The League of Legends World Championships enters its seventh edition in 2017 and the best teams from the different continents accept Riot’s invitation to compete. Over the past six years, prize money of around $13,000,000 has been played out, with the first tournament starting small with a prize purse of $99,000. In subsequent years, the tournament series grew with the game and prize money reached a high of US$5,000,000 in 2016.
While SK Telecom T1 is the record champion, only one European team has been able to win. Fnatic won the first League of Legends World Championship and has been one of the biggest teams in League of Legends ever since.
Tournament format of the LoL Word Championships
A total of 16 teams will compete in the World Championships, coming from different continents. In addition to the European teams, which get three seats in the tournament along with South Korea, China and Taiwan/Hong. North America, South America, Brazil, Japan, Turkey Southeast Asia and Russia will only receive one seat and can earn another through the play-in stage.
Play will then take place in four groups, with the top two teams from each group qualifying for the knockout round. Teams are assigned to groups and then play exclusively against their group opponents. Afterwards, the first-place teams will face off against the second-place teams in the knockout rounds and play out the spots for the semifinals in a best-of-five mode.
The next League of Legends World Championships
League of Legends World Championships 2017
- In 2017, the tournament will be held on Chinese soil for the first time. The stadiums in Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing will be packed and the fans will create a great atmosphere.
- The tournament will start with the play-in phase already on 23.09.2017, while the group phase will start on 05.10.2017 and the final will drag on until 04.11.2017.
- Currently, the prize money is set at 2,100,000 US dollars. However, fan revenue and sponsorship money will be added to this and thus the prize money will be close to the four million US dollar mark.
- The field of participants of the play-in stage: Team WE – Gambit.CIS – Lyon Gaming – Cloud9 – Team oNe eSports – LG Dire Wolves – Fnatic – Young Generation – Kaos Latin Gamers – HK Attitude – 1907 Fenerbahçe – Rampage – Four more teams will qualify for the group stage from the play-ins.
- Already qualified for the group stage: Longzhu Gaming – EDward Gaming – G2 eSport – Flash Wolves – SK Telecom T1 – Samsung Galaxy – Royals Never Give Up – Team SoloMid – Misfits – Immortals – ahq e-Sports Club – GIGABYTE Marines.
A preview of the biggest LoL tournament 2017
Already in the group stage, there are some exciting matches lined up that will provide a lot of action and also may already highlight a favorite. A short outlook into the groups already set up, without taking the play-in stage into account:
- Group A – EDward Gaming – SK Telecom T1 – ahq e-Sports Club – While ahq is the clear underdog, SKT1 will surely be able to prevail as the group winner and also has the lowest odds to win the tournament overall.
- Group B – Longzhu Gaming – Immortals – GIGABYTE Marines – Here it will be much more exciting, whereby Longzhu, after a top performance in the LCK and the final victory over the reigning champion SKT1, is considered the favorite in this group and also has the best chances of overall victory in our eyes.
- Group C – G2 eSports – Samsung Galaxy – Royal Never Give Up – For the European team G2 this is a tough challenge and it remains to be seen if they can secure the second place after Samsung Galaxy.
- Group D – Flash Wolves – Misfits – Team SoloMid – The second European team also has a tough task and it comes to the top duel with the North American team SoloMid. The Flash Wolves already showed in the last years that they prepare excellently for the tournament and usually do very well.
Betting on the League of Legends World Championship 2017
In our League of Legends match report, you get a very good overview, of bookmakers that deal with this tournament. However, since eSports seems to be growing unstoppably, almost every well-known bookmaker will offer a bet. In the betting provider comparison section, you will find bookmakers that offer a bonus and thus provide an exciting experience with high betting stakes.
What betting options are offered to bettors?
In advance, this question is difficult to answer, nevertheless, standard bets are offered and bookmakers that focus on eSports will additionally provide an extended betting offer. The following bets are offered:
- Winner and loser bets
- Group winner bets
- Tournament winner bets
- Over and under bets aimed at cards and kills
- Which team will reach the final
- Region of the overall winner
- Which team scores the most kills in the current match?
- Which team will score the first kill
- More bets can be taken from bookmakers already now
- View bets live to watch the match action and find another bet to place
As every year, Riot will provide live coverage of each match and make it available on the League of Legends website. Furthermore, especially for German viewers, there will be the possibility to tune in on Twitch.tv. SummonersInn, for example, will also broadcast every game of the tournament in German. If you listen closely, you will usually have the chance to place a bet. Ex-pros and analysts accompany the games with their voice and not infrequently give an assessment of the teams, which results in a bet.
Even after the first group games, there is still the chance to bet on the overall winner. So if a team performs very well in the group stage and seems to march unstoppably through the tournament, a bet on this team is worthwhile.
