| 2020 League of Legends | |
| Game: | League of Legends |
| Location: | China |
| Start Date: | 25 September |
| End Date: | 31 October |
| Administrator: | Riot Games |
| Teams: | 22 |
| Champion: | Damwon Gaming |
| Runner-Up1: | Suning |
| Attendance: | Peak viewership: 46,067,896[1] |
| Mvp: | Kim "Canyon" Geon-bu (Damwon Gaming) |
| Previous: | 2019 |
| Next: | 2021 |
The 2020 League of Legends World Championship was an esports tournament for the multiplayer online battle arena video game League of Legends. It was the tenth iteration of the League of Legends World Championship, an annual international tournament organized by the game's developer, Riot Games. It was held from 25 September to 31 October in Shanghai, China.[2] Twenty-two teams from eleven regions qualified for the tournament based on their placement in regional circuits, such as those in China, Europe, North America, South Korea and Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau/Southeast Asia, with ten of those teams having to reach the main "groups" event via a play-in stage.
"Take Over" was the tournament's theme song, put together by Henry Lau, Max Schneider, and A Day to Remember's lead vocalist Jeremy McKinnon.[3]
The COVID-19 pandemic, which was mainly confined to China in January and early February 2020, affected the multi-city hosting format that was present previously. On 1 August, Riot Games announced the dates and location of the event, with all stages taking place in Shanghai through the use of an "isolation bubble" environment.[4]
In September 2020, Riot Games announced that due to travel restrictions, two teams from VCS of Vietnam would not participate in the tournament.[5]
During the 2020 Worlds Group Draw Show, it was revealed that PSG Talon's members "River" and "Tank" would be unable to attend the play-in stage due to delayed visas and quarantine issues,[6] and that Hsiao "Kongyue" Jen-tso and Chen "Uniboy" Chang-chu would be loaned from ahq eSports Club to replace them. The organization confirmed this in an official announcement the next day, and further stated that "Unified" would also be unable to participate in the first half of the play-in stage for the same reason. Chen "Dee" Chun-dee was loaned from Machi Esports to replace Unified.[7]
As the two Vietnamese teams (the Champion's Team Flash and Runner-up's GAM Esports of VCS Summer) are unable to participate, the third seed team from South Korea (LCK) will be promoted to start in the main group stage, as they were previously dropped to the play-in stage. The qualification format for North America and Europe changed with teams directly qualifying based on the results from their respective summer playoffs. Due to the merger of Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau (LMS) and the Southeast Asian (LST) professional leagues into a single league (PCS) and have been reduced number of Worlds' spots from 4 to 2, Europe (LEC) will have another direct spot in the group stage and China (LPL) will have an additional spot in the play-in stage for the regional finals runner-up.[8]
For the pool, the Main Group stage's pool #2 with 8 teams like as last year will be split to two pools #2 and pool #3, with 4 teams each pool. Qualified teams from Play-in stage will be drawn as pool #4. The Play-in stage's pool #3 in last year will be merged into pool #2, increased to 6 teams.[9]
| Region | League | Qualification Path | Team | ID | Pool |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Started from Group Stage | |||||
| China | LPL | Summer Champion |  Top Esports | TES | 1 |
| Most Championship Points | JD Gaming | JDG | 2 | ||
| Regional Finals Winner | Suning | SN | |||
| Europe | LEC | Summer Champion | G2 Esports | G2 | 1 |
| Summer Runner-Up | Fnatic | FNC | 2 | ||
| Summer 3rd Place | Rogue | RGE | 3 | ||
| South Korea | LCK | Summer Champion |  Damwon Gaming | DWG | 1 |
| Most Championship Points | DRX | DRX | 2 | ||
| Regional Finals Winner | Gen.G | GEN | 3 | ||
| North America | LCS | Summer Champion |  Team SoloMid | TSM | 1 |
| Summer Runner-Up | FlyQuest | FLY | 3 | ||
| TW/HK/MO/SEA | PCS | Summer Champion |  Machi Esports | MCX | 3 |
| Started from Play-in Stage | |||||
| China | LPL | Regional Finals Runner-Up | LGD Gaming | LGD | 1 |
| Europe | LEC | Summer 4th Place | MAD | ||
| North America | LCS | Summer 3rd Place | Team Liquid | TL | |
| TW/HK/MO/SEA | PCS | Summer Runner-Up |  PSG Talon | PSG | |
| CIS | LCL | Summer Champion |  Unicorns of Love | UOL | 2 |
| Latin America | LLA |  Rainbow7 | R7 | ||
| Turkey | TCL |  SuperMassive Esports | SUP | ||
| Brazil | CBLOL |  INTZ | ITZ | ||
| Japan | LJL |  V3 Esports | V3 | ||
| Oceania | OPL |  Legacy Esports | LGC | ||
Shanghai was the city chosen to host the competition.[10] Almost all matches were played at Shanghai Media Tech Studio without spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while the final match was held at Pudong Football Stadium.
