With less than two weeks until the start of the League of Legends World Championship for season 14, there is a lot to discuss when it comes to this epic month-long event. Getting right into it, first we will discuss expectations of the Worlds event itself, then we will talk about the gameplay changes Riot has made just for Worlds.
Worlds Expectations
This year, the season 14 World Championship will be held in Europe, with the Finals taking place in The O2 Arena in London. All other parts of the Worlds will take place in the Riot Games Arena in Berlin, and the adidas arena in Paris. A total of 20 teams have qualified to participate in worlds for 2024 – four from the China’s LPL; four from Korea’s LCK; three from Europe’s LEC; three from North America’s LCS; two from the Asian Pacific’s PCS; two from Vietnam’s VCS; and one from Brazil’s CBLOL and Latin America’s LLA. Here are the teams:
CHINA – LPL
- Bilibili Gaming DreamSmart (BLG)
- TOP Esports (TES)
- LNG Ninebot Esports (LNG)
- WeiboGaming TapTap (WBG)
KOREA – LCK
- Hanwha Life Esports (HLE)
- Gen.G (GEN)
- Dplus KIA (DWG)
- Telecom 1 (T1)
EUROPE – LEC
- G2 Esports (G2)
- Fnatic (FNC)
- MAD Lions KOI (MAD)
NORTH AMERICA – LCS
- FlyQuest (FLY)
- Team Liquid Honda (TL)
- 100 Thieves (100)
ASIA PACIFIC – PCS
- PSG Talon (PSG)
- Fukuoka Softbank Hawks Gaming (SHG)
VIETNAM – VCS
- GAM Esports (GAM)
- Vikings Esports (VKE)
BRAZIL – CBLOL
- paiN Gaming (PNG)
LATIN AMERICA – LLA
- Movistar R7 (R7)
Beginning of September 25th and lasting until the 29th, the first stage of Worlds, the Play-In Stage, will be played out. A total of eight teams will compete in this stage and only four of them will make it to the next stage. Once those four teams have been finalized, the other 12 teams that were able to skip the Play-In stage will join the mix. The 16 teams will be drawn into pools and the Knockout stage will begin. Within these four pools of four teams each, each team will play best of threes against all other teams in their pool until two teams get three wins to advance and the two others lose three to be eliminated. After the knockouts, the remaining eight teams will be drawn into a bracket and the quarterfinals will play out until there is a winner in the finals on November 2nd, 2024.
Gameplay Changes for Worlds
Just like every other Worlds, Riot Games (developer of League of Legends) puts out a massive patch with a lot of changes that the World Championship will be played on. This year, that patch is 14.18 and there are a lot of changes going into Worlds. Over a dozen champions have been nerfed and another dozen have been buffed. While these changes are not indicative of champions are expected to be played exactly, it sets a pretty good roadmap for what the Worlds Meta might look like. For example, Jayce, Jax, and Gnar were buffed while Rumble was nerfed, so it is safe to assume that we will see the buffed champions more often in the top lane rather than the nerfed ones. Here are the champions have been nerfed and buffed
Nerfed
- Aurora
- Azir
- Corki
- Ivern
- Leona
- Lillia
- Lissandra
- Maokia
- Miss Fortune
- Nasus
- Rell
- Rumble
- Smolder
- Varus
- Vi
- Zeri
- Ziggs
Buffed
- Ahri
- Gnar
- Hwei
- Jarvin IV
- Jax
- Jayce
- Jinx
- Lulu
- Malphite
- Samira
- Shen
- Viego
- Xin Zhao
If you are looking for what was specifically nerfed or buffed on each of these champions, definitely think about checking out the official patch notes here. Other things that were changed include items like Bloodthirster, Immortal Shieldbow, Stormsurge, and more; as well as the capstone rune Fleet Footwork and Turrets on Summoner’s Rift.
Finally, season 14 Worlds is particularly exciting because it has already hinted at the fact that Arcane season 2 will air on Netflix right after the Finals conclude. Arcane season 2 has been long awaited by fans for nearly four years now. It holds several records on Netflix for the most watch, most binged, etc., so it is a very good animated series about the League of Legends lore. Enjoy!
