League of Legends world championship dates announced

Riot Games has announced the dates for the upcoming World Championship.

In February it was revealed that the biggest League of Legends tournament of the year would be held in South Korea. The tournament kicks off on October 1 with the Play-In Stage, where 12 teams will be competing for the final four slots in the Group Stage.

The Play-In Stage will be played at the newly opened LoL Park in Jongno-gu, Seoul, a facility with a capacity for 500 spectators. This first step of the tournament is scheduled to end on October 7.

For the Group Stage, the World Championship is traveling southeast to Busan, where 16 teams will be competing starting on October 10. Busan is also hosting the quarterfinals from October 20 to October 27.

The semifinals are taking place to the southwest in Gwangju. The four teams left standing then will compete on October 27 and 28.

The year’s biggest event for League of Legends fans will come to an end on November 3 when a new champion raises the Summoner’s Cup at the Incheon Stadium in Incheon, Korea.

This year, Riot Games has decided to eliminate the second week of the Group Stage. Instead, the involved teams will be competing for eight consecutive days of play. The quarterfinals will then last two days instead of four.

Riot has argued that the decision to contract the schedule of play was made while taking the benefit of the teams into consideration, as the developer is looking to reduce the amount of time the teams and players must spend away from home in a foreign country.