As another year of LoLEsports begins, Riot announced the format and location for Worlds 2023.
After a year of ups and downs, LoLEsports is coming back as Season 13 starts in League of Legends. Different regions have had their fair share of changes and are now ready to compete for a chance to lift the World’s trophy. Last year’s Worlds was a massive success as DRX won the tournament.
As we approach the start of the first splits of the year for all regions, Riot has decided to talk about the Esports sphere for this year. They announced the MSI 2023 format and location as the tournament heads to London.
For Worlds 2023, the announcement was made concurrently with MSI 2023. Riot has decided to make many changes to the format for the upcoming tournament. Therefore, let’s talk about all the teams that will be in Worlds 2023 and where it will be held.
Read More: Riot Announces MSI 2023 Format and Location
Worlds 2023 Location
Worlds is returning to South Korea, as the upcoming tournament will be in the city where League of Legends is immensely popular. However, all the exact locations and such are not known. This video talks more about Worlds 2023.
The exact start date is unknown for Worlds 2023, so we have to wait until that is finalized.
Worlds 2023 Format
Worlds 2023 is going to come in with its three stages like last year. However, the formats are changing in the first two stages of the game. The stages are going to be Play-Ins, Swiss, and Knockouts. There will be a total of 22 teams that will participate in Worlds 2023.
Let’s talk about all the individual stages of the tournament and the brand new Worlds Qualifying Series.
Worlds Qualifying Series 2023
World Qualifying Series (WQS) is new in 2023 as it is a new system being introduced to the Worlds ecosystem. This came about to justify the inclusion of four teams from most of the major regions. As in the past, the top two performing regions (in this case LPL and LCK) usually get a 4th team into the tournament.
Furthermore, as the number of wildcard regions has decreased, there was a need to add more teams to the play-ins. However, given that they do not want to overload Worlds with more major region teams, the World Qualifying Series is introduced.
In WQS 2023, the 4th seed of the LEC and LCS will face off in a best of five series to determine which team goes to Worlds 2023. This series will be hosted in NA, with the games expected to occur just after the regional qualifiers and such end.
This is a great initiative to get the best teams into the tournament. Riot will be taking feedback on the system and potentially expanding it.
Worlds 2023 Play-Ins
Play-Ins is being reworked to make it more competitive and adjust to the change in the number of teams. For Worlds 2023, eight teams will be participating in the Play-Ins. Here are the following seeded teams that will perform in the tournament.
- WQS 2023 Winner (LEC/LCS 4th Seed)
- VCS 1st Seed
- VCS 2nd Seed
- PCS 1st Seed
- PCS 2nd Seed
- LJL 1st Seed
- CBLOL 1st Seed
- LLA 1st Seed
These eight teams will be fighting for spots in the new Swiss Stage of Worlds 2023. All the games will be best of threes with two double-elimination brackets for four teams each. At the end of each double elimination bracket, we will get the Winners Bracket Team from one group playing the Losers Bracket Team of the other group.
Based on that, two teams will advance to the Swiss sStage. The image below depicts the new format for the Play-Ins.
Worlds 2023 Swiss Stage
The Groups Stage from past Worlds is being completely overhauled in 2023. Worlds 2023 is introducing the popular Swiss system as 16 teams face each in this brand new bracket to get one of the eight spots in the Knockouts stage.
There will be several rounds in the Swiss stage, five to be exact. Round 1 and Round 2 will be best of ones, while Rounds 3, 4, and 5 will be mostly best of threes.
In Round 1, teams will be randomly assigned an opponent that is not part of their own region. From there, teams will be divided into 1-0 and 0-1 records for Round 2. Thus, in Round 2, teams from their individual record groups will play an opponent from the same record group. Both Rounds 1 and 2 will have eight best of ones each.
Round 3 will be best of 3s for the 2-0 and 0-2 teams and best of 1s for the 1-1 teams. Any 2-0 team that wins their best of 3 will qualify for the Knockouts stage as 1st or 2nd seed. Conversely, any 0-2 that loses is out of Worlds 2023.
Round 4 will have the 2-1 and 1-2 teams plays against one another in the best of threes. Winners from the 2-1 group will be 3rd, 4th, and 5th, respectively, and the losers from the 1-2 record list will be out of the tournament. The rest of the teams will play in Round 5, where the winners claim the last three spots in the Knockouts Stage.
Worlds 2023 Knockouts Stage
Knockouts Stage stays the same for the most part in contrast to the past Worlds tournaments. The seeding is not exactly known, but it’s the same single elimination bracket where one team emerges victorious at the end out of eight teams.
It’s the same old format that will bring in the familiar tension, excitement, and narratives.
In Conclusion
All in all, the changes are something fans have wanted for a while with the new Swiss system. The format promises to eliminate the group of death and give teams a better opportunity to showcase what they are made of. Also, the formats will pit teams with similar records with each other for the Swiss System, and that would create some parity.
Thus, look forward to more news and information about Worlds 2023 as it returns to South Korea for another year of great games. For more information, read the official article by Riot.
