LoL Worlds Play-In Schedule Changed for Week One

The schedule for the League of Legends World Championship Play-In Stage has been moved around somewhat, just days before the event is due to kick off.  The representatives from the Latin America North, Infinity Esports, were unable to secure entry visa’s quickly enough, and as a result would have arrived in Korea on September 30^th, with their first match due the next day on October 1^st.

In order to give Infinity Esports at least one extra day to prepare for the event and adjust to the time zone difference, League Ops has changed the schedule for the Play-In Stage, moving the matches for day one to day two, and vice versa. Additionally, to ensure that teams aren’t playing on consecutive days, the matches for day three and day four have similarly been swapped around.

#Worlds2018: Play-In Schedule Modification

Read more here: https://t.co/KKzW0oFJ00 pic.twitter.com/xT9g3WmYNw

— lolesports (@lolesports) September 28, 2018

In a statement on the LoL Esports website, the League Ops team were able to give their reasoning behind the change, stating “In the past we have made accommodations for teams who have faced situations beyond their control that would have had drastic impacts on their upcoming matches. Worlds is the most important tournament of the year and we want every team to feel that they had the opportunity to perform to the best of their ability. In this situation there were three factors that made us feel modifying the schedule was in the best interest of maintaining the competitive integrity of the Play-In Stage, while mitigating the effects of Infinity Esports unfortunate travel situation:

This situation was identified early enough to give Play-In teams a 4 day advance notice of the impending schedule change.

The schedule was modified symmetrically and would affect team preparation minimally

This change would provide Infinity Esports with reasonable time to adjust and prepare for the most important tournament of the year.”

For more information on when the matches will be played, check out our how to watch guide, here.