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2017 World Championship Update

Riot··5 votes·487,572 views

TL;DR:

  • Worlds 2017 will be a 24 team-tournament in China with teams from all 13 LoL professional leagues participating across multiple stages.
  • The Worlds 2017 tournament format has been expanded to include a Play-In Stage before the Group Stage.
  • LMS will now be awarded a 3rd regional seed for Worlds 2017.
  • Some regions will be able to earn a second seed for Worlds 2017 based on MSI 2017 results.
  • The three Korean seeds will not participate in the Play-In Stage and will be auto-seeded into the Group Stage.

As we announced today, the 2017 League of Legends World Championship is heading to China from September 23 - November 4. Here’s a detailed breakdown of updated teams, regional seeds, and format for Worlds 2017.

Teams

During Worlds 2017, 24 teams will participate across multiple stages at the 2017 World Championship from the following regions:

  • Brazil (BR)
  • China (CN)
  • Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
  • Europe (EU)
  • Japan (JPN)
  • Korea (KR)
  • Latin America - North (LAN)
  • Latin America - South (LAS)
  • North America (NA)
  • Oceania (OCE)
  • Southeast Asia (SEA)
  • Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau (LMS)
  • Turkey (TUR)

Regional Seeds

There are a couple of changes to the regional seeds including:

3 seeds for LMS: LMS will now be awarded 3 regional seeds for Worlds 2017 instead of the 2 regional seeds they had for Worlds 2016. The LMS was originally created as a division from GPL, which separated one region into two, and forced a similar split of the Worlds seeds. Since its 2015 creation, however, the LMS has been a consistently strong region, and so is being awarded with another seed to bring them to an equivalent number with CN, EU, KR, and NA.

Korea will not participate in the Play-In: Korea, as the region that has performed the best overall throughout 2015 and 2016, will have all 3 of its seeds bypass the Worlds 2017 Play-In Stage and start in the Group Stage.

MSI results will continue to impact Worlds 2017:  As with last year, some regional seeds placement at Worlds 2017 can be impacted by the MSI 2017 results, but differently from 2016. Learn more about the MSI 2017 implications here.

Some regions can gain a second seed from MSI 2017 results: The highest ranking region at MSI of BR, CIS, JPN, LAN, LAS, OCE, SEA, and TUR gains an additional seed at Worlds. The #1 seed of that region will be auto-seeded to Groups and the #2 seed will start from the Play-in. In the case that two of these regions earn identical results at MSI 2017, the extra seed will go to the region who advanced the furthest in Worlds/IWCQ in 2016.

While their leagues are continuing to mature and their teams earn better international results each year, we didn’t feel it appropriate to award a guaranteed 2nd seed to any of these regions, but performance in 2017 will be a major factor in determining seeds for 2018.

Format

As with MSI 2017, the World Championship will now have a Play-In Stage before the Group Stage.

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For more information about Worlds 2017, head over to our event site and stay tuned to Lolesports for updates.

 

Chris “RiotChopper” Hopper is one of the International Esports and League Operations Leads. His team is focused on the global development and operations of competitive League of Legends. RiotChopper is a sports fanatic who wins (almost) every Fantasy League among the Riot esports team and always cheers for his alma mater, Duke. Questions or want to chat about Magic: The Gathering? Reach out to him on Twitter via @RiotChopper.

 

Derrick “Riot FearGorm” Asiedu is part of our International Esports and League Operations Team. He works on the global development and operations of competitive League of Legends. He splits his time between global policy execution and implementation and supporting international events including MSI and Worlds. Riot FearGorm is jungler main and if possible, he would only play Hecarim. He used to have the most Hecarim games in the world. You can find him on Twitter at @FearGorm.

 

 

 

154 Comments

Honest Abe30 votes

I like it. Gives more teams and more regions an opportunity to participate at the Worlds stage.

