The inaugural day of the World Championship’s innovative Swiss stage in League of Legends has concluded, and the schedule for the second day has been released. What sets the Swiss stage apart is its daily schedule updates, where teams with similar records face off until those with three wins advance to the next round, or those with three losses are eliminated.
This unique format makes the draws for the following day’s schedule just as captivating as the matches themselves. Today, the draw for the second day of the Swiss stage has resulted in numerous intra-regional matchups, which League of Legends fans are already eagerly analyzing even before they commence.
On the official League subreddit today, fans generally reached a consensus that the EMEA region had a favorable draw for the second day of the stage, while the outlook for the Korean region was less promising, a sentiment we tend to share.
In the case of LEC teams, despite losing their initial matches, both BDS and Fnatic have relatively advantageous second-day games against MAD Lions and GAM Esports, respectively. G2, who emerged victorious on the first day, will be facing China’s fourth-seeded Weibo Gaming, another draw that could be seen as favorable.
Korea’s less fortunate situation is evident in two intra-regional matches: one between Gen.G and T1 on the 1-0 side of the draw, and another between KT and Dplus KIA on the 0-1 side.
One of the most surprising outcomes from the Swiss draw after the first day is the occurrence of five intra-regional matchups, compelling teams that are already well-acquainted with each other from their regular season encounters to compete at the World Championship.
Same-region matchups on Swiss day two
- NRG vs. Team Liquid (LCS)
- MAD Lions vs. BDS (LEC)
- Gen.G vs. T1 (LCK)
- JD Gaming vs. Bilibili Gaming (LPL)
- KT Rolster vs. Dplus KIA (LCK)
The most intriguing matchup of these five is easily KT Rolster vs. Dplus KIA, and it’s here that you’ll find Korean League fans’ disappointment coming to a boil. Both teams came into the tournament as likely candidates for the knockout stage, but after tomorrow’s match, one of them is guaranteed to be on the brink of elimination with a record of 0-2. Keep in mind that if you lose three matches in the Swiss stage, you’re out of the tournament altogether. In the regular season, KT held the advantage over Dplus by a margin of three matches to one (6-3 in individual games). Whoever loses that match will need to pull off the reverse sweep to end all reverse sweeps, winning three consecutive best-of-threes to keep their tournament hopes alive.
JD Gaming vs. Bilibili—which served as the final of the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational—also holds some weight to it. Those two teams have faced off against one another on seven occasions this season, with JDG winning all seven of those matches. In individual games, JDG holds a record of 19-5 against Bilibili in 2023. These two teams are extremely familiar with one another, and in a best-of-one scenario, we’re giving the edge to JDG.
If there’s any ounce of copium you can extract from the fact that there are five “civil wars” on day two of the Swiss stage, it’s that we’re less likely to see teams from the same region face off against one another in the best-of-three portion of the stage. After tomorrow’s matches, the tournament moves into a qualifying round, where teams who are on the brink of being eliminated or qualifying for the knockouts will transition from playing best-of-ones to best-of-threes. Since we’re getting more matches between domestic foes early on, our chances of seeing the same teams face off later in the Swiss stage decrease by proxy.
Worlds resumes tomorrow, Oct. 20 at 12am CT, with—you guessed it—an intra-regional matchup between NRG and Team Liquid.