LoL Worlds 2018: background and expectations

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League of Legends is the most popular esports discipline in the world. Autumn yearly transforms in the period of new records and new achievements for esports because of annual Worlds. The main tournament of the year is going to begin shortly so we decided to sum up the results of the season.

The most popular league has always been the Chinese league — it always gathers millions of viewers. LPL Summer 2018 was more than 2.5 times more popular than LPL Summer 2017, however, it totaled less than LPL Spring Playoff 2018. Three Chinese teams are going to join Worlds 2018: Royal Never Give Up, Invictus Gaming and Edward Gaming.

The Korean LCK Summer 2018 as always took the second place and it also became 2.5 more popular compared to last year. Sadly but the legendary and the most famous team in the world, SK Telecom T1, is going to skip Worlds 2018. Nevertheless, all popular matches were with SK Telecom T1. Three teams will join the tournament: kt Rolster, Afreeca Freecs and Gen.G. It is important to understand that Gen.G knocked out Faker and his teammates from Worlds 2018. That is why Gen.G has to meet the expectations and prove that it wasn’t the accident.

NA LCS has always been the most popular league in the western region. NA LCS Summer 2018 was a disappointment for the most popular team in the US — Team SoloMid. Cloud9 knocked out TSM from the race for a ticket to the main tournament of the year, that is why NA LCS 2018 was a little less popular than last year's league, but the fall is not that critical. There will be three teams from North America at Worlds 2018: Team Liquid, 100 Thieves and Cloud9. The absence of TSM can reduce the number of viewers of the main tournament of the year.

The EU LCS often hides in the shadow of its American counterpart, but not this year. The most popular team of the region, Fnatic, performed greatly at the EU LCS Summer 2018 and got a ticket to Worlds 2018, in the same it made EU LCS Summer 2018 more popular NA LCS Summer 2018. Three teams from Europe are going to join the tournament: Fnatic, Team Vitality and G2 Esports.

Participants ofWorlds 2018:

Worlds 2018 will be held in South Korea in four cities: the play-off in Seoul, the quarter-finals in Busan, the semi-final in Gwangju and the finals in Incheon. Worlds is composed of three stages: the Play-In Stage, the Group Stage, and the Knockout Stage (Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals).

The tournament itself will start tomorrow, October 1. The Grand Final will be held on November 3. We have a huge expectation from the tournament — it must beat last year's record. The location of Worlds is quite comfortable to watch for the Chinese viewers, that is why if Chinese team will reach the final matches, Worlds 2018 can receive a lot of viewers.