Introduction
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As we continue to grow and evolve League of Legends Esports (LoL Esports), we hope to strike the right balance between updating the ecosystem and building on reliable traditions and institutions. We don’t want to hold on to anything we’ve done in the past because “it’s the way we do it,” but we also don’t want change for the sake of change.
Over the past few years, we spent a lot of time thinking about our international events, with a focus on how we could reformat them to better serve the community and pro players while maintaining the highest levels of competitive integrity. Throughout 2021 and 2022, we actively assessed what an optimal calendar could look like, how our international events connect, and ultimately what we want each event to represent for fans. During these discussions, we looked at fan feedback and collaborated with all of our regions to capture a broad view of the global community as we make decisions that will impact the future of the sport.
With that background, let’s dive into the format changes for MSI and Worlds and talk a bit about our philosophy in reimagining these tournaments.
Leading With Goals
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When we contemplated changes to the competitive formats for MSI and Worlds, we prioritized creating more opportunities for best-of match play and cross-regional competition. We also wanted to make sure that every single game at both tournaments was meaningful, and that we could minimize the number of games that do not impact the outcome of the tournament.
We see MSI as an opportunity to deliver more cross-region play and give fans a way to evaluate the relative strength of regions at the midway point of the season. To that end, we will be inviting more than one team from the historically more competitive regions (LCK, LPL, LEC, and LCS). We are also exploring how we can add more opportunities for cross-regional play in the 2024 season and beyond.
For Worlds, in addition to the general goals above, we looked at ways to make the Play-In Stage feel more impactful for the teams participating, and Groups to feel more open and less dependent on a draw or a small number of potential opponents.
Double Elimination vs. Single Elimination
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Probably the biggest question we’ve received around our international formats is the adoption of double elimination at MSI and Worlds. Overall, double elimination provides a number of benefits, including:
- “Fluke” correction
- The lower bracket run
- Eliminating variance, meaning that the eventual champion is more often viewed as the “better” team (and the two teams playing in the final are the undisputed top two teams)
- Delivering more distinct final placements. An eight-team double-elimination bracket will determine 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places, as well as pairs for 5th/6th and 7th/8th. Comparatively, a single-elimination bracket only results in a 1st and 2nd place finisher, but then has ties for 3rd-8th. In addition, more games create more head-to-head comparisons.
That being said, double elimination is not without its drawbacks in the League of Legends ecosystem, including:
- Lower stakes for upper-bracket matches
- Teams with a stronger record have no distinct advantage in the finals
- Double elimination significantly lengthens an event like Worlds
Double elimination can lower the stakes for upper-bracket matches and there is no effective way to give the team that runs the upper bracket a meaningful advantage in the finals. In a typical double elimination bracket, the team that emerges from the upper bracket plays fewer series, gets side selection, and often has more time to prepare. However, they do not get a second life in the finals or a game advantage. This can also result in a situation where the team with the better record loses the event. For example, if Team A beats Team B 3-0 in the upper finals, but then loses 3-2 in the Grand Finals, they would have an overall record of 5-3 and still lose. This can feel unfair to Team A and its fans.
Additionally, the number of games required to play out Worlds as a full double-elimination tournament would significantly lengthen an event that currently lasts close to six weeks. We want to generally stay within the current length of our events and do not want to play any simultaneous matches during these international tournaments. Teams work hard all season to get to MSI and Worlds, and we believe they deserve the full focus of the audience once they get there.
When we look at reasons to favor single elimination, they include:
- Higher stakes for every game and increased importance of short-term advantages (draft strategies, meta reads, coaching, etc). It allows a better prepared team with less mechanical or macro skill to win a series.
- Part of the beauty of our sport is that our meta evolves and changes over time, and as such, we believe that adapting to the meta is a core skill of professional LoL teams. Single elimination highlights this skill much more than double elimination.
- Single elimination is less predictable (for better or worse). Regions with fewer teams in the Knockout/Bracket Stages have a better chance to advance further in a tournament, which keeps more Cinderella storylines in play.
At the center of our discussion is the idea of variance. The more matches you add, the more variance you remove from the system. For example, the “better” team may not always win a best-of-1, but it is more likely to win a best-of-3 and even more likely to win a best-of-5. This central idea not only impacted our format discussions (i.e. when to use Bo1s or Bo5s) but also our discussions on double elimination and when and how to use it.
