Umbreak at the LoL World Championships: Riot tries it with the Swiss system. Is that fair? We take a first look at the main round of the Worlds starting tomorrow
The first surprise at Worlds actually came from the Europeans: Team BDS managed a very rare reverse sweep in the play-ins when everything was at stake. They were already down 0:2, then won three times and entered the Swiss round of the League of Legends World Championships – despite a performance with room for improvement. So welcome to the most exciting time of the year in LoL-eSport: Worlds. Do the Europeans stand a chance this year? Can North America make up for last year’s disastrous performance?
16 Teams with title dreams and million-dollar prize money
Riot Games, game developer and tournament organiser, has built heavily on the 2023 Worlds format, setting the prize pool at a minimum of US$2.2 million. After the double-elimination play-ins, the tournament will now continue in the Swiss system as it did last time in FIFA.
14 teams from Korea, China, Europe and North America were seeded by their placement in their home leagues. Two teams are added from the play-ins. Europe’s fourth-ranked BDS wriggled into the Swiss Round first against the fourth North American team and then against the rest of the world. So did GAM eSports from Vietnam.
The 16 teams thus selected will now play for a place in the knockout rounds starting tomorrow at 7am our time in Seoul, Korea. The Swiss system is designed to prevent “groups of death” and thus ensure that the best teams make it through the first phase. Can Riot score points with this idea?
New Swiss system: curse or blessing?
This is a complicated question with a difficult answer. Until now, it was almost always clear that Korean and Chinese teams would get through their groups of four. If the draw was unlucky, the other teams were usually left behind. In the Swiss system, five rounds are now played in a best-of-one format. Whoever wins three times is in the quarter-finals. Whoever loses three times is eliminated from the tournament. After the first round, teams with the same number of wins and losses always play each other. On paper, this ensures the best possible equality of opportunity.
We played through this once for Worlds and in our version only the European champion G2 makes it to the next round as the western team. So everything would remain the same.
Riot has, however, built in a factor: Before each round, the pairings are redrawn. This means that it also depends on luck which teams ultimately advance. If two European teams play each other in the final round, in which all teams have two wins and two losses, one is sure to advance. If both are seeded against other Asian teams, it could be over.
If a Western team manages an unlikely triumph over an Asian team beforehand, it does little to change the odds – only if it secures them a third win and advances them to the next round.
To return to our question: It’s complicated, but could make for a much more exciting group stage if there are exciting draws and/or heroics. On paper, however, a Swiss system is only fair if there are similarly strong participants. If there are strong and weak teams, the strong ones are at an advantage because they get many chances against weaker ones to advance. However, there is nothing wrong with that either: in the best case, the top teams really do come out on top – and in LoL, all of them come from Asia.
The games will be played from 19 to 23 October and the following weekend from 26 to 29 October.
eSport: Assessment
Best-of-Ones can provide surprises. If a team pulls a very offbeat strategy out of its sleeve, even a Korean champion will falter in the only game of the series.
Riot also has the draw factor on its side, so unless everything goes wrong, European teams will probably end up in the knockout round. But there they will probably be knocked out again straight away. As a comparison for the international conditions, we have the Mid Season Invitational, where G2 finished in fifth place after four representatives from Korea and China. Behind them were the other Western teams.
For North America, on the other hand, the challenge this year is to show that they are not just there because Riot runs a league in the country. And of course the question remains: How far will ‘Faker’ get?
All local patriotism aside, however, the China vs. Korea battle is likely to showcase eSports at the very highest level in 2023 as well. However, this can only be marvelled at in the first round on Thursday at 2 p.m., in all other games China and Korea play against “the others”. From Friday onwards, it’s down to the nitty-gritty – only the European MAD Lions are likely to be in the 1-0 group. All the other teams are already candidates for the title.
