The 2026 League of Legends World Championship runs from October 15 to November 14 in three American cities: Los Angeles, Allen, Texas, and Brooklyn, New York. Nineteen teams from six leagues are entered, according to Riot’s official announcement. The prize pool is reported at $5 million, and the Grand Final is at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on November 14.
Schedule and venues
Riot has split the event into four phases across three venues.
- Play-In, October 15 to 18: Riot Games Arena, Los Angeles. Four teams play best-of-five double elimination, and only one reaches the Swiss Stage.
- Swiss Stage, October 23 to 26 and 28 to 31: Credit Union of Texas Event Center, Allen, Texas. Sixteen teams play five rounds. Three wins advance a team, and three losses eliminate it.
- Knockout Stage, November 3 to 8: the same Allen venue. Quarterfinals run November 3 to 6 and semifinals November 7 to 8, all best-of-five.
- Grand Final, November 14: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, with a 2:00 p.m. EST start.
The format details follow GosuGamers’ tournament guide. The Play-In entrants are Karmine Corp, Cloud9 KIA, MVK Esports and the second-seeded team from Brazil’s CBLOL. Three of those four teams are out by October 18.
The 19 teams
China’s LPL sends Anyone’s Legend, Bilibili Gaming, Top Esports and Shanghai Invictus Gaming. Korea’s LCK sends Gen.G, Hanwha Life Esports, T1 and Dplus KIA. Europe’s LEC is represented by G2 Esports, Movistar KOI and Karmine Corp, and North America’s LCS by Team Liquid Alienware, LYON and Cloud9 KIA. The Asia-Pacific LCP sends Team Secret Whales, CTBC Flying Oyster and MVK Esports, and Brazil’s CBLOL has LOS and FURIA Esports.
New to the game? GameBridges has a plain-language explainer on MOBAs, the genre League of Legends belongs to.
What is at stake
T1 is the defending champion. The team won the 2025 final 3-2 over fellow Korean side KT Rolster in Chengdu, China, and became the first team to win three consecutive world titles. Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok won his sixth world championship in that series.
This is also the first Worlds in North America since 2022, according to esports.gg. Three of the four Play-In teams come from outside Asia, and the Play-In winner joins a Swiss Stage field in which China and Korea have four teams each.
How to watch and what time
Riot streams Worlds on Twitch through its main channel and regional channels: riotgames, ltasul, ltaespanol, lolesportstw and leagueoflegendsjp. Pick’Ems and Crystal Ball predictions are available at lolesports.com/pickems or inside the League of Legends client. Daily match times depend on seeding, so check the official schedule before planning around a specific game.
This article could not confirm ticket availability or prices. Riot’s announcement said tickets would be released in mid-to-late July. For how a $5 million prize pool compares with other titles, see our look at esports prize pools.
Start times are listed below with conversions to Korea Standard Time (KST) and Singapore Time (SGT). The Play-In, Knockout Stage and Grand Final conversions come from the GosuGamers guide, and the Swiss Stage conversion is calculated here.
- Play-In: 11:00 a.m. PDT, which is 3:00 a.m. KST and 2:00 a.m. SGT the next day.
- Swiss Stage: 12:00 p.m. or 3:00 p.m. CDT, which is 2:00 a.m. or 5:00 a.m. KST the next day.
- Knockout Stage: 4:00 p.m. CST, which is 7:00 a.m. KST and 6:00 a.m. SGT the next day. US clocks change on November 1.
- Grand Final: 2:00 p.m. EST on November 14, which is 4:00 a.m. KST and 3:00 a.m. SGT on November 15.