Farqad47 votes

Yeah more regions is great but I dont think its right Korea gets a free seed for last year. Lets see how things go this year to give every region some time to show whose best THIS YEAR before we give out that extra seed to Korea. For all we know Brazil may become the best by September/October lol. Doubt it but possible bc we dont know what S7 will become

Hwa Sun Ji7 votes

Have you ever watched professional League? The gap between Korea and every other region is so great that they've earned it. Saying Brazil might be the best in less then a year is like saying the Brazil basketball league will be better then America's by October.

RAID3N8 votes

Um.....Tell me, what region won the last four world tournaments in a row? I think Korea has proven that they have the talent to earn those free seeds. I mean, these players are born with a mouse in one hand and a keyboard in the other.

Farqad42 votes

{quoted}

Um.....Tell me, what region won the last four world tournaments in a row? I think Korea has proven that they have the talent to earn those free seeds. I mean, these players are born with a mouse in one hand and a keyboard in the other.

Once again each season changes S6 tbh doesn't mean a thing anymore. PPl need to let others prove themselves If Koreans kill others this season they deserve it but we cant assume 100% it will always be that way. Lol maybe its 99% but idk of many competitive esports/sports leagues that depend on last season other than Champions League Soccer but that is a very different scenario

Vellich0r4 votes

A free seed is actually a disadvantage for the Korean teams. They can look things up, but they are less practiced in the current tournament meta. This is actually something that helps to close the gap by forming a tournament meta that play-in winners are used to giving them a slight advantage on the learning curve of the tournament.

LustxKatarina8 votes

After reading this, it makes me think that SKT has already won Worlds 2017! lol Katarina

Honest Abe8 votes

Don't underestimate KT Rolster!

Sionnan694 votes

Scrolling through this 7 months later and this comment has mad me very sad.

krashy3 votes

SAME

sKz Aaron D1 votes

Oh god, I liked that comment... I cry...

Leo10246 votes

Hmmm... I've always wanted to go to China, maybe if I save enough I can go and catch worlds!

clamyboy191 votes

woo I live there, sadly not during october....

Leo10241 votes

{quoted}

woo I live there, sadly not during october....

you live in china ? if so how come you don't in october ?

clamyboy192 votes

school, i go back to na :(

Leo10242 votes

Aahhh I see, it's still pretty cool that you get to be in China !

Darkvince5 votes

For round 1 why is it best of 1? make it a best of 3, like why not try and get the best teams

Wh1teWu1f3 votes

Time constraints I'd assume. Obviously it's most ideal for them to have bo3, but the number of games and amount of time that sucks up is actually pretty massive considering it's a double round robin for 4 groups, meaning that there would be about 48-72 games if it was Bo3.

Jibbur

well not to mention stadium constraints, they could do it like NA, where they just have two splits so it doesn't extend the duration of the broadcast too much, but then they would have to rent out a second equal stadium to the first, and that is not feasible. the other option would be to just extend the number of weeks for the groups stage, but a month long group stage is also unfeasible, unless they book the stadium YEARS in advance. just getting the stadiums they currently are getting takes a year to a year and a half advance reservations. The only other way I could see would drasitically increase broadcast personnel needed, which is just go from like 6-7 hour broadcasts to broadcasts that are up to 16 hours long. but that would double to triple the necessary personnel(depending on 2-0 vs 2-1s)

Ranoiaetep1 votes

You had a good point about it is hard to increase the time, however they don't have to increase the broadcast time or having a second stadium. Wasn't sure how it is done in lcs, but I was there in the iem san jose, what they did was simply splitting the stadium in 2 halves. Especially for the round 1, it is likely that some group would only have wildcard regions, which means there would be way less audience in that group. On the other hand, the group that would have most audiences is the one with CN team since it is held in china, so it should be possible to have the group with CN team and the group with all wildcard teams on the stage at once, and having the other 2 teams on the stage at once.

