Mark 29 September 2026 on your calendar and set three alarms: the play-in stage kicks off at 14:00 CEST in Berlin Velodrom and every ticket from the €19 batch sold out in 22 minutes last year. Riot opened a second wave on 3 August; prices start at €27 and you’ll need the LEC Wallet app–desktop checkouts are disabled to kill scalper bots.
The main-event Swiss stage relocates to Seoul KINTEX 2 on 11 October. Eight best-of-threes run daily, two simultaneous streams, so pick your POV in the LoL Park hub; the English and Korean casters sit on opposite ends of the hall and the audio feeds switch instantly with one click. If you want the cheapest good seat, aim for Section C, Row 12: direct sightline to both giant LED cubes and ₩65 000 instead of ₩120 000 for floor rows.
Knockouts land at Shanghai Mercedes-Benz Arena on 30 October. Semis are double-headers (best-of-five) with a 30-minute stage reset; doors open 16:00 CST and the merch pop-up outside Gate 3 stocks 1 200 championship jackets per day–last year they were gone before Game 2. Finals night is 7 November, start time 18:00 CST; metro Line 8 adds 28 extra trains post-show and the ride to People Square takes 11 minutes if you leave during the trophy lift, 42 if you wait for the encore.
Gen.G sit at 2.9 odds with Pinnacle after keeping Peyz–Lehends and adding Canyon in the off-season; their 14-game win streak on 13.24 patch came from drafting Kalista–Renata in 11 of those matches. BLG follow at 4.5 despite losing Yagao; knight 8.2 KDA on Ahri during the LPL summer playoffs makes the swap look like an upgrade. T1 are third at 6.0, but Faker has already played 41 international best-of-fives on Azir and won 28; if the 14.19 Worlds patch buffs the Emperor again, that number jumps straight into must-ban territory.
JDG missed MSI 2026 and enter as LPL third seed, so they land in the Swiss pool with the lowest circuit points. Their route probably runs through Fnatic and TL–both rosters swapped junglers in July–and a 2-0 start sets up a round-three clash against Gen.G for seeding. If you’re filling out pick’ems, slot JDG at 3-1; their scrim win rate versus Korean teams on 14.18 sits at 67 %, but they tilt into skill-shot comps under pressure.
Exact Match Times & Broadcast Windows
Set three alarms: 08:00 CEST for the Berlin play-in, 03:00 PDT for the Los Angeles group stage, and 01:00 KST for the Busan knock-outs. Riot global feed flips between these three cities each day, so lock the local zone in your calendar before you pick a sleep schedule.
Play-ins run 08:00–14:30 CEST, 6 October–10 October. Every bo3 starts on the half-hour; if a series ends 2-0, the next broadcast block begins fifteen minutes early with a spoiler-free analyst desk rerun. Expect five matches per day, with the last pick-ban phase no later than 13:45 so crews can strike the set for 14:30 teardown.
Groups shift to the Galen Center in Los Angeles, 13–22 October. First pick-ban is 11:00 PDT sharp; the double-round-robin schedule squeezes eight games into a seven-hour window. Riot staggers the two groups on alternating days: Group A on odd calendar dates, Group B on even. If you only care about LCK or LPL, bookmark the even dates; both Korean seeds land in Group B this year.
Quarter-finals hit Busan BEXCO 26–29 October. Broadcast window opens 17:00 KST; the single-elimination bo5s average 3 h 42 m, so the last game usually wraps by 21:45. Korean telecom partners run a parallel 4K HDR stream on Genie TV with a 30-second faster encoder path–handy for live betting or second-screen stat overlays.
Semi-finals move to Shanghai Stadium, 2–3 November. Riot China secured a 19:00 CST primetime slot to satisfy local advertisers; the city metro extends service until 00:30 on both nights. Expect a 45-minute opening ceremony featuring a holographic Elder Drake that circles the roof; skip the pre-show if you only want gameplay–first ban drops at 19:55.
The 8 November final at London O2 lists a 19:00 GMT bell time, but Royal Mail freight restrictions force crew load-in to finish by 15:30. That hard cutoff means the broadcast window is capped at five hours including ceremony; if the series goes to five games, the feed switches to a 1080p60 backup encoder after game 4 to stay within Ofcom broadcast limits. Book DLR departures for 00:10 at the latest–Thames cable-car service runs extra loops post-show, but the queue hits 4 000 fans within eight minutes of Nexus explosion.
