LoL: The problem with the 2025 Worlds format

On October 14, League of Legends Worlds 2025 will begin with a best-of-five between two iconic LoL organizations, T1 and Invictus Gaming. One of these two teams, both the fourth seed from their respective regions, will not advance to the 2025 Worlds Main Stage. The Worlds format itself remains very strong and was even improved last year.

Introduced in 2023, the Swiss Stage has teams with the same record face each other until the qualified and eliminated teams are determined. In 2024, teams that had already faced each other could no longer meet again, resulting in fairer outcomes and greater diversity in matchups. The single-elimination knockout stage is also unique to Worlds, creating a “do or die” feeling at every step, which adds to the tournament’s appeal.

In my view, the issue with this format lies in the representativeness it offers. I’m not saying that weaker regions shouldn’t participate — the very concept of Worlds is to bring together teams from all over the globe, both to showcase the different metas and to engage fans by allowing as many people as possible to feel represented.

However, representativeness doesn’t have to be equal. In football, for example, stronger confederations send more nations to the World Cup: South America sends six or seven countries out of ten, while Asia, historically less competitive, sends only eight or nine out of 47 possible nations.

I believe the same principle should apply to League of Legends. The LCK and LPL, historically the strongest regions offering the highest level of play, should have more representatives in the tournament. Weaker regions would still be represented by their top teams, usually the first and second seeds, but beyond that, the teams are often much weaker.

For example, Fnatic at this Worlds is far from a favorite, yet they could reach the Main Stage — a stage that either T1 or IG will not reach due to the current format. In other words, one of these two regions will have as many seeds as the LEC, and LCP, despite having achieved far better results in recent editions, even for the LPL (runner-up in 2023–2024, semifinalist in 2022, and champion in 2021).

Following the critique of the format, I have a few proposals to improve it, with two solutions seeming the most logical. The first idea would be to simply increase the number of teams at Worlds, expanding to around twenty. This would allow not only the fourth seeds from the LPL and LCK to participate, but also make the event more exciting.

This year, several big names didn’t make it: Heo "ShowMaker" Su and Dplus KIA, Peng "XUN" Li-Xun and Kim "Peyz" Su-hwan with JD Gaming, and Weibo Gaming all failed to qualify. Other teams could have been interesting to watch — for example, BNK FearX, who had an excellent end of the year with Nam "Diable" Dae-geun — but with the Korean powerhouses dominating, the Rookie of the Year won’t get to compete.

The second solution would be to implement a coefficient system based on international performance over the past few years, allocating seeds accordingly. The LCK, having won the last two MSIs, the last three Worlds, and the first edition of the First Stand, would logically receive more representation at Worlds than the LEC, which hasn’t reached the knockout stage since Rogue in 2022.