BigBellBrute5 votes

The good.
More regions get a chance to compete.
Another LMS team getting into the field.

The bad. Favorable seeds for regions based upon 2 years past performance. All that serves to do is prop up a region that has dropped off and punish a region that has become good. EU has dropped off considerably. Yet based upon the performance of Origin (who is in essence a challenger team this year) and Fnatic (who have taken a step backwards from their semi final form they're going to artificially be inflated with favorable seeding. Why should the Unicorns get a favorable draw at worlds or G2 or H2k based upon Origin's and Fnatic's performance? That's just giving a team that didn't earn it a favorable draw. And if Korea truly is the best region that we think they are, they should be able to handle the play in. Better yet. Why even have a play in?. Just increase the size of the field and have at it. Instead of having round 1 and round two of play in, increase round 1 to 8 groups of three, top two from each group advance. And then from there you have the standard 16 team group stage eliminating play in round 2. Nobody should get a bye. If they're truly good they'll make it out. Heck. And byes can end up bad for a team too.

And if we're going to look at performance, let's look at the entire performance, not just who made what round.
EU had the two worst teams in the field last year. Yet despite the two teams that didn't make it out going 2-10 vs the NA teams that didn't make it out going 6-6, EU somehow gets the same credit. Oh and NA went 4-0 against EU that round too as did Koprea. Yet, that doesn't count. Further, the EU team that made semis last worlds only did so because H2k didn't play a single NA or Korean team until said semis where they got dumpstered by the same Korean team c9 got dumpstered by the round before. Now that's a cupcake draw only Candy King Ivern's Daisy would think extra credit should be given for.

Speaking of favorable seeds, if we insist on them and you're going to give one for performance at mid season tourney, why not actually give it to the team that actually earned it? Why should TSM get a tourney #1 because CLG earned it for them?
Let's make the spring split mean something and let the winners of the spring split have something to shoot for FOR THEMSELVES.

Ale non è male2 votes

{quoted}

The good.
More regions get a chance to compete.
Another LMS team getting into the field.

The bad. Favorable seeds for regions based upon 2 years past performance. All that serves to do is prop up a region that has dropped off and punish a region that has become good.

What region? LMS was the worst region at Worlds, and NA had worse result than EU as well at Worlds (qualify the same number of teams, reached a lower peak - and didn't happen because bad luck, it was CLG that was unable to qualify let ANX go through despite having them as wildcard and G2 disaster in groups and H2k was a top 5 team so it is not strange they can place in top 4 - )

NA has literally had 1 good result after S4, and that was the really lucky final at MSI - RNG was fairly superior but because of shaky SKT performance in group stage they had to play each other in semifinals -

Thulious7 votes

Switch H2K with any of the NA teams and they would have made it out of the group stage as well. Hell even Switch H2K with C9 in the knockouts and then C9 most likely woulda have beaten ANX. Sorry but H2K's success was partly luck. CLG failed to show up as did G2. TSM was in probably the hardest bracket there and they didn't perform as well as they should've. But H2K's bracket was by far the safest bracket to be drafted to.

Ale non è male2 votes

{quoted}

Switch H2K with any of the NA teams and they would have made it out of the group stage as well. Hell even Switch H2K with C9 in the knockouts and then C9 most likely woulda have beaten ANX. Sorry but H2K's success was partly luck. CLG failed to show up as did G2. TSM was in probably the hardest bracket there and they didn't perform as well as they should've. But H2K's bracket was by far the safest bracket to be drafted to.