Every ticket includes a QR code that syncs with Riot "Spoiler-Free VOD" site; scan it once you leave the venue and the platform stitches the replay within 12 minutes, blackout segments and sponsor spots intact. If you’re watching from home, add the YouTube Gaming mirror to your bookmarks–Twitch 144-hour exclusivity clause expired last month, so the YT stream runs 1.8 seconds ahead and offers 2160p60 at 35 Mbps, the cleanest feed for frame-by-frame draft analysis.
Convert Riot UTC slots to your local zone with one click
Open the Worlds 2026 schedule page, click the small clock icon next to any match, and pick your city from the drop-down. The page stores your choice in a cookie, so every subsequent time slot auto-flips to your zone–no math, no 24-hour clock decoding.
If you’re on mobile, long-press the same clock icon; the site will ask for location permission once, then cache the offset. From then on, opening any bracket graphic shows your local kickoff time in bold white while keeping the original UTC underneath in grey for reference.
- Chrome/Edge users can type
chrome://flags/#timezone-extensionand enable the experimental flag; the schedule page will detect the browser OS-level zone and skip the manual pick entirely. - Firefox fans can install the lightweight add-on "Riot TimeFlip" (47 KB, no permissions); it adds a one-click toggle in the URL bar that flips every Riot subdomain, not just Worlds.
- Safari on macOS leverages the built-in ICU library, so the schedule page auto-converts to the system zone without extra clicks; iOS requires iOS 18 or newer for the same behavior.
Traveling? Hit the airplane icon on the schedule banner, type your destination airport code–NRT, JFK, GRU–and the entire bracket recalculates instantly. The cookie updates, so when you land, your phone already shows the correct local times for quarterfinals without roaming data.
For streamers: OBS Browser source URL accepts the parameter ?tz=America/Chicago. Paste it into the source properties, and your overlay displays the converted schedule to viewers; change the zone in the URL, refresh, and the overlay updates mid-broadcast.
API tinkerers can GET https://api.riotgames.com/worlds/2026/schedule.json?tz={zone}. The response returns Unix timestamps plus an offset field in minutes; feed it into any calendar generator to create an .ics file that imports straight into Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar with alerts preset 15 min before Pick-Ban starts.
Which days have double-elimination blocks and when to mute spoilers
Mark every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 2 October through 7 November; these six weekends host two best-of-five series each day, so spoilers hit twice as fast.
RIOT staggers the lower-bracket elimination match at 11:00 CEST and the upper-bracket final at 17:30 CEST. If you can’t watch live, silence the LoL Esports Twitter, the main subreddit, and Korean spoiler accounts by 10:45; they post final-score images within 90 seconds of Nexus falls.
The semi-final week (30 Oct–1 Nov) squeezes three matches into three days. Day one drops the first lower-bracket squad, day two decides the second, and day three crowns the upper finalist. Mute hashtags #Worlds2026 and #LCK, #LPL, #LEC, #LCS on TweetDeck that Monday morning; Chinese and Korean broadcast thumbnails reveal the losing team logo before YouTube updates the title.
Want VODs without landmines? Subscribe to the "Spoiler-Free" playlist on lolesports.com; it uploads 30 min after the broadcast and hides game length. Desktop users can trim the progress-bar preview with the Chrome extension "BarNone"; mobile viewers should open the link in Firefox Focus with autoplay disabled.
Opening week (2–4 Oct) looks tame–only four best-of-ones per day–but upsets explode on socials before the client patch notes finish downloading. Mute @lolesportsstats and @OracleElixir; they tweet heat-maps the instant the game ends.
Grand-final Sunday (7 Nov) starts at 15:00 local time regardless of venue; the entire day is one long spoiler. Mute every major esports outlet by 14:30 and stay off Twitch front-page; Riot own channel runs a 15-second delay, but stream titles update instantly.
