Participants are defined through the leagues of nine regions, with South Korea and China being the countries with the largest number of representatives and which have not disputed the world championship since the beginning. Worlds 2023 has three stages: entry, Switzerland and playoffs.
- JD Gaming (LPL – China)
- Bilibili Gaming (LPL – China)
- LNG Esports (LPL – China)
- Weibo Gaming (LPL – China)
- Cloud9 (LCS – North America)
- NRG (LCS – North America)
- 1 CBLOL seat – Brazil
- 4 LCK slots – South Korea
- 3 EMEA slots – Europe
- 1 LCS slot – North America
- 2 PCS slots – Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Southeast Asia
- 2 vacancies from VCS – Vietnam
- 1 LJL seat – Japan
- 1 seat at LLA – Latin America
- 1 place in the Ranking Series
- JD Gaming (LPL’s #1 seed – China)
- Bilibili Gaming (LPL #2 seed – China)
- LNG Esports (LPL #3 seed – China)
- Weibo Gaming (LPL #4 seed – China)
*There are ranked teams that have not yet been seeded
The entry phase, in which the Brazilian representative starts, will be held from October 10th to 15th, at LOL Park, the studio where the LCK matches, the South Korean LoL league, are played in Seoul.
The Swiss stage will take place from October 19th to 23rd and from October 26th to 29th at KBS Arena in Seoul.
Quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled to take place at Sajik Indoor Gymnasium in Busan. Wednesdays will be from November 2nd to 5th and semis will be on November 11th and 12th
The final will take place on November 19 at the Gocheok Sky Dome, which is the largest indoor venue in South Korea and home to Seoul’s baseball team, the Kiwoom Heroes.
The entry phase will start with eight teams, two from Vietnam, two from PCS, the champions from CBLOL, Latin America and Japan and the winner of the Ranked Series played between the #4 seeds from EMEA and North America.
This means that South Koreans and Chinese will no longer compete in the first phase, in which representatives from emerging regions or the worst ranked teams from the main international LoL scenarios participate. Their presence left China and South Korea in the entry phase for the championship sequence, which provoked criticism from the community for taking away the opportunity from other teams.
The eight teams will be divided into two double elimination brackets and will face each other in best-of-three series (md3). With the winners of the upper and lower brackets defined, there will be md5 clashes opposing the winner of the upper bracket of one group with the winner of the lower bracket of the other group. The winners of these two series will advance and join 14 other teams in the Swiss stage.
In this second phase, which will no longer have groups and will be completely reformulated, the 16 teams will face each other in the Swiss format, which provides that teams with the same campaign face each other in each round. Those who reach three wins qualify and those who add three defeats are eliminated. The clashes for classification or elimination will be md3 and the others, md1.
In the first round, there will be a drawing of clashes, with a team obligatorily facing another from a different region. From then on, in the following rounds, the duels will be determined according to the teams’ campaign. In the second round, teams with a 1-0 campaign face each other, while those with 0-1 also play each other.
Eight teams will move from the Swiss stage to the playoffs, which will continue to be played with md5 clashes and single elimination, that is, without upper and lower brackets, until the champion is defined.
