance to the main event. All matches will become Bo3 series.
Image Credits | Riot Games
Groups will no longer be a part of the play-ins stage. This was done in order to raise the stakes for all participants and “foster more cross-regional, best-of series”.
Riot shakes up Worlds group stage format
Image Credits | Riot Games
Group Stage at Worlds main event has been one of the most long-standing formats we had. This year, however, things will change, with the group stage becoming a Swiss-style format.
This format will have the teams play against each other until teams get either three wins or three losses on the scoreboard. Teams winning three matches will advance to the Knockout stage, while the losing teams will be eliminated from Worlds. With this format, teams are ensured that they’ll always play against a team with the same record, potentially adding more competitive balance while also increasing the stakes for all teams involved.
What’s more important is that matches that will either eliminate or advance a team to knockouts will be a Bo3 series, while the remaining matches will have a Bo1 format.
The first eight teams to get three wins in this Swiss stage will then advance to the knockout stage, where the format is going to be the same as previous years: a single-elimination bracket with Best-of-five matches.
League Worlds 2023 is confirmed to be held in South Korea
After the end of the 2022 World Championship that was held in North America, fans have started questioning what the next destination would be. Every year, Riot Games is known for rotating the event between the four major regions. According to Brieuc Seeger back in December, also known as LEC Wooloo, the 2023 League Of Legends World Championship will be held in South Korea.
With NA, China and EU having organized the last four editions (EU hosted both 2019 and 2021), Riot confirmed today that it is indeed going back to Korea. The region last hosted Worlds back in 2018, when Fnatic and Invictus Gaming clashed in the finals at the Incheon Munhak Stadium.
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