For our regional leagues, the top priority of their formats is to ensure that their strongest teams qualify for international events. That is why full double-elimination brackets were implemented in the LCS, LEC, LPL, and now the LCK. At a regional level, double elimination is an effective tool to solve for a strong team having a bad day or a weaker team having a good day. It helps neutralize short-term advantages (such as a surprise comp or a particularly good read on a meta) and favors all-around team strength in a competition.
For MSI and Worlds, there was a strong desire to leverage the benefits of double elimination while maintaining the excitement and high stakes that have become a hallmark of Worlds. For MSI, we believe that the benefits of regional comparison and additional matchups weigh heavily in favor of utilizing a full double-elimination bracket for the later stages of the competition. For Worlds, we are leveraging double elimination in the earlier stages of the tournament to give teams time to ramp into Worlds and are maintaining the high stakes “win or go home” Knockout Stage that has delivered such amazing stories over the past 10+ years.
MSI
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Over that time, with your support, Worlds has grown into the biggest event in esports. And since its inception in 2015, the Mid-Season Invitational has lived in that shadow. While MSI has succeeded in creating more international competition, we saw an opportunity to improve the event and better showcase additional cross-regional competition. To that end, we are increasing the number of slots for some regions from 1 to 2, and completely revamping the format.
As we thought through MSI, we focused on several fundamental pieces:
- Maintain full regional representation
- Invite more teams from the major four regions
- Eliminate games that could have no competitive stakes
- In service of evaluating the relative strength of regions, create more cross-regional match play at the likely risk of only having the largest four regions in bracket stage.
For MSI 2023, we will be inviting two teams each from the LCK (Korea), LPL (China), LEC (EMEA), and LCS (NA) and one team from CBLOL (Brazil), LLA (LATAM), VCS (Vietnam), PCS (Southeast Asia and Oceania), and LJL (Japan), for a grand total of 13 teams. The No. 1 seeds from the LCK, LPL, LEC, and LCS will start with a bye to the bracket phase, as will the second seed from the LCK as the reigning World Champions. The other eight teams will start in the Play-In Stage.
The Play-In Stage will consist of two groups of four teams, each playing a best-of-3, double-elimination bracket. The Play-Ins creates a field where the best team from the five smaller regions and the No. 2 seeds from the LPL, LCS, and LEC will fight for three spots. The two teams that go 2-0 in their groups will advance to the Bracket Stage. In this way, the most dominant teams will advance relatively quickly, allowing more competitive matches to continue. Based on the format, the two teams that go 0-2 and the two that finish 1-2 will be eliminated from MSI. The two teams that finish 2-1 and win the lower bracket in their group will play each other in a best-of-5 series, with the winner advancing to the Bracket Stage and the loser being eliminated. We believe this format will provide a much better sense of relative strength between and among the five smaller regions and will give the best of those regions the opportunity to square off in best-of-5 matches for a chance to enter the Bracket Stage.
The Bracket Stage of MSI is a full best-of-5 double elimination bracket, consisting of a total of 14 best-of-5 matches that will determine the champion of MSI. Along the way, we will see a big increase in the number of cross-regional, best-of-5 matches between some of the best teams in the world at the mid-season point.
The last detail for MSI is how the Play-In groups will be formed and how the Bracket Stage will be seeded. We’ll have more information to share as we get closer to the event.
Worlds
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For Worlds, we wanted to address some of the problems we saw with the current format:
- With 20+ teams at Worlds every year, we saw relatively few best-of matches
- There have been a good number of games at the end of round robin phases that had no competitive implications for at least one team (if not both)
- The Groups Stage is highly dependent on the group draw and narratives are often drawn around the “group of death” or the “group of life" rather than the teams and pros that have worked all year to get to Worlds
To address these issues, we focused on three specific goals:
- Ensure that every game has stakes
- Foster more cross-regional, best-of series
- Maximize the number of compelling match-ups
Over the past 10+ years, we have established Worlds as a high-stakes event where an unexpected change in momentum or a bad day can end a team’s season. We have seen the rise of our greatest teams and players who flourish under these conditions as well as incredible domination and amazing upsets. As we looked at new formats for Worlds, the one thing we kept coming back to was maintaining Worlds as the biggest and highest-stakes stage in esports. Lower bracket runs may be interesting additions to other esports (including other Riot esports), but once we hit the Knockout Stage, we believe Worlds should continue to require our champion to meet the challenge in front of them every day: wWin and continue, or lose and go home.
