The 2021 ''League of Legends'' World Championship was an

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tournament for the

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League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...

''. It was the eleventh iteration of the ''League of Legends'' World Championship, an annual international tournament organized by the game's developer,

Riot Games Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop ''League of Legends'' and went on t ...

. The tournament was held from 5 October to 6 November in

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. Twenty two teams from 11 regions qualified for the tournament based on their placement in regional circuits such as those in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

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South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

and

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with ten of those teams having to reach the main event via a play-in stage. Edward Gaming (EDG) of the LPL (China) won the overall tournament after beating DWG KIA of the LCK (South Korea) 3–2 on 6 November 2021. "Burn It All Down" was the tournament's theme song, put together by

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, CIFIKA, Besomorph, and

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Impact of coronavirus on the tournament

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2021 Mid-Season Invitational The 2021 Mid-Season Invitational was the sixth Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), a Riot Games-organised tournament for ''League of Legends'', a multiplayer online battle arena video game. The tournament was the culmination of the 2021 Spring Spli ...

COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam The COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. The number of confirmed cases is the highest total in Southeast Asia, and the 13th highest in the world. Hanoi is the most affected locale with 1,609,473 ...

2020 event

Venue

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Play-in stage

Play-in groups

* Date and time: October 5–7, began at 11:00 UTC. * Ten teams are drawn into two groups, with five teams in each group. * Single round robin, all matches are best-of-one. * If teams have same win–loss record at the end of play-in groups,

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matches are played. A two-way tie is not broken by the results of the head-to-head game those teams played, however the team that won in the head-to-head gets side selection in the tiebreaker game. * The top team automatically qualifies for the Main Event, while 2nd to 4th-place of each group advance to the play-in knockouts and 2nd-place receive a bye to match 2. The bottom team is eliminated.

Group A

Group B

Play-in knockouts

* Date and time: October 8–9 * King of the hill format with two branch. The 3rd-place teams from the group stage facing 4th-place teams from the same group in match 1. Winner will play against with the 2nd-place team from other group in match 2. * Single-elimination. All matches are best-of-five. * The upper-place team chooses the side for all odd-numbered games, while the lower-place team chooses the side of even-numbered games. * The winners of the match 2 in each branch advances to the main event group stage.

Branch A2-B3-B4

= Match 1

= * Date: October 8, 11:00 UTC

= Match 2

= * Date: October 9, 11:00 UTC

Branch B2-A3-A4

= Match 1

= * Date: October 8, 16:00 UTC

= Match 2

= * Date: October 9, 16:00 UTC

Group stage

* Date and time: October 11–18, began at 11:00 UTC. * Sixteen teams are drawn into four groups with four teams in each group based on their seeding. Teams of the same region cannot be placed in the same group. * Double round robin, all matches are best-of-one. * If teams have the same win–loss record and head-to-head record, tiebreaker matches are played for first or second place. If more than 2 teams, tiebreaker placement is based on the combined times of teams' victorious games. * Top two teams will advance to Knockout Stage. Bottom two teams are eliminated.

Group A

Cloud9, FunPlus Phoenix and Rogue were in a three-way-tie for second place at the end of the group stage. Because all three teams had a tied record (1–1) with the other two, placement in the subsequent tiebreaker matches was determined by the combined game time of each team's wins. Cloud9 was awarded a bye to the second tiebreaker match for having the shortest total game time.

Group B

Group C

Group D

All four teams in Group D were tied at the end of the group stage due to each team having a tied record (1–1) with the other three. The bracket of the subsequent tiebreaker matches was determined by the combined game time of each team's wins, with LNG Esports (shortest total time) facing MAD Lions (longest total time) and Team Liquid facing Gen.G in the first two matches. The losers were eliminated, while the winners qualified for the knockout stage and faced each other to decide the first and second place teams of the group.

Knockout stage

* Date and time: 22 October–6 November, time for all matches 12:00 UTC. * Eight teams are drawn into a single elimination bracket. * All matches are best-of-five. * The first-place team of each group is drawn against the second-place team of a different group. * The first-place team chooses the side for the first games, loser of the previous game chooses the side for the next game. * Teams from same group will be on opposite sides of the bracket, meaning they cannot play each other until the Finals.

Quarter-finals

* The winner(s) will advance to the semi-finals.

Match 1

* Date: 22 October

Match 2

* Date: 23 October

Match 3

* Date: 24 October

Match 4

* Date: 25 October

Semi-finals

* The winner(s) advanced to the Finals.

Match 1

* Date: 30 October

Match 2

* Date: 31 October

Finals

* Date: 6 November * The members of the winning team will lift the Summoner's Cup, earning their title as the League of Legends 2021 World Champions.

Ranking

Team ranking

* (*) Not include tie-break games.

Regional ranking

* The win-ratio is determined by number of won games compared the number of games played. * Bracket stage wins are prioritized. * (*) Does not include tiebreaker games.

Notes

References

{{League of Legends League of Legends World Championship 2021 multiplayer online battle arena tournaments The Game Awards winners

Impact of coronavirus on the tournament

Qualified teams and rosters

Qualified teams

Rosters

Venue

Play-in stage

Play-in groups

Group A

Group B

Play-in knockouts

Branch A2-B3-B4

= Match 1

= Match 2

Branch B2-A3-A4

= Match 1

= Match 2

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Knockout stage

Quarter-finals

Match 1

Match 2

Match 3

Match 4

Semi-finals

Match 1

Match 2

Finals

Ranking

Team ranking

Regional ranking

Notes

References