Stage set for Swiss stage as Play-In wraps up at LoL Worlds

The 2023 League of Legends (LoL) World Championship locked in its final roster after the first main phase of the competition wrapped up Sunday in central Seoul.

Adam ″Adam″ Maanane of Team BDS competes at the League of Legends World Championship Play-Ins on Sunday in central Seoul. [RIOT GAMES]

The 2023 League of Legends (LoL) World Championship locked in its final roster after the first main phase of the competition wrapped up Sunday in central Seoul.

Vietnam’s GAM Esports and Swiss-owned Team BDS defeated six other LoL squads in the eight-team “Play-In” stage at LoL Park to secure their spots in the next round.

They will join 14 pre-qualified squads — including four seeded teams from Korea — in the round robin Swiss stage, which begins Thursday at KBS Arena in southern Seoul.

GAM defeated fellow Vietnamese squad Team Whales 3-1 in a best-of-five series on Sunday, giving up the second game but winning the next two to clinch a Swiss stage spot.

Quoc Hung ″Artemis″ Tran of Team Whales, left, and Hai Trung “Palette” Nguyen of GAM Esports shake hands onstage after competing at the 2023 League of Legends World Championship Play-Ins on Sunday in central Seoul. [RIOT GAMES]

BDS later came from behind to defeat Taipei-based PSG Talon, created jointly by football club Paris Saint-Germain and Talon Esports, later Sunday. The Swiss-owned team took the victory in a reverse sweep — fighting back as they sat on the verge of a loss with the scoreboard at 2-0, winning three games in a row to take the second Swiss stage ticket.

It marked BDS’s second major win of this year’s Worlds tournament, even as most teams have yet to play their first game. Ahead of the Play-In stage, BDS faced the U.S.-owned Golden Guardians in the Worlds Qualifying Series — essentially a preliminary stage before the unseeded preliminary stage — winning it 3-0 to stay in the competition.

Swiss-owned Esports organization Team BDS defeats PSG Talon 3-2 to advance out of the Play-In stage on Sunday in central Seoul. [RIOT GAMES]

The five-round Swiss Stage will pit teams with the same win-loss record against each other until they achieve either three wins or three losses. The Swiss Stage will run from Oct. 19 to 23, before starting again from Oct. 26 to Oct. 29, and all matches will take place at KBS Arena in western Seoul.

Riot Games, the developer of LoL and the host of the annual World Championship, released the first pairings of the Swiss stage on Sunday following the Play-In results. This year, teams in the 16-team Swiss stage will have a chance to compete against any of their opponents — rather than competing in pre-set groups.

Four Korean teams will play for the Summoner’s Cup at this year’s Worlds — T1, Dplus KIA, Gen.G and KT Rolster — all of them already qualified to the Swiss Stage.

Fan favorite T1 will meet North America's Team Liquid (TL) in their first round on Thursday while Gen.G meets GAM Esports and KT Rolster faces China’s Bilibili Gaming. Dplus KIA, home to last year’s championship-winning Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu who, with team DragonX (DRX), bested T1 in the final round to win gold, will face the European team G2.

With the exception of Thursday’s schedule, where all teams will play a single game and leave with either a W or L, all match-ups during the Swiss stage will be played to best of three.

The eight teams with the best win-loss records will then head to the knockout stage, which will take place with a single elimination bracket and best-of-five format.

The quarterfinals and semifinals will be held at Sajik Arena in Busan, with the final taking place at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul on Nov. 19.

BY MARY YANG AND PAIK JI-HWAN [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]