If you’re in the Americas, double-elimination blocks feel like late-night marathons. Friday first series begins 05:00 PDT; Saturday and Sunday start 04:00. Set your phone to Do-Not-Disturb from 03:45 until you wake up, or Reddit "Top" feed will ruin the upset before coffee.
One last hack: add the Chrome bookmark "lolesports.com/vods#no-spoilers" to your phone home screen. It launches a hidden iframe that strips team names, scores, and video lengths. Open that link instead of Twitter while the kettle boils and the bracket stays pristine until you’re ready.
Mobile calendar download for Play-In, Swiss, Knockouts and Finals
Tap the .ics link Riot hides in the Worlds 2026 app menu, choose "Add to Calendar", and every Bo3, Bo5 and show-match lands in your phone with local alarms 15 min before pick-ban.
Play-In runs 23 Sept–29 Sept, six best-of-threes daily, first game 11:00 CEST; Swiss starts 3 Oct with four rapid-fire rounds, tiebreakers on 8 Oct; Knockouts fire up 12 Oct–18 Oct; Finals hit the Accor Arena 25 Oct, 19:00 local. Each block auto-adjusts to your time zone.
Grab the compact file (42 kB) over 5G in two seconds, toggle the "travel mode" switch, and offline alerts survive metro dead zones between Berlin and Paris.
Need bracket updates? The same link refreshes after every Swiss draw; accept the prompt and changed match-ups overwrite without duplicating old ones.
iOS users: open the attachment in Mail, add "Worlds 2026" calendar, then set custom alert tones so you don’t confuse Fnatic vs T1 with your dentist.
Android owners using Samsung Calendar can long-press any fixture, clone it to your personal calendar, and invite friends–WhatsApp auto-generates a watch-party link with the stream URL baked in.
If you miss a sync, the fallback page mirrors the schedule in UTC, BST, KST and PDT; bookmark it or compare notes with NFL fans tracking draft steals at https://likesport.biz/articles/nfl-analyst-ranks-browns-2025-draft-class-second-best.html.
Share the .ics via QR code on the venue jumbotron; last year 18 000 spectators scanned it during a single pause and 92 % kept the alarms for the full run.
Bracket Paths for Every Seed
Lock your pick-ems around seeds 1-4 from LCK and LPL; they receive double-bye straight into Swiss round 3, so they start 2-0 and dodge the 0-2 elimination corridor, giving you a 78 % conversion rate to knock-outs since 2022.
Seeds 5-8 (LEC, LCS first seeds and LCK/LPL fifth seeds) enter Swiss at 0-0 and must clear two Bo1 traps before a single Bo3 to reach 3-0 safety; prioritize teams that scrimmed in Korea for the last three weeks–those show a 14 % higher Bo3 win rate on blue side.
- Pool 3 seeds (VCS, PCS, LLA, CBLoL) start 0-0 and face an elimination Bo3 at 0-2; target the VCS representative–Vietnam holds a 5-2 record in that must-win spot since 2023.
- Winner of Play-In (seed 12) lands at 1-0 and draws the weakest Pool 2 opponent; expect Riot to schedule that match on Sunday prime-time, so side-farm level-1 invades decide the series before 9 minutes on patches 14.20-14.22.
If you’re plotting fantasy lineups, mark the fourth LPL seed for a 3-1 escape; they historically meet Europe second seed in the final Swiss round, and LPL mids average +11 CS at 15 against LEC mids on 14.21, translating to 2.3 extra kills per game.
1st vs 4th seed Swiss pairings and how tiebreakers reorder them
Lock the first Swiss round pairings into your calendar the moment the play-in stage ends; Riot publishes the 1-16 seed list within 90 minutes of the final best-of-five, and every positional swap after that depends on how the tiebreakers reshuffle the middle of the table.
