2019 League of Legends World Championship

The 2019 League of Legends World Championship was an esports tournament for the multiplayer online battle arena video game League of Legends. It was the ninth iteration of the League of Legends World Championship, an annual international tournament organized by the game's developer, Riot Games. It was held from October 2, 2019, to November 10, 2019, in Berlin, Madrid and Paris.^[2] Twenty four teams from 13 regions qualified for the tournament based on their placement in regional circuits such as those in China, Europe, North America, South Korea and Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau 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".^[3][4] A virtual rap group named "True Damage" was unveiled by Riot Games during the ceremony, with Soyeon from (G)I-dle, Duckwrth, Thutmose, Keke Palmer and Becky G representing the group as its human counterpart and in the live performance of their debut song, "Giants", in the finals.^[5]

Based on the results of the Mid-Season Invitational and the World Championship in the year prior, with the 2018 MSI victory of Royal Never Give Up and 2018 Worlds victory of Invictus Gaming, 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.^[6] 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.^[7]

Berlin, Madrid, Paris were the three cities chosen to host the competition.

• Venue: LEC Studio, Berlin, Germany.^[2]

The group stage took place from 2 to 5 October, with matches beginning at 13:00 CEST (UTC+02:00) for the first leg and 12:00 for the second. Twelve teams were drawn into four groups of three, with each group playing a double round-robin format and all matches contested as best-of-one. When teams finished with identical win–loss and head-to-head records, a tiebreaker match was held to determine first or second place. The top two teams from each group advanced to the second round, while the third-place team was eliminated.

• 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.

Source: Dot Esports

The group stage was held at the Verti Music Hall in Berlin from 12 to 20 October. Sixteen teams were drawn into four groups of four, with teams from the same region not permitted to be placed in the same group. The stage was played in a double round-robin format, with all matches contested as best-of-one. In cases where teams finished with identical win–loss and head-to-head records, a tiebreaker match was held to determine first or second place. The top two teams from each group advanced to the knockout stage, while the bottom two were eliminated.^[2]

The knockout stage featured eight teams drawn into a single-elimination bracket. All matches were contested as best-of-five series. Each first-place team from the group stage was matched against a second-place team from a different group. The first-place team selected the side for all odd-numbered games, while the second-place team chose the side for even-numbered games. Teams that had advanced from the same group were placed on opposite sides of the bracket, ensuring that they could not meet until the final.

• (*) Not include tie-break games.

• 2019 World Championship Rules