Additionally, we debated at length how we look at parity in the global competitive ecosystem, and whether any region should have four slots at Worlds. While we don’t want to put our thumb on the scale to create the illusion of parity, having a semifinals featuring only one region does not provide the global excitement that we are hoping for at Worlds. On the flip side, the LCK and LPL have proven their competitive strength year-in and year-out and, as DRX showed, peaking at the right time can mean more than what seed you were coming into Worlds.
To that end, starting this year, we will introduce the Worlds Qualifying Series. While the LCK and LPL will maintain their fourth seeds seed for 2023 due to their performance over the last two years, the LEC and LCS No. 4 seeds will play each other in a best-of-5 series, with the winner advancing to Worlds. This year, the WQS match will take place in NA, with the 2024 match anticipated to take place in EMEA. Details and schedules will follow, but the expectation is that the match will take place closely following the end of the regional season. This will create more cross-regional competition with stakes that fans have asked for, and we’ll use feedback and data from 2023 as we explore expanding the World Qualifying Series in the future.
For Play-Ins at Worlds, we are making some changes. The LPL and LCK will no longer participate in Play-Ins and will start all four of their seeds directly in the Groups phase. The LEC and LCS will be sending the winner of the WQS (i.e. the 4th seed) to Play-Ins, with their 1-3 seeds starting directly in Groups.
The remaining teams (VCS1 and VCS2, PCS1 and PCS2, CBLOL1, LLA1, LJL1 and the LEC/LCS 4 seed) will start in Play-Ins. These 8 teams will be split into two double-elimination brackets and will play through a series of best-of-3 matches. When each group has an upper-bracket winner and lower-bracket winner, we’ll play two final best-of-5 matches between the upper-bracket winner of each group and the lower-bracket winner of the other group. The winners of these two matches will join the other 14 teams in the Groups phase. We believe this will result in a more competitive Play-In Stage. We’ll continue to monitor relative regional strength into the future and will actively revisit this choice to ensure we are creating the most competitive Play-In Stage possible.
The second phase at Worlds is being completely reworked and will no longer feature groups. Instead, 16 teams will play up to five rounds of matches in a Swiss format, where teams with the same win-loss record will compete against each other until they achieve 3 wins or 3 losses. All matches that will either advance or eliminate a team will be best-of-3, and the remaining matches will be best-of-1.
In Round 1, each of the 16 teams will be randomly paired against an opponent from a region other than their own for a best-of-1 match. Round 2 will consist of another eight best-of-1 matches – four between the 1-0 teams and four between the 0-1 teams.
At the end of Round 2, four teams will be undefeated at 2-0, four will be winless at 0-2, and eight will have split their first two matches and be 1-1. For Round 3, the 1-1 teams will play best-of-1 matches. The four 2-0 teams will play best-of-3 matches with the winners advancing to the bracket stage, while the four 0-2 teams will also play best-of-3 matches, with the losers being eliminated and the winners living to fight on in Round 4.
When we get to Round 4, two teams will have advanced to the Bracket Stage and two will have been eliminated, leaving 12 teams remaining: six at 2-1 and six at 1-2. Each of the 2-1 teams will play each other in a best-of-3 with the three winners advancing to the bracket stage. We’ll also play three best-of-3 matches between the 1-2 teams, with the losing teams being eliminated from Worlds.
When we make it to Round 5, the six 2-2 teams remaining will play three high-stakes, best-of-3 matches, with the winners advancing to the bracket stage and the three losing teams bowing out of Worlds.
Overall, the Swiss Stage will feature a total of 33 matches, 20 Bo1s, and 13 Bo3s.
We’re excited to introduce the Swiss format to Worlds where every match matters for both opponents - there are no games that do not affect the outcome of the tournament. Additionally, this allowed us to add 13 best-of series to the event without sacrificing the excitement that comes from a day full of best-of-1s. Finally, given its dynamic re-seeding that only pits teams with equal records against each other, every team will have more winnable opportunities. No more “group of death” that leaves fans feeling like their team’s Worlds run has ended before it’s even begun.
Once the Swiss round is complete, eight teams will have advanced to the Knockout Stage, which will continue to be a best-of-5, single-elimination bracket that will play out across Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and the Final until we crown a World Champion!
Conclusion
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Delivering excitement to fans while creating a fair and balanced competitive environment for players and teams is our number one priority. We can’t wait to see these new formats in action and are excited for the community to share in the incredible moments that we expect these events will continue to deliver. As always, we’ll be awaiting your feedback and closely monitoring pro player, team, and fan sentiment as these events unfold to ensure that we are providing the best esports experiences possible this year and well into the future.
