LoL Worlds 2023 location, format, past winners, and more

It’s the climax of the League of Legends calendar. It’s one of the most-watched events in all of esports. It is, of course, the League of Legends World Championship, and LoL Worlds 2023 is gearing up to be the biggest edition of the tournament yet.

LoL Worlds sees the planet’s best professional League of Legends teams of the year battle it out to become world champions, and it’s a gruelling, three-stage event that usually takes over a month to play out. In 2022, it was South Korea’s DRX that was crowned League of Legends world champion, but who will lift the Summoner’s Cup for LoL Worlds 2023?

If you’re looking to find out more about this year’s competition, we’ve got all the details for you, including the LoL Worlds 2023 location, format, and much more.

When is LoL Worlds 2023?

LoL Worlds 2023 will take place at the end of this year’s League of Legends esports season. Dates are yet to be confirmed, but the event usually begins in either the last week of September or first week of October, and wraps up in early November.

LoL Worlds 2023 location

LoL Worlds 2023 will take place in South Korea, making it the second time the Asian nation has hosted the competition. We’re yet to find out exact host cities or venues, but Riot tends to host each stage of the tournament in different places to take LoL Worlds on a mini tour of the host nation.

LoL Worlds 2023 format

Riot Games has made some significant changes to the format for LoL Worlds 2023, which now includes fewer best-of-one matches and an all-new Swiss-style group stage.

You can find out more details about the format changes for LoL Worlds (and also Riot’s other premium LoL tournament, MSI) in this article, or by watching the video below.

LoL Worlds 2023 teams

For LoL Worlds 2023, there will be a total of 22 teams competing from nine regions. Each region has a pre-determined number of teams that can qualify for LoL Worlds, based on the size and success of that region.

Each region’s qualification methods differ slightly, but the main ways to qualify for LoL Worlds are to win the Summer Split (the second half of the season) or to have accrued the most points across both Spring and Summer Splits.

2023 will also introduce the Worlds Qualifying Series (WQS), which pits the fourth-seed teams from the LEC and LCS against one another for the 22nd and final spot at Worlds.

Here’s the seeding for LoL Worlds 2023:

Play-In stage:

• VCS (Vietnam) – top two teams
• PCS (Southeast Asia) – top two teams
• LJL (Japan) – one team
• CBLOL (Brazil) – one team
• LLA (Latin America) – one team
• Winner of the WQS – one team

Swiss-stage:

• LCK (Korea) – top four teams
• LPL (China) – top four teams
• LEC (Europe) – top three teams
• LCS (North America) – top three teams

Who has won League of Legends Worlds?

The current League of Legends Worlds champion is LCK team DRX, although the roster that lifted the Summoner’s Cup in 2022 largely disbanded ahead of the 2023 season.

DRX toplaner Hwang ‘Kingen’ Seong-hoon was crowned 2022 Finals MVP.

Historically, T1 (previously SK Telecom) is the most successful team of all-time with three LoL Worlds titles.

These are the teams that have won the League of Legends World Championship:

That’s everything you need to know about League of Legends Worlds ahead of this year’s tournament in South Korea. If you fancy having a go at some competitive League yourself, check out our LoL ranks guide for all the info you need to get going.