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Teams from all of League of Legends’ participating regions will be represented at the 2022 World Championship play-in stage and will kick off the almost six-week-long tournament that is Worlds.
Effectively replacing the international wildcard qualifier tournaments of old, the play-in stage has been the new funnel for minor regions on the international stage to qualify for Worlds. Since 2017, they’ve gotten to do so in a more high-stakes format with fewer games and against tougher competition given the addition of lower-seeded teams from major regions. Despite the tougher competition in recent years, Japanese champions DetonatioN FocusMe made minor region history just last year by becoming the third minor region team to advance into the World Championship group stage under the current format, toppling Cloud9 in a tiebreaker to secure an automatic berth.
This year’s play-in stage includes the most recent split’s champions from Brazil’s CBLOL, Japan’s LJL, Latin America’s LLA, Oceania’s LCO, and Turkey’s TCL, as well as the fourth seed from China’s LPL, Korea’s LCK, and Europe’s LEC, the third seed from North America’s LCS, and the second seeds from Taiwan’s PCS and Vietnam’s VCS.
Vietnamese teams are back at Worlds for the first time since 2019, but not without their share of difficulties acquiring visas to compete in North America.
The play-in stage for Worlds 2022 will take place at the Arena Esports Stadium, home of the Liga Latinoamérica (LLA), from Thursday, Sept. 29 to Tuesday, Oct. 4.
Related: How to earn drops and in-game items during League Worlds 2022
Here are the scores, group standings, match start times, and more for the 2022 World Championship play-in stage.
Play-in knockout stage results
Elimination round
Monday, Oct. 3
- 1pm CT: MAD Lions 3-1 Saigon Buffalo
- 4:30pm CT: LOUD 1-3 DetonatioN FocusMe
Qualification round
Tuesday, Oct. 4
- 1pm CT: Evil Geniuses 3-0 MAD Lions
- 3:45pm CT: Royal Never Give Up 3-1 DetonatioN FocusMe
The third and fourth-place teams in each group will play a best-of-five series against one another, with the loser being eliminated. The winner will face off against the second-place team from the opposite group in another best-of-five, with the victor advancing to the group stage and the loser going home.
Related: Upset ends Worlds 2022 play-ins with an incredible stat
Play-in group stage results and standings
Group A
Thursday, Sept. 29
- 4pm CT: Fnatic 1-0 Evil Geniuses
- 5pm CT: LOUD 0-1 Beyond Gaming
- 7pm CT: Chiefs Esports Club 0-1 Fnatic
- 8pm CT: DetonatioN FocusMe 0-1 LOUD
Friday, Sept. 30
- 3pm CT: Fnatic 1-0 DetonatioN FocusMe
- 4pm CT: Evil Geniuses 1-0 LOUD
- 6pm CT: DetonatioN FocusMe 1-0 Chiefs Esports Club
- 7pm CT: Evil Geniuses 1-0 Beyond Gaming
Saturday, Oct. 1
- 3pm CT: LOUD 1-0 Fnatic
- 5pm CT: Beyond Gaming 0-1 DetonatioN FocusMe
- 6pm CT: Evil Geniuses 1-0 Chiefs Esports Club
- 8pm CT: Chiefs Esports Club 0-1 Beyond Gaming
Sunday, Oct. 2
- 3pm CT: Beyond Gaming 0-1 Fnatic
- 4pm CT: LOUD 1-0 Chiefs Esports Club
- 5pm CT: DetonatioN FocusMe 1-0 Evil Geniuses
Group B
Thursday, Sept. 29
- 3pm CT: Isurus 0-1 MAD Lions
- 6pm CT: MAD Lions 1-0 İstanbul Wildcats
- 9pm CT: Saigon Buffalo 1-0 İstanbul Wildcats
- 10pm CT: DRX 1-0 Royal Never Give Up
Friday, Sept. 30
- 5pm CT: Saigon Buffalo 1-0 Isurus
- 8pm CT: DRX 1-0 Saigon Buffalo
- 9pm CT: MAD Lions 0-1 Royal Never Give Up
- 10pm CT: İstanbul Wildcats 0-1 DRX
Saturday, Oct. 1
- 4pm CT: MAD Lions 1-0 Saigon Buffalo
- 7pm CT: Royal Never Give Up 1-0 Isurus
- 9pm CT: Royal Never Give Up 1-0 İstanbul Wildcats
- 10pm CT: Isurus 0-1 DRX
Sunday, Oct. 2
- 6pm CT: İstanbul Wildcats 0-1 Isurus
- 7pm CT: DRX 1-0 MAD Lions
- 8pm CT: Royal Never Give Up 1-0 Saigon Buffalo
Group A tiebreakers
Sunday, Oct. 2
- 9pm CT: Evil Geniuses 1-0 DetonatioN FocusMe
- 10pm CT: LOUD 0-1 Evil Geniuses
Related: How tiebreakers work at Worlds 2022
How does the play-in group stage work?
The play-in group stage follows a format similar to that of the last two years. The 12 participating teams were sorted into three pools based on regional strength beforehand. Two teams from each pool were placed into each group. Every team will play a single round-robin against the five others in their group, after which the two teams with the worst records will be eliminated outright. The group winners advance directly to the Worlds main event group stage. The second through fourth-place teams will advance to the play-in knockout stage. If two teams are tied at the end of the group stage, the protocols from 2020 and 2021 will likely be followed, meaning that head-to-head record will simply award side selection in a tiebreaker game as opposed to winning the tiebreaker.
This article will be updated as the tournament progresses.
