2023 League of Legends World Championship

The 2023 League of Legends World Championship is an ongoing esports tournament for the multiplayer online battle arena video game League of Legends. It is the thirteenth iteration of the League of Legends World Championship, an annual international tournament organized by the game's developer, Riot Games. The tournament began in South Korea on October 10 and will take place through November 19. Twenty-two teams from nine regions qualified for the tournament based on their placement in regional circuits; defending champions DRX failed to do so after losing to Dplus KIA in the 2023 LCK Regional Finals.

"Gods" (stylized in all caps), performed by NewJeans, was announced as the tournament's theme song. A virtual boyband named "Heartsteel" (stylized in all caps) was unveiled by Riot Games during the event, with Baekhyun from Exo and SuperM, ØZI, Tobi Lou and Cal Scruby representing the group as its human counterpart and in the live performance of their debut song, "Paranoia".

Changing of  format and region's seed 
Starting from 2023, teams from LCL (CIS), TCL (Turkey), and LCO (Oceania) region no longer qualified directly for Worlds due to their leagues being cancelled (LCL, by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine) and downgraded (TCL was merged into LEC, LCO was merged into PCS).

The number of teams was decreased from 24 to 22 compared to last year. For seedings, first-seeded teams from PCS (Asia-Pacific) and VCS (Vietnam) were relegated to start in the play-in stage, while fourth-seeded teams from LCK (South Korea), LPL (China) and third-seeded from LEC (EMEA) and LCS (North America) were promoted to the main event. Prior to the kick off of the tournament, a "Worlds Qualifying Series" match between the fourth-seeded teams from LEC and LCS was played to decide the last team for the play-in stage.

Play-in groups were changed to a GSL-style double-elimination format, while main event's first stage was changed from a double round-robin group stage to a swiss format.

Qualified teams

Qualified teams 
The following teams qualified for the event:

Venues 

Seoul and Busan were the two cities chosen to host the tournament.

Worlds Qualifying Series 
 Date and time: October 9, start time at 13:00 (KST) (UTC+9)
 The fourth-seeded teams from LEC (Team BDS) and LCS (Golden Guardians) faced off in a best-of-five series to determine the last team that would qualify for the play-in stage.

Play-in stage

Groups 
 Date and time: October 10–14, start time at 16:00 KST (UTC+9)
 8 teams were divided into 2 groups of four teams each playing in a GSL-style double-elimination format. Teams from same region could not be placed in the same group.
 All matches were best-of-three.

Group A

Group B

Qualifiers 
Date and time: October 15, start time at 12:00 KST (UTC+9)
Upper bracket winner of one group faced the lower bracket winner of the other group.
 Qualifiers were best-of-five.
 Two winners of the qualifiers advanced to the swiss stage as Pool 4.

Swiss stage 
 Date and time: October 19–29, start time at 14:00 KST (UTC+9)
 16 teams play in Swiss-system format with five rounds.
 In Round 1, Pool 1 teams will play against Pool 4 teams, and Pool 2 teams will play against Pool 3 teams. Teams from the same region do not play against each other.
 From Round 2 onward, teams with the same record will play each other. Match up will be determined by draw after each round and teams from the same region can play each other.
 Teams with 3 wins advance to knockout stage, while teams with 3 losses are eliminated.
 All matches are best-of-one, excluding the advancement & elimination matches in round 3 along with the latter 4th & 5th round matches, which are best-of-three matches.
Bracket

Knockout stage 

 Date and time: November 2–19, all games excluding the finals start time at 17:00 KST (UTC+9)
 Finals start at 16:00 KST (UTC+9)
 Eight teams from group stage are drawn into a single-elimination bracket.
 Two teams with a 3–0 record in the swiss stage are on opposite sides of the bracket and face those with a 3–2 record, while all remaining teams will be seeded randomly.
 All matches are best-of-five.
 The members of the winning team will lift the Summoner's Cup, earning their title as the League of Legends 2023 World Champions.

Qualified teams
Eight teams qualified for the playoff portion of the tournament from the swiss stage.

Bracket

Ranking

Team ranking

References

External links 
 Official website

Notes 

League of Legends World Championship
2023 multiplayer online battle arena tournaments