KT Rolster won the Worlds 2025 Finals coin toss and chose Blue Side for Game 1 against T1. KT currently has a 100% win rate on this side in these Worlds, with six wins, while T1 shows a 73% win rate on the Red Side, winning eleven out of fifteen games. Side selection is a crucial step, especially at the start of a BO, as the draft phase takes place and the most contested picks are fought over.

At the start of the year, some leagues like the LPL and the LCP turned side selection into a real gameplay moment, using 1v1s on the ARAM map to decide who would choose the side. However, this practice was not adopted internationally and was even abandoned by the LPL during the Summer Split. The LCP added a bit more fun by limiting the number of champions based on the season’s region themes, but for the Worlds, the Coin Toss is used.

The importance of side selection

At Worlds 2025, the meta, picks, and bans are very clear and quite similar for everyone. Let’s start with KT Rolster: when they’re on the Blue Side, Gwak "Bdd" Bo-seong is often targeted, with his Ryze and Azir being banned—but never more than 45% of the time. Overall, these are the two champions opponents most frequently remove against KT. Conversely, when KT is on Blue Side, they often ban Qiyana and Yunara. An important point: KT rarely ban Azir on any side, believing that Bdd can handle it well and find a good counter with Orianna or Taliyah.

For T1, the champion no one lets them play is Bard, with a 73% ban rate. Poppy is also frequently banned on the Red Side, being formidable in flex picks in the hands of Mun "Oner" Hyeon-jun or Ryu "Keria" Min-seok. T1 themselves often ban Yunara, clearly not wanting to play against it, while Orianna and Azir complete the top three bans, given the number of games T1 has played on Red Side.

A balanced Worlds

Worlds 2025 are very well balanced so far. Out of 79 games in total, 40 were won on the Blue Side versus 39 on the Red Side. The fearless draft is a factor that contributes greatly to this balance. Even though at the start of a series, as long as the highest-priority meta picks are available, the Blue Side is favored, the fact that champions become unavailable after each game significantly reduces this impact.

This was clearly seen in the last game between T1 and Anyone’s Legend, where the picks no longer made much sense, as shown by Oner’s Dr. Mundo, played for the first time competitively, learning the abilities during the draft phase—something that could never happen at the start of a BO or without a fearless draft. Side selection can therefore be important in short BOs, but it doesn’t seem likely to matter for Sunday’s Telecom War, as both teams are at a high level and in sync.