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

When is LoL Worlds 2023? 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 the MOBA game's 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 begin on October 10, 2023 and will conclude on November 19, 2023. This continues the tournament's tradition of taking place at the end of this year's League of Legends esports season. 

Kicking off the proceedings, the Play-In Stage will take place from October 10-15. Following that is the Swiss Stage, which is split between two stretches - October 19-23, and October 26-29.

Heading into November's knockout stages, the Quarterfinals last from November 2-5, and the Semifinals November 11-12. Finally, the Final will see out the tournament on November 19.

The timetable for this year's tournament is slightly later than usual, due to the Asian Games not concluding until October 8. Needless to say, it's going to be a bit of a tight turnaround for representatives taking part in the Play-Ins stage.

LoL Worlds 2023 location

LoL Worlds 2023 will take place in South Korea, in the following locations:

• Play-In Stage - LoL Park, Seoul
• Swiss Stage - KBS Arena, Seoul
• Quarterfinals - Sajik Indoor Gymnasium, Busan
• Semifinals - Sajik Indoor Gymnasium, Busan
• Final - Gocheok Sky Dome, Seoul

The final of League of Legends Worlds 2023 will take place in Seoul's Gocheok Sky Dome stadium, which has a capacity of up to 25,000 spectators for live events.

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, the Mid-Season Invitational) 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. Have fun, Summoner.