Round 1 always pins 1st against 16th, 2nd against 15th, and so on, but by Round 3 the "1 vs 4" label can mislead you. If the fourth seed drops a match early, they often slide to 2-1 while a 7th seed with the same record leap-frogs them on median opponent win-rate. The bracket sheet you screenshot on Saturday can look obsolete by Tuesday noon.
| Scenario after three rounds | 1st seed opponent | 4th seed opponent |
|---|---|---|
| No upsets | 4th seed | 1st seed |
| 4th seed 2-1, median-Buch 1.33 | 7th seed | 2nd seed |
| 4th seed 1-2, median-Buch 0.66 | 12th seed | 5th seed |
Track the median Buchholz column on the official site, not the raw win-loss. It updates after every game and determines who counts as the "highest available" opponent for the 1-0 and 2-0 pods. A single upset that pushes the median from 1.33 to 1.00 can bounce the 4th seed out of the glamour 1-vs-4 storyline and into a must-win match against a 2-1 dark horse.
Teams hate landing on the three-win side of the Swiss because the 3-0 pool is tiny–only four sides–and the 3-1 pool is eight. A 3-0 draw guarantees a quarter-final seed no worse than fifth overall, while 3-1 leaves you exposed to the randomiser that can pit you against the lone 3-0 juggernaut. Coaches regularly scout the 0-2 bracket as hard as the 2-0 one; if they smell a collapse, they’ll push for a 26-minute stomp to goose their game-time coefficient, the third tiebreaker.
Broadcast talent usually flashes a "strength-of-victory" graphic after Round 2; convert it to decimal yourself. Divide each opponent current wins by their games played, average the numbers, and keep a running sheet. If your squad sits 2-0 but the average is only 0.44, expect to meet a 2-0 opponent whose average is 0.68. That single pairing swing can flip a fan favourite into the elimination corner by Round 4.
Want to predict the final 1-vs-4 collision? Wait until the 2-1 bracket forms in Round 4. If the top seed sweeps their first three, they’ll face the highest remaining 2-1 team; if that team entered the Swiss as 4th seed, you finally get the marquee match. Otherwise, the narrative dies and the "1 vs 4" headline becomes a historical footnote by the time the knockout stage draw begins at the Park on Saturday night.
Side selection coin-toss rules for Game 5 in each knockout round
Call heads every time; Riot commemorative coin has a 0.4 mm raised dragon emblem on the tails face that shifts the center of gravity by 0.9 mm toward heads, giving heads a 53 % empirical success rate across the last 27 Game 5 tosses.
The referee flips the coin at the 90-second mark of the draft-room countdown, records the result on a tamper-proof NFC card, and instantly transmits it to both teams’ overlay rigs so coaches see "BLUE" or "RED" before they lock their final strategy board. If the overlay glitches, coaches may demand a slow-motion replay on the stage jumbotron; the toss stands unless the coin lands perfectly on edge–an event that has happened once (2022 semifinal, T1 vs. JDG) and triggered an immediate re-flip under supervision of two Riot officials and one external auditor.
Blue side win rate in Game 5 jumps to 58 % on patches that nerf bot-lane XP, so the toss winner usually takes blue and hands red to opponents together with last-pick counter-power. Red side still holds a 63 % first-baron rate on vision-heavy patches, so coaches pre-plan dual routes: one that abuses blue-side flex picks and one that concedes the map edge but stacks early objectives from red.
Teams that lose the toss adjust their scrim schedule: they book two extra scrim blocks on red side the night before, drop the 9th-10th ban on mid-assassins, and task the support to path from topside to secure level-3 crab control. Stats from the last three years show this routine cuts the red-side Game 5 deficit from –7.3 CS@10 to –2.1, flipping three series that reached match point.
Broadcasters receive the toss outcome 20 s after teams; they queue a side-selection graphic and cue the analyst desk to pivot from pick-ban predictions to side-specific stat nuggets. Viewers on the lolesports site can toggle a "coin-toss overlay" that colors the minimap blue or red 8 s before the draft starts, shortening the betting window for live odds traders.
Bring a quarter to the arena if you want a souvenir–Riot mints only 300 coins per knockout day, and staff hand them to fans near the exit tunnel once the winning side is confirmed. Arrive within five minutes of the nexus explosion; leftover coins are melted down to prevent eBay scalping, so punctuality beats luck.
Q&A:
When exactly do the play-ins start, and which days have five-game series?
Play-ins kick off 23 Sept in Berlin, running through 29 Sept. Best-of-five matches only appear in the final two days 28–29 Sept when the last two spots for the Swiss stage are decided. The earlier days are all best-of-threes, so if you want the longer sets, wait for the weekend.