No one of them would have gone out as 1st seed - heck, CLG would have not go out of it at all imho - , so no one of them would have been able to avoid Koreans in quarters Don't you see how that is lopsided reasoning? H2K was lucky but ended in semifinals (top 4) being at worst a top 5 team in the tournament No NA team was close to that level, so they would have not even been in the position to get lucky (including eventually get in semifinals by qualifying in their group and then beating in quarters as 2nd seed an EDG coming out as 1st seed from Group C). EU (narrowly) beat NA no matter how you would try to spin it, not because was good, but because NA didn't show up at all

SuperDolphin4 votes

Actually Thulious is right. All three NA teams went 3-3, one of them made it out groups. All three NA teams had a Korean team in their group. Two European teams went 1-5. The overall group record was NA 9-9 vs EU 5-12 (not counting the tie breaker game), and EU's record is padded with H2K's cupcake group draw (the only group without both an NA and Korean team). 2016 was equally embarrasing for the EU. The ONLY way you could consider EU's performance better is if you go soley based off how the the team from each region that made it the farthest did rather than looking at how the region did overall, and even that is skewed, as H2K was only able to make it that far because they had an abnormally easy path.

That said, the EU vs NA argument is kind of silly... kind of like two midgets arguing over who is taller.

JumboPlaya1 votes

You are kidding right? LMS killed EU at IEM (All of their best teams, mind you).

facehunt4 votes

Does it hurt to not give Korea a 4th seed?? For real tho. Give them a seed at Play-in qualifiers. What is this half-assed way of rewarding the best region?

Leo102423 votes

{quoted}

Does it hurt to not give Korea a 4th seed?? For real tho. Give them a seed at Play-in qualifiers. What is this half-assed way of rewarding the best region?

people are tired of seeing them dominate, literally 3/4 teams in semi finals were korean and actually i think korea has one every worlds since they joined worlds, SKT, then Samsung galaxy, and SKT twice again, its more to make it even more competitive so that other regions have a chance, as much as i love the korean teams they're kinda killing it so riot did something about it

facehunt5 votes

Im not asking for 50% of the seed being given to Korea like what SC2 does but if LMS gets a 3rd seed, so should LCK. I understand about trying to appease the butthurt fans that were salty that their favorite teams weren't good enough. The two best series at Worlds last year has been SKT vs ROX and SKT vs SSG, also having the most viewership so I dont get where this nonsense idea of punishing the best region for simply being too good.

Puppy Shark13 votes

They're not punished. The reason LMS gets another seed was because they have developed enough to be consider a major region and deserves to be on equal playing field as NA, EU, and China. The point of world is to show how international competition stacks up, even if results shows that Korea wins by a landslide given that Korea was only eliminated by another Korean team.

Jangbolsal3 votes

You said, "The reason LMS gets another seed was because they have developed enough to be consider a major region and deserves to be on equal playing field as NA, EU, and China". In that logic, the reason LCK should get another seed is because they have proven they are superior than all other major regions and it is unfair for LCK to be on equal playing field as NA, EU, China and LMS.

NOT THAT I BELIEVE LCK should have another seed, but that logic just strengthens why LCK should get another seed. The actual reason why LCK shouldn't get another seed is the possibility of having four LCK teams on the semifinals. It will be boring for the supporters of the other regions and what's the point of having an international tournament if one region is going to dominate the whole tournament stage.

Reaxetion10 votes

Region's second and third seeded team earns two byes in the tournament. "... punishing the best region for simply being too good."

Because byes are a punishment.

SlowRoastedPoros5 votes

I was beginning to think i was the only other person in the entire lol community that understood how sports work.

jiminsbeach2 votes

lol ikr why are people saying korea needs more seeds? it's actually better for them that they have all 3 of their seeds in WITHOUT playing in, it's basically a bye?? and honestly who doesn't want a bye??? the other big regions (CN/EU/NA/LMS) now have to fight with the smaller regions to get their 3rd seed in, whereas korea doesn't. seems like a logical step for me, considering KR has consistently been a strong region.

III BAKURYU III 2 votes

" its more to make it even more competitive so that other regions have a chance, as much as i love the korean teams they're kinda killing it so riot did something about it".

  • How so ? Nothing changed, all they did was added more teams which is fine but they auto locked the LCK teams in groups so nothing changed from that.

