As September approaches and many of the Summer Splits have reached the middle of the split, Riot has released the dates, venues and seeds allocated for Worlds 2022.
The date of Worlds 2022 has finally been confirmed by Riot as the tournament will start with the play-ins on September 29 in Mexico City. It will be the first time we will have different locations in different countries that will host parts of the tournament. Sadly, due to restrictions, Canada was ruled out as a destination. Regardless, Worlds 2022 is set to be the most significant return to the offline stage as fans are expected to be there. Here is what we know so far.
Date and Venue of Worlds 2022
As we know thus far, these are the dates and locations of the different stages of the tournament.
- Play-Ins: September 29 – October 4, Arena Esports Stadium at Artz Pedregal in Mexico City, Mexico.
- Groups: October 7-10 and October 13-16, Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
- Quarterfinals: October 20-23, Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
- Semifinals: October 29-30, State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia
- Finals: November 5, Chase Center in San Francisco, California
We already knew of the Finals location as the announcement came months ago. The dates have been confirmed, and we can look forward to the month-long tournament and celebration of one of the best esports tournaments. Let’s move on to the allocations of seeds for the tournament now.
Worlds 2022 Seed Allotment
It’s known information that LCL will be missing out on the tournament. Thus, Europe will get four teams for Worlds 2022 because of their performance over the past two years. This will round out the number of teams in the tournament to twenty-four. The seeds are divided into play-ins and groups stage. These are how they were divided.
Play-ins Teams
Twelve teams will participate in the play-ins. Among those will be the fourth seed of LCK and LPL and third/fourth seeds of LEC, and the third seed of the LCS. In addition, LEC will have two teams in the play-ins. The seeds in the play-ins are as follows.
- LPL (China) – 4th Seed
- LCK (Korea) – 4th Seed
- LEC (Europe) – 3rd and 4th Seed
- LCS (North America) – 3rd Seed
- PCS (Southeast Asia) – 2nd Seed
- VCS (Vietnam) – 2nd Seed
- CBLOL (Brazil) – 1st Seed
- LJL (Japan) – 1st Seed
- LLA (Latin America) – 1st Seed
- LCO (Oceania) – 1st Seed
- TCL (Turkey) – 1st Seed
As there will be 12 teams at Worlds after two years, we are not sure what the format will be. We could return to four groups of three teams or stick to two groups of 6 teams now. Only time will tell about that.
Groups Stage Teams
The remaining twelve teams will be in the group stage. They are as follows:
- LPL (China) – 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Seeds
- LCK (Korea) – 1st, 2nd and 3rd Seeds
- LEC (Europe) – 1st and 2nd Seeds
- LCS (North America) – 1st and 2nd Seeds
- PCS (Southeast Asia) – 1st Seed
- VCS (Vietnam) – 1st Seed
We can assume that the Worlds Groups Stage will largely remain the same. Hence, we expect these teams to be sorted into four groups, with four other teams joining from the play-ins into each group.
More details about the tournament will be announced later by Riot, and it will be interesting to watch if they make any changes to the format. For now, this is what we know, and we will know more in the coming months. Click this link to go to the original announcement for the LoLEsports website.
