Everything about League of Legends at Asian Games 2026: Formats, Dates, Teams...

Following the announcement that Japan, the host country of the 2026 Asian Games, will not participate in League of Legends, all the cards are back on the table, and no participants are officially confirmed yet. If the global event is scheduled to take place overall from September 19 to October 4, the exact dates of the LoL tournament have not yet been announced by the Olympic Council of Asia. While waiting for the official details of the competition, different national federations are currently preparing (or not) their teams for the event and for the qualification tournaments that will precede it.

The 2026 Asian Games, which will be held in Aichi Prefecture, whose capital is Nagoya, are a gathering that takes place every four years and, since 2018, has included esports alongside traditional sports such as basketball, judo, tennis, and fencing. For this 20th edition, the Games have scheduled eleven different titles, more or less well known, within the esports section.

Some of the more niche disciplines, Puyo Puyo Champions, Naraka: Bladepoint or Identity V, which mainly thrive in Asia, will share the spotlight for two weeks with League of Legends, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile.The lineup of games is completed by eFootball, Gran Turismo 7, Pokémon Unite and a “Competitive Martial Arts” team competition that groups Tekken, Street Fighter and King of Fighters into a single medal discipline.

After three days of competition in Kuala Lumpur from June 12 to 14, the League of Legends qualifier for the Asian Games 2026 has delivered its verdict and completed the list of eight nations qualified for the tournament in Japan. Already qualified through the previous edition, South Korea and Taiwan join the six teams emerging from the qualification stages. Among them, Vietnam and Hong Kong dominated the tournament, while India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia complete the final lineup.

According to information available on the reference wiki Leaguepedia, the Main Event is expected to take place over three days at the Aichi Expo near Nagoya, from September 29 to October 1, featuring a single-elimination bracket, along with a third-place match for the bronze medal.

On the participants’ side, South Korea has already confirmed its presence with the announcement of its coach. Kang “Hirai” Dong-hoon, formerly a coach for KT Rolster and Kingzone DragonX (the former name of DRX), will lead the national team, which won the 2022 edition ahead of Taiwan. Currently without a team, it is likely this lack of ties to any specific organization earned him the position, where he will have the difficult task of selecting the six players who will form the national roster. It is worth noting that Sheep Esports bases this number of six players on the previous two League of Legends tournaments at the Asian Games.

Among the favorites and expected contenders for medals, Taiwan, also known as Chinese Taipei in Olympic competitions, should also be present in Japan, along with Hong Kong, which has very recently confirmed its preparation. Among the smaller nations attempting to qualify is Kazakhstan, which has already named its roster and hopes to repeat its 2022 run by qualifying through the Central and South Asia qualifier.

As mentioned earlier and already known since last December, Japan, despite being the host nation of the Asian Games and holding a direct slot, will not participate in League of Legends. The announcement sparked a strong reaction within the Japanese community, which has been pushing to revive and bring Riot Games’ MOBA back into the spotlight in the country. Shunsuke "" Murase, toplaner for SoftBank Hawks in the LCP and likely the most well-known active Japanese player, expressed his disappointment on X at the time of the announcement, notably sharing his confusion: “I wonder why. I’d really like to know the reason.”

This marks a first for the third edition in which esports is included, as the host nation will not participate in the LoL tournament after Indonesia in 2018 and China in 2022 both took part in their respective editions. JeSU, the Japan eSports Union, quickly responded in a statement shared by the Japanese outlet gamespark, stating:

Japan is probably the biggest surprise among the non-participating countries, but it is clearly not the only one. Thailand, which has its own national league with the LTS, will not even attempt the qualification tournament. The same goes for Indonesia, which hosted the first appearance of esports at the event, as well as Malaysia, which had traveled to China in 2022 after winning the South Asia qualification tournament.

The information in this article will be updated in case of changes or new announcements from the different participating organizations or from the Olympic Council of Asia, which organizes the 2026 Asian Games.