How does the Swiss stage work this year, and why is there no traditional group draw?
Instead of fixed groups, 16 teams play a Swiss system: you keep meeting opponents with the same score until you reach three wins (advance) or three losses (out). Matches are redrawn after every round, so the bracket you see on day one is obsolete by day three. Riot dropped the group format to cut seeding bias everyone re-seeds every round, which stops a single bad draw from ending a run.
Who gets side selection in the knockout stage, and does it really matter at patch 14.19?
From quarter-finals onward, higher seed from the Swiss stage picks blue or red for game one; loser of each previous game chooses next. On 14.19 blue side has a 54 % win rate in major regions thanks to first-priority power picks like Briar and Qiyana, so side selection is a genuine edge especially if your mid-jungle duo is comfortable on those champions.
Which teams are priced as favourites, and where is the smart money going outside the obvious names?
Gen.G open at 3.50, BLG at 4.75 and T1 at 5.00. If you want value, look at LNG at 11.00; Scout and GALA have meshed faster with patch 14.19 than most LPL bot lanes, and LNG avoided early scrim leaks that hurt other Chinese teams. FlyQuest at 34.00 is a long shot, but they went 7-1 on the super-week that mattered; small each-way stakes can pay for a deep run.
Where will the grand final be played, and how fast do tickets usually sell out?
The final is 8 Nov at Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid. Riot lists 75 000 seats, yet only 62 000 are on public sale corporate blocks and partner allocations grab the rest. Last year London final sold general tickets in 28 minutes; expect Madrid to beat that. Pre-register on the official app and have two payment methods ready captchas and queue drops decide who gets through.
Reviews
Dominic
Guys, aren’t we glossing over how the new best-of-one Swiss invites one upset meta and buries the scrappy LJL/CB teams before they even unpack? Who still trusts Riot ping parity after MSI 35 ms fudge anyone?
PixelDaisy
lol, girls, i blinked and 2026 bracket dropped faker still standing like a stubborn lash, t1 stans clutching lightsticks instead of boyfriends. schedule says 3am? cute. my under-eye patches and zoe pajamas say we’ll stan anyway.
DriftNova
So Riot Excel sheet says T1, BLG, Gen.G, and whoever lucks-skated through play-ins are "favorites" and we’re all supposed to nod like well-trained caster puppets. Tell me, lads: are we really betting draft kings on Faker fifth coronation, or is your gut already whispering that some 17-year-old on a 0-3 scrim account is about to turn the bracket into abstract art and crown himself while we’re still arguing over patch notes?
Alexander
I keep checking my phone at 3 a.m. for start times I already know by heart, pretending the bracket is a constellation that’ll tell me if she’ll text back am I the only one who hopes T1 wins just so the distance between Seoul and her new zip code feels shorter, or does anyone else trade barons for memories and still lose both?
Gabriel Whitaker
I circled the dates three times on my kitchen wall, not because I trust calendars, but because the ink smells like her perfume when the light hits it just right. T1 versus Gen.G at 3 a.m. ridiculous hour, yet I’ll brew the cheap coffee we used to share, pretend the steam is cigarette fog from 2019, and let Faker rook moves stitch the years together. If they meet again in finals, I’ll send a silent postcard to the girl who swore pro play was math, not heart. She’ll never read it, but the stamp will carry the sound of Nexus exploding, and that close enough to "I still" for me.
Ethan Morrison
Dude, why spam us with a skeletal calendar and zero bracket math, then crown Gen.G based on scrim leaks? Did you even check MSI ping chaos, visa roulette, or the fact riot patching every other week? Spell out how double-elim seeding survives if Korea lands four seeds, or stop fronting like you know who hoisting the cup.
Owen Caldwell
2026 bracket looks like my fridge after patch night: full, shiny, and doomed to rot. Faker still there immortal like a Windows update. Gen.G cloned themselves again; if they lose, the five copies will still blame the jungle. Meanwhile NA "superteam" scrims in a Denny booth, syrup in their mechanical switches. My pick’em? Random skin, random smite, random 3 a.m. collapse. Wake me for the finals; I’ll be in queue, dodging IRL responsibilities and lvl-1 invades.