Due to the Covid19 pandemic, Riot Games, in recent weeks, posted new rules for its events, with particular reference to the LoL 2020 world championship: its closing event of the season.
Riot Games (an American video game developer, one of the most recognized and active for the organization of eSports events, famous for its most successful game League on Legends, has suspended Mid Season Invitational and Pacific Championship Series (league obtained in this off-season after the merger between LoL Master Series and Southeast Asia Tour) due to the anti-contagion procedures.
“With this model plus the contribution of health authorities, local administrations, leagues and regional teams, travel experts and other stakeholders, we have made the difficult decision not to hold MSI in 2020,” Riot said in a note about Mid… “We believe this decision was necessary to ensure the health and safety of the players, teams, crew, partners, media and fans.”
The absence of these important qualifying events for the LoL 2020 World Championship has led Riot to make numerous changes to its regulation, in particular with regards to the allocation of regional seeds.
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ABOUT LEAGUE OF LEGENDS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
League of Legends World Championship is the annual eSport tournament organized by Riot Games at the end of each season.
The teams involved compete to win the coveted trophy (a 32Kg heavy cup called the Summoner’s Cup – pictured) and a cash prize of one million dollars.
This event is followed by over 60 million people every year and offers a large number of ceremonies, shows and commemorative moments.
The League of Legends world championship is a great success and is one of the most prestigious and seen tournaments in the world. The tournament is known for its annual rotation of venues in several countries and continents, particularly in Eastern Asia, Europe, North America and Southeast Asia.
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In a statement on the League of Legends blog, Riot explains the changes for seeds reserved for the qualified teams of each region in which the competitive universe of LoL is divided.
“To account for the absence of MSI, as well as the merger between LMS and LST,” Riot said in the post, “we will implement several changes to the amount of teams that each region will deploy to the Worlds.”
The post also reveals that both the Chinese Pro League (LPL) and European Championship (LEC) will be able to bring four teams to the final. The VCS (Vietnam), on the other hand, will receive an additional seed by default, bringing its participating teams to two.
In summary, China and Europe got one more seed per head while the PCS was reduced to two seeds after the merger. In 2019 the LMS had three seeds and Southeast Asia had one. In 2020, one of the phases of the LMS group was delivered to Europe and the seed previously held by Southeast Asia in the play-in phase was given to China.
Worlds 2020 will feature 24 teams in total and not 16 as usual:
LPL (China), LEC (Europe), LCK LCK (Korea, which will switch to the franchise format from next year): 4 teams;
LCS (North America): 3 teams;
PCS (Southeast Asia), VCS (Vietnam): 2 teams;
CBLOL (Brazil), TCL (Turkey), LJL (Japan), LLA (Latin America), OPL (Oceania), LCL (Commonwealth of Independent States): 1 team.
With this new format and an extra team in competition, will China and Europe manage to conquer the coveted title?
Recall that the SK Telecom T1 team (South Korea) holds the record of tournaments won, with 3 wins (2013, 2015 and 2016) and therefore they start as favorites also in this edition.
Who will win the League of Legends World Championship – 2020 edition?
These League of Legends eSports odds, and the graph below, could help us better understand the overall picture of this season and forecasts pending the official event.