| Shanghai, China | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Play-in Stage | Group Stage | Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | |
| Shanghai Media Tech Studio | Pudong Football Stadium | ||||
| Capacity: 0 | Capacity: 33,765 | ||||
| Place | Region | Team | PG | PK1 | PK2 | GS | QF | SF | Finals | Prize (%) | Prize (USD) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | LCK | Damwon Gaming | – | – | – | 5–1 | 3–0 | 3–1 | 3–1 | 25% | $556,250 | |
| 2nd | LPL | Suning* | – | – | – | 4–2 | 3–1 | 3–1 | 1–3 | 17.5% | $389,375 | |
| 3rd–4th | LEC | G2 Esports* | – | – | – | 4–2 | 3–0 | 1–3 | 9% | $200,250 | ||
| LPL | Top Esports | – | – | – | 5–1 | 3–2 | 1–3 | |||||
| 5th–8th | LEC | Fnatic | – | – | – | 4–2 | 2–3 | 4.5% | $100,125 | |||
| LPL | JD Gaming | – | – | – | 4–2 | 1–3 | ||||||
| LCK | DRX | – | – | – | 4–2 | 0–3 | ||||||
| LCK | Gen.G | – | – | – | 5–1 | 0–3 | ||||||
| 9th–11th | LPL | LGD Gaming* | 1–3 | 3–0 | 3–0 | 3–3 | 2.5% | $55,625 | ||||
| LCS | FlyQuest | – | – | – | 3–3 | |||||||
| LCS | Team Liquid* | 3–1 | – | – | 3–3 | |||||||
| 12th | PCS | PSG Talon* | 3–1 | – | – | 2–4 | ||||||
| 13th–14th | PCS | Machi Esports | – | – | – | 1–5 | 1.5% | $33,375 | ||||
| LEC | Rogue | – | – | – | 1–5 | |||||||
| 15th–16th | LCS | Team SoloMid | – | – | – | 0–6 | ||||||
| LCL | Unicorns of Love* | 3–1 | – | 3–0 | 0–6 | |||||||
| 17th | OPL | Legacy Esports* | 3–1 | – | 0–3 | 1% | $22,250 | |||||
| 18th | TCL | SuperMassive Esports | 2–2 | 3–2 | 0–3 | |||||||
| 19th | LEC | MAD Lions* | 1–3 | 2–3 | 0.75% | $16,687.50 | ||||||
| 20th | LLA | Rainbow7 | 2–2 | 0–3 | ||||||||
| 21st–22nd | CBLOL | INTZ* | 1–3 | 0.6% | $13,350 | |||||||
| LJL | V3 Esports* | 1–3 | ||||||||||
| Place | Region | Team | PG | PK1 | PK2 | GS | QF | SF | Finals | Prize (%) | Prize (USD) |
| Place | Region | League | Teams | Play-in Stage | Main Event | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groups (4 games total) | K.O Round 1 (Best-of-five) | K.O Round 2 (Best-of-five) | ||||||||
| Group stage (6 games total) | Quarterfinals (Best-of-five) | Semifinals (Best-of-five) | Finals (Best-of-five) | |||||||
| 1st | South Korea | LCK | 3 | 3 teams 14W-4L (77.78%) | 3 teams 3W-6L (33.33%) | 1 team 3W-1L (75%) | 1 team 3W-1L (75%) | |||
| 2nd | China | LPL | 3+1 | 1 team* 1W-3L (25%) | 1 team 3W-0L (100%) | 1 team 3W-0L (100%) | 4 teams 16W-8L (66.67%) | 3 teams 7W-6L (53.85%) | 2 teams 4W-4L (50%) | 1 team 1W-3L (25%) |
| 3rd | Europe | LEC | 3+1 | 1 team* 1W-3L (25%) | 1 team 2W-3L (40%) | 3 teams* 9W-9L (50%) | 2 teams 5W-3L (62.50%) | 1 team 1W-3L (25%) | ||
| 4th | North America | LCS | 2+1 | 1 team* 3W-1L (75%) | 3 teams 6W-12L (33.33%) | |||||
| 5th | TW/HK/MO/SEA | PCS | 1+1 | 1 team* 3W-1L (75%) | 2 teams 3W-9L (25%) | |||||
| 6th | CIS | LCL | 1 | 1 team* 3W-1L (75%) | 1 team 3W-0L (100%) | 1 team 0W-6L (0%) | ||||
| 7th | Oceania | OPL | 1 | 1 team* 3W-1L (75%) | 1 team 0W-3L (0%) | |||||
| 8th | Turkey | TCL | 1 | 1 team 2W-2L (50%) | 1 team 3W-2L (60%) | 1 team 0W-3L (0%) | ||||
| 9th | Latin America | LLA | 1 | 1 team 2W-2L (50%) | 1 team 0W-3L (0%) | |||||
| 10th–11th | Brazil | CBLOL | 1 | 1 team* 1W-3L (25%) | ||||||
Japan | LJL | 1 | 1 team* 1W-3L (25%) | |||||||