It's most likely could just be 5 more Dark Passages 0-6, Kabuums 1-5, Bangkoks 0-6, Pains 0-2, and INTZs 1-5 and not make it that more competitive.

Leapxx6 votes

But it's could be another ANX 4-3...

Mana Bird8 votes

Just want to add in the TPA defeated Azubu Frost in Season 2.

Hwa Sun Ji2 votes

You're basically saying we need affirmative action in league to give the other teams a chance? It's about who is best, not making it more diverse for appearance's sake.

FoaminBruh2 votes

Right! I don't understand these people that are complaining about the possibility of 3-4 teams from one region (Korea) being in the semi-finals. "No one wants to watch that". Whaaa? Why would they not if they're the best teams? Any situation that gives undeserving teams a better chance of advancing in the tournament over ones that deserve to be there won't increase views (at least not in the long run). It would decay the competitive spirit, and more people would STOP watching than would start.

Smart Kitty4 votes

Finally more teams, and finally LMS gets a third seed! Can't wait!

Tolkmit4 votes

Nice thought, but completely failed to address the biggest problem with worlds: the random group BS. If MSI is going to be a seeding tool for worlds, let it actually be one. Eliminate random group draw, have which group each region's seeds go into determined by their results.

DarkRitual7 votes

I actually like how EU did it's group draft for this split. Each group has a "Leader" that then picks a team to go into the next group. Then Group B picks a team for group C, through each group once, then those teams that got placed into that group get to pick the next team to go into the following group. It was like a nemesis draft type structure. It was better than random and incentivizes having good results through the course of the year so you would be one of the group leaders.

Meanie402 votes

If you're going to do this, make it a "snake draft" pick, so that the group A seed doesn't necessarily have an advantage. Let's see if I can draw the draft order out:

A picks for B B picks for C C picks for D D picks for A B picks for A A picks for D D picks for C C picks for B B picks for D C picks for A D picks for B A picks for C

(The last rotation is me trying to even out the snake effect of the first two rounds, to give the groups somewhat of an even playing field. The last rotation may have a better mathematical conclusion in that way, but I'm not going to spend any more time trying to find it.

This format also allows each group leader to pick one team for each other group.)

facehunt3 votes

LMS proving themselves as a good region and being given 3rd seed, while a region winning 3 Worlds in row and proving themselves as a best region not receiving a 4th seed. Yup, sounds fair.

Peacelur10 votes

? Wtf? How does this make sense at all. Why would you give the most dominate region in LoL history another spot in the world championship?????? This just makes it very hard for any other region to make it into semifinals, which isnt good for leagues competitive future because not a lot of people want to tune into just korean games lol.

facehunt2 votes

Why not just give the best LCK team the trophy right now since we all know they are gonna win it? Or better yet, how about keep Korean teams out of Worlds and host a tournament without them for 2nd place trophy?

Where do you draw the line? Nobody loses out when they make a 4th seeded Korean team play through the Play-Ins. On the other hand, not giving a LCK a 4th seed doesn't give enough respect & reward as it is, considering when LMS gets a 3rd seed for finally being "good". Which to me is a stupid reason considering Korea as a region has been winning since season 3.

Joltforce4 votes

I've seen you comment multiple times on this thread, and I still have no clue why it isn't going through your thick skull that there are people other than Koreaboos that watch Worlds.

facehunt2 votes

SKT vs ROX & SKT vs SSG had the biggest viewership so I honestly dont get this retarded logic.

Zabor652 votes

i am sad. Why would you hold your wonderful game's world championship in a country that oppresses basic human rights. It's one thing to let their teams participate as they themselves are not part of such an oppressive government. But to actually hold your event there is a shame. I will still probably play the game. But I probably won't spend any more money on skins, merchandise, etc.

Wh1teWu1f5 votes

You do realize that Riot is literally owned by a Chinese company, right?

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