Worlds 2021 Special: Everything That Changed And Why

Here we are with our first article of the Worlds 2021 Special series. League of Legends World Championship (Worlds for short), the biggest League of Legends tournament of the year and one of the biggest esports events in general. The tournament is played throughout the whole month of October and ends with a best of 5 series on November 7 that crowns one of the 22 attending teams the champion of the year and etches their names to esports history.

If you recall Worlds 2019 and before, you might spot some differences in attending team quantity and Play-In stage format. This article is not about those changes – you can click this link to read all about those changes. This article is about why those changes happened, why Riot changed the tournament location at the final hour, why Reykjavik was chosen instead of Berlin, the home of LEC, or any other European city and what happened to Vietnamese teams. But let’s begin with the genesis of all our problems: Coronavirus.

Coronavirus and 2020 Worlds: Mandatory Changes

As coronovirus began to spread in March 2020, everything started to get affected including esports. But no one expected the situation to go this bad or long. Two weeks of stay at home orders turned to a month, then two months, so on and so forth we got used to being at home all the time. Everything that happened outside our homes, including big esports events, suffered what may be called the toughest of times.

The situation got gradually better over time as leagues transitioned to online style. Especially League of Legends leagues recovered in a haste and even discovered an upside in the whole situation. People staying at home all the time made way for leagues to hit higher and higher viewership numbers even though there were no live audience. During these times, Riot decided that a tournament as important as Worlds can not be done online and announced that Worlds were going to be hosted in China on stage as they decided before pandemic hit.

But after all the postponements, cancellations and adaptation to online tournaments and leagues, this move raised a lot of questions beside its overall positive responses. Were Riot rushing into the transition back to stage? Were they going to be able to take all the precautions needed for the tournament to function successfully and safely? And more importantly, would all teams be able to attend to an event done in China, a country with one of the strictest pandemic restrictions? The last question, very unfortunately, was troubling especially for one region above all others – Vietnam.

VCS, The Unluckiest League of the Whole League of Legends Esports Scene

Vietnam Championship Series (VCS for short), proved itself above other wildcard regions in 2020. Their performances were so impressive that Riot gave Vietnam a second seed for Worlds, one that gives a team direct invitre to the Group Stage. As the Vietnamese fans were celebrating, their excitement was crashed by coronavirus. Combined with the strict restrictions of both Chinese and Vietnamese governments, no VCS team was able to attend Worlds that they had two representatives in.

GAM Esports and Saigon Buffalo, who can not participate in Iceland this year, will still receive prizes as if they were able to partake in the tournament but they won’t have the chance to prove themselves. Coronavirus was and still is a big problem for these teams who couldn’t even play a summer split, let alone join Worlds. With the absence of VCS representatives, Riot developed a format that would allow them to move forward with 22 teams instead of inviting two teams that did not earn a spot at Worlds rightfully. In this format, Play-In stage will have 10 teams instead of 12 but everything goes back to normal after four teams advance to Group Stage and it’s back to the old format from that point onwards.

Riot decided to reuse the format in the image above that worked in 2020 when VCS teams were still absent. The first matches we’ll see from Iceland will be played with this format. Speaking of Iceland, why did the Worlds location change?

From Shenzen to Reykjavik – Why Did Worlds Change Locations?

A couple months back, Riot announced that Worlds 2021 would happen in China again, after Worlds 2020 had to be hosted without an audience and in the midst of the worst of a global pandemic. But as fate would have it, the pandemic caused Worlds 2021 to be moved to Europe, Iceland to be exact. China is definitely the runner-up for the region which suffered the most because of the pandemic behind Vietnam. The official reason for this change is Riot not being able to bring its production team to China because of the strict pandemic restrictions.

You might ask yourself, why Reykjavik of all places? Isn’t there anywhere in Europe with lesser restrictions? Why not Berlin, the home of LEC? There are a few answers to this question but the biggest one is Riot successfully hosting MSI and a leg of Valorant Masters in Iceland. They were good hosts for the aforementioned tournaments and Riot must have taken a note of that. This is a good change for the Western League of Legends fans and most teams, but not for all. For example Tabe, the coach of RNG, will not be able to go to Iceland with his team, just like MSI.

In this part of our Worlds 2021 Special series, we talked about all the changes to the Worlds and why they happened. On other articles of this series we will talk about groups, regions and anything you may need to know in great detail. For now, have a great day and stay tuned for more Worlds content.