All you need to know before Worlds next month

In just under two weeks, the biggest event in the League of Legends esports calendar will begin. 22 of the best League of Legends teams from around the globe will head to Hall A of the Laugardalshöll indoor sporting arena in Reykjavik, Iceland to compete in the League of Legends World Championships 2021.

Let’s take a look at the teams

There are two groups of teams that are heading to the event. 12 teams have already qualified for the group stages through their play at regional and qualifying tournaments. The 10 teams that qualified for the event but did not automatically gain access to the group stages will have to take part in the play-ins.

The play-in teams:

The play-in teams will be split into two groups. In those groups, they will duke it out in a best-of-one match. The top teams in both the groups will proceed to the group stages. A third team will also move on to the group stages after the second and third place teams compete against one another.

Group A:

• LNG Esports
• Cloud9
• Hanwha Life Esports
• Mega Bank Beyond Gaming

Group B:

• RED Canids Kalunga
• Galatasaray Esports
• Detonation FocusMe
• Infinity Esports
• Unicorns of Love
• PEACE

The group stage teams:

These team qualified for the event without having to compete in the play-ins. The winner of the play-ins will compete in the group stage but here are the 12 teams that have already qualified.

Group A:

• DWG KIA
• EDward Gaming
• PSG Talon
• MAD Lions

Group B:

• 100 Thieves
• FunPlus Phoenix
• G
• Fnatic

Group C:

• T1
• Rogue
• Royal Never Give Up
• Team Liquid

Other Worlds news

PEACE, the Australian team competing in the play-ins, have recently made a significant change to their roster for Worlds. Yao "Apii" Jian-Jing, their starting top laner was not able to travel to Iceland because he did not meet the eligibility criteria.

PEACE were left without a top laner, so they turned to Kiss "Vizicsacsi" Tamás. Vizicsacsi was the former top laner for major esports institutions and most recently led MAD Lions as their head coach. He will be temporarily replacing Apii for Worlds.

PEACE managed to snag a fantastic replacement. Vizicsacsi may not be the flashiest player in League of Legends, but he has fantastic leadershi9p skills. For a new team like PEACE, that could be just what they needed.

While G2 Esports may not be heading to Worlds, they are already gearing up for 2022. Sources have claimed that they are planning to make Martin "Wunder" Nordahl Hansen, Mihael "Mikyx" Mehle, and Fabian "GrabbZ" Lohmann available for buyout at the end of the season.

Wunder and Mikyx are G2 Esports top laner and support respectively and GrabbZ is their head coach. Nothing has been confirmed as of writing, but it looks like they want to restructure their team after a disappointing 2021 season.

This year’s event might be a step down from the grand plans that Riot announced prior to the spread of the Delta variant, but we are sure that there will be some fantastic matchups for us at this year’s League of Legends World Championships.

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