The draw show of Worlds 2020 occurred a few hours ago, unveiling both Play-ins and the Group stages.
League of Legends Worlds Championship 2020 is one of the most highly anticipated tournaments of the year. It is set to start on the 25th of September with the best teams from all regions. However, due to the ongoing pandemic, the tournament is going to take place only in Shanghai.
A major exclusion for this year’s Worlds Championship is that the Vietnamese Championship Series (VCS) is not participating due to the pandemic restrictions. Furthermore, with VCS teams not competing in the competition, the Play-ins format was changed to circumvent the loss of the number of teams.
- Read More: Riot shares details about the Worlds 2020 prize pool changes
Play-ins Groups Draw
The Play-ins are the start of Worlds 2020 tournament where teams from emerging regions and the lower bracket teams from the top regions duke it out to qualify for the Group stage.
The Play-ins have a major difference in the format this year. As the VCS does not have any teams this year, Gen.G (the third seed of LCK) has moved into the Group Stages. There will be two groups in the Play-ins, consisting of five teams in each group.
Going into the draw, the pools for the draws were as follows:
- Pool 1: Mad Lions, Team Liquid, LGD Gaming, and PSG Talon.
- Pool 2: INTZ, Unicorns of Love, V3 Esports, Rainbow7, Legacy Esports, and Papara SuperMassive
Two teams from Pool 1 were slotted into each group along with three teams from Pool 2. After the draw, the teams in the groups landed as follows.
Group A:
- Team Liquid
- Mad Lions
- Legacy Esports
- Papara SuperMassive
- INTZ
Group B:
- LGD Gaming
- PSG Talon
- V3 Esports
- Unicorns of Love
- Rainbow7
The top team in each group after the round-robin stage will automatically qualify for the Group Stages. Consequentially the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th team in each group will play in multiple best of five series to determine the remaining two spots in Group stages
The Play-ins is set to start from September 25th.
Group Stages Draw
The Group Stages is the start of the campaign for all teams who are playing for the glory and pride of winning the Worlds Championship. The top teams from the major regions are sorted into groups where they will compete to win a spot in the Playoffs stage.
The pools for the draw are as follows:
- Pool 1: G2 Esports, DamWon Gaming, Top Esports, and Team Solo Mid
- Pool 2: JD Gaming, Suning, Fnatic, and DragonX
- Pool 3: Rogue, Flyquest, Machi Esports, and Gen.G
There will be teams from each Pool 1, Pool 2, Pool 3, and one team from the Play-ins in every group. Additionally, each group also require to have teams from different regions. Therefore, the draw is done in a such way that two teams from the same region are not in the same group.
The groups ended up as follows:
Group A:
- G2 Esports
- Suning
- Machi Esports
- Play-in Team 1
Group B:
- DamWon Gaming
- JD Gaming
- Rogue
- Play-in Team 2
Group C:
- Team Solo Mid
- Fnatic
- Gen.G
- Play-in Team 3
Group D:
- Top Esports
- DRX
- FlyQuest
- Play-in Team 4
A play-in team will be slotted into each group. Moreover, the teams will be put into the group while maintaining that two teams from the same region don’t come up against each other.
The Group Stages is set to start from October 3rd.
