2025 LoL Worlds knockouts are here: Who's the betting favorite?
The teams qualified for the 2025 LoL Worlds knockout stage have finally been settled, but which should be considered the betting favorite to win it all?
The 2025 League of Legends World Championship is easily the biggest competitive LoL tournament of the year. After passing through qualifying and a hotly-contested Swiss Stage, eight teams will now duke it out in a single-elimination bracket to determine the ultimate victor.
Considering the knockout stage for this year’s Worlds includes both powerhouse teams and some unlikely contenders who many didn’t think would reach this point, siding with a team is harder than ever. These are our betting favorites to win as the 2025 LoL Worlds knockouts commence.
2025 LoL Worlds playoffs favorites
Gen.G
Gen G. Image source: LoL Esports
Gen.G has easily been the strongest team in 2025, and that will be reflected in the squad’s betting odds, as Gen.G will be the favorite so long as it remains alive in the 2025 LoL Worlds playoffs. While the team’s initial start to the year was shaky at best and led to it failing to qualify for First Stand, the team has bounced back better than ever. A massive winning streak continued through much of the year as Gen.G won this year’s Mid-Season Invitational and Esports World Cup in a dominant fashion.
The team’s performance in the Swiss Stage at Worlds was decent. A loss to Anyone’s Legend was surprising, but Gen.G comfortably beat PSG Talon, 100 Thieves, T1, and Top Esports to qualify for the knockout stage. The team will face Hanwha Life Esports in the quarterfinals, a regional rival from the LCK who it has defeated in multiple domestic matches throughout the year.
This track record and the confidence its players will have make Gen.G a strong favorite to win not only in the first round of knockouts, but throughout the playoffs at the League of Legends World Championship, potentially culminating in the team raising the trophy at the end as we predicted in our event preview.
Top Esports
Top Esports. Image source: LoL Esports
Top Esports had a fairly strong start to the year when it won the 2025 LPL’s first split. But its performance at First Stand left much to be desired, and the team continued to drop after that while failing to qualify for MSI or EWC. Its biggest recent accomplishment was when it finally got its bearings straight and won the 2025 LPL regional finals, booking a ticket to Worlds.
Top Esports is now arguably set to go against the easiest team of the bunch in the quarterfinals, facing top LEC seed G2 Esports. TES impressed many by defeating BLG in the Swiss Stage to qualify for the playoffs, and it has already defeated G2 in that same stage. With one potentially easy win out of the way, Top Esports should have a very real chance to find success in the 2025 LoL Worlds knockouts.
Anyone’s Legend
Anyone’s Legend. Image source: LoL Esports
It wouldn’t be far-fetched to call Anyone’s Legend the biggest anomaly in this tournament’s Swiss Stage. The team hasn’t really impressed much at a domestic level, occasionally losing against teams it otherwise should have won against. International tournaments have been a different case entirely, as AL cracked the top three at both MSI and the EWC, winning against some of the world’s strongest sides along the way.
AL’s win against Gen.G in the Swiss Stage cemented it as a potential favorite to win the trophy in China. Having previously defeated T1, the team has already beaten an LCK team at the recent EWC event in a best-of-three series, and winning again here may propel it to a semifinals match where it would face G2 or TES. AL would be the favorite in either match and it could certainly defeat either team based on its performance. If AL does exactly that and finds itself in the grand finals, anything could happen from there.
2025 LoL Worlds playoffs underdog pick
CTBC Flying Oyster. Image source: LoL Esports
CTBC Flying Oyster figures to be among the biggest underdog picks in the 2025 LoL Worlds playoffs across most esports betting sites. There’s no getting around that fact. But while the odds figure to be against CFO through the remainder of its run at this event, this team has a real shot at shocking both its opponents and the legions of fans watching the event play out.
CFO went into the Swiss stage as an underdog as well, but managed to break through in a way that few teams from its region ever have on the international stage. The team went uncontested in every domestic LCP split, and while its performance in the three international tournaments it competed in this year wasn’t anything to write home about, CFO continued to improve its craft while building up to its excellent performance in the Worlds Swiss Stage.
CTBC Flying Oyster will face KT Rolster in the quarterfinals. Considering that KT is perhaps the most unreliable team in the knockout stage, CFO could cause an upset against the LCK side and proceed further into the tournament.
CFO’s greatest strength is its unpredictability, which played a large role in its defeat of T1 in the Swiss Stage. Taking advantage of this element of surprise could make CFO a threat to KT Rolster, and if CFO finds its way into the semifinals, any team standing as the betting favorite in the knockouts stage at 2025 Worlds will need to watch out.
Feature image credit: LoL Esports
Hannan Mundia is a lifelong gamer. Don’t believe us? Just ask him. But don’t ask how many hours he’s spent playing. He’s been gaming since the age of three, and much of his live revolves around video games and the video game industry. Whether it’s a classic Legend of Zelda game from Nintendo, the newest Bethesda RPG, or something else entirely, you can bet that Hannan is ready and willing to play it.
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