The 2019 ''League of Legends'' World Championship was an

esports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

tournament for the

multiplayer online battle arena Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of Gamer, players compete on a structured battlefield, each controlling a single Player character, character with distinctive abilit ...

video game ''

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL'', commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 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 ''Warcraf ...

''. It was the ninth 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. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop ''League of Legends'' and went on to develop ...

. It was held from October 2, 2019, to November 10, 2019, in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Twenty four teams from 13 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. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

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South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

and

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Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

with twelve of those teams having to reach the main event via a play-in stage. "Phoenix" was the tournament's theme song, put together by Chrissy Costanza and Cailin Russo, while Blanke, Carpenter Brut, and 1788-L produced their own remix versions of "Phoenix". A virtual rap group named "True Damage" was unveiled by Riot Games during the ceremony, with Soyeon from

(G)I-dle I-dle (; stylized in all lowercase), formerly known as (G)I-dle (), is a South Korean girl group formed by Cube Entertainment in 2018. The group consists of five members: Miyeon, Minnie (singer), Minnie, Soyeon, Yuqi, and Shuhua. Originally a se ...

, Duckwrth,

Thutmose Thutmose (; also rendered Thutmoses, Thutmosis, Tuthmose, Tutmosis, Thothmes, Tuthmosis, Thutmes, Dhutmose, Djhutmose, Djehutymes, etc.) is an anglicization of the ancient Egyptian personal name ''dhwty-ms'', usually translated as "Born of the god ...

Keke Palmer Lauren Keyana "Keke" Palmer ( ; born August 26, 1993) is an American actress, singer, and television personality. She has received numerous accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards and nominations for a Daytime Emmy Award and a Screen Act ...

and

Becky G Rebbeca Marie Gomez (born March 2, 1997), known professionally as Becky G, is an American singer and actress. Born and raised in Inglewood, California, she first gained recognition in 2011 for her cover version, cover versions of popular song ...

representing the group as its human counterpart and in the live performance of their debut song, "Giants", in the finals.

Qualified teams

Based on the results of the

Mid-Season Invitational The Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) is an annual ''League of Legends'' international tournament hosted by Riot Games in the middle of years, since 2015. It is the second most important international ''League of Legends'' tournament aside from the ...

and the World Championship in the year prior, with the 2018 MSI victory of

Royal Never Give Up Royal Never Give Up (RNG) is a Chinese esports organization. It began as a professional ''League of Legends'' team named Royal Club competing in the ''League of Legends'' Pro League (LPL), the game's top level of competition in China. To refle ...

and 2018 Worlds victory of

Invictus Gaming Invictus Gaming (IG, sometime stylized as iG, zh, s=iG电子竞技俱乐部, l=iG Esports Club) is a Chinese multi-game esports organization founded in 2011 by businessman Wang Sicong. They are primarily known for their ''Dota 2'', ''League o ...

, the third seed team from China (LPL) will start in the group stage, replacing the third seed team from South Korea (LCK) that will now instead begin in the play-in stage. Due to the merger of Latin America North's and Latin America South's professional leagues into a single league (LLA) and the results of the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational, Vietnam (VCS) will have a direct spot in the group stage for the summer champions and an additional spot in the play-in stage for the summer runner-up, the same format used in 2017 Worlds. The summer champions of Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau (LMS) have also been dropped to pool #2.

Venues

were the three cities chosen to host the competition.

Play-in stage

* Venue: LEC Studio, Berlin, Germany.

Groups

* Date and time: October 2–5, began at 13:00 CEST (UTC+02:00) in the first leg and 12:00 in the second. * Twelve teams are drawn into four groups, with three teams in each group. * Double round robin, all matches are best-of-one. * If teams have same win–loss record and head to head, they will play a tie-breaker match for first or second-place. * The top two teams of each group advance to the second round. The third-place team is eliminated. ;Group A ;Group B ;Group C ;Group D

Knockouts

* Eight teams are drawn randomly into a single-elimination match, with first-place teams of each group facing second-place teams of another group. * All matches are best-of-five. * The first-place team chooses the side for all odd-numbered games, while the second-place team chooses the side of even-numbered games. * The winner advances to the main event group stage as pool #3.

Group stage

* Venue: Verti Music Hall, Berlin, Germany * Date: October 12–20. * Sixteen teams are drawn into four groups with four teams in each group. 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, a tiebreaker match is played for first or second place. * The top two teams of each group advance to the knockout stage. The bottom two teams are eliminated. ;Group A ;Group B ;Group C ;Group D

Knockout stage

* 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 all odd-numbered games, while the second-place team chooses the side of even-numbered games. * Teams from same group will be on opposite sides of the bracket, meaning they cannot play each other until the Finals.

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Final

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

External links

2019 World Championship Rules
{{League of Legends League of Legends World Championship 2019 multiplayer online battle arena tournaments The Game Awards winners Esports competitions in France Esports competitions in Germany Esports competitions in Spain