what is the 'play-in stages'?
I have been on a brake from league so I have no idea what this is and apparently missed the memo, I dont remember this being at previous worlds.
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Several changes were made in deciding how many teams and which ones get to attend Worlds this year.
- The International Wildcard Regions, in part due to the performance of teams like KaBuM! e-Sports and Albus NoX Luna (as both ended up being Bracket Busters) was changed so that now all the regions that competed in them now each send 1 representative team to the Play-In stage of Worlds and MSI.
- NOTE: Due to GIGABYTE Marines (GPL) good performance at the 2017 MSI, the GPL has earned both a #1 seed in the regular Group Stage of Worlds this year, and a #2 seed spot (Young Generation), which starts in the Play-in round
- Due to LMS (Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau) consistent and overall good international performance, they are now considered a full fledged major region and have 3 seeds to worlds, instead of just 2.
- The #3 seed teams of the NA LCS, EU LCS, LPL, and LMS are not guaranteed a spot in the Regular Group stages of Worlds, and must participate in the Play-In stages
- Due to the region's sheer dominance at Worlds over the past 4 seasons, and because SKT being the first 3 time World Champions, the LCK region retains all 3 of their team seeds starting in the Regular Groups stage
How it works:
The Play-in Round consist of 2 stages:
- Stage 1 (Groups): 4 groups of 3 teams (each consisting of 1 Major region and 2 of the former IWC Regions) play in a round-robin style group stage, playing 2 games against each other. The top two teams from each group then get drawn to the Play-in Knockout stage. The third place teams are eliminated from the competition.
- Stage 2 (Knockout): The remaining 8 teams from Stage 1 are randomly drawn against each other (each bracket consist of one(1) 1st Seed Team and one(1) 2nd Seed Team), into Bo5 matches. The 4 winners of these matches each then are drawn into one of 4 Groups for the Regular round.
It's where the IWC teams and the 3rd seeded teams from the top regions(NA/EU/LPL/LMS) play and have their 15 mins of fame before getting dunked by Korea.
kinda giving a chance to the "wild card" teams to join the group stage so 4 groups 3 teams playing best of ones with each other in each group the first two in each group do best of fives to qualify for the group stage also sending the 3rd seeded teams from na eu & china to this play in. overall pretty good idea from riot to give chance to the smaller regions to show off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ryBmeqLIQ watch this video to get a better idea of what i've written.