League of Legends World Championship 2018 was the 8th edition of the annual esports event hosted by the developer of the game Riot Games.It was held from 1st October to November 3rd 2018. The team featured in total 24 teams out of which 12 directly qualified for the group stage whereas 12 of them played the Play-In.
The tournament was highly successful, it had the highest concurrent viewership of over 200 million people, surpassing the record of the 2017 world championship too. It became the most watched tournament in esports history. The tournament came to be known for it’s surprise results and shocking exits and was one of the most dramatic esports tournaments in history. The tournament was held throughout various cities in South Korea. The total prize pool of the tournament amounted over $6 Million.
How the League of Legends World Championship 2018 worked
The 16 selected for the group stage were –
- KT Rolster
- Afreeca Freecs
- Gen.G
- Royal Never Give Up
- Invictus Gaming
- Phong vu Buffalo
- Fnatic
- Team Vitality
- Team Liquid
- 100 Thieves
- Flash Wolves
- MAD Team
- Cloud 9 (from play-in)
- Edward Gaming (from play-in)
- G2 Esports (from play-in)
- G-Rex (from play-in)
Group Stage
All 16 teams were divided into groups of 4. They went on to play in a Double Round Robin format. All the matches were best of 1, the top 2 teams qualified to the next round and the bottom two were eliminated.
Knockout stage
The knockout stage had 8 teams that had qualified from the group stage. All the matches were Best of 5 leading upto the Grand Finale
Grand Finale of League of Legends World Championship 2018
The Grand Finals were held in Incheon in the Incheon Munhak Stadium with a capacity of 50 thousand people. The finals were a match between Invictus Gaming and Fnatic, 2 of the highest played teams in the tournament who had constantly dominated their opponents. But at the end it seemed a clear win for Invictus gaming who won 3 games in series getting a clear sweep in the finals and becoming the World Champions of 2018.
To read more about League of Legends and previous World Championship click here.
