2017 League of Legends World Championship

The 2017 League of Legends World Championship was an esports tournament for the multiplayer online battle arena video game League of Legends. It was the seventh iteration of the League of Legends World Championship, an annual international tournament organized by the game's developer, Riot Games. It was held from September 23 – November 4, 2017, in cities across China. Twenty four teams qualified for the tournament based on their placement in regional circuits such as those in North America, Europe, South Korea, and China, with twelve of those teams having to reach the group stage via a play-in round.

League of Legends World Championship

2017
Tournament information
Location	China
Dates	September 23–November 4
Administrator	Riot Games
Tournament format(s)	12 team double round-robin Play-in Stage 16 team double round-robin group stage 8 team single-elimination bracket[1]
Venue(s)	4 (in 4 host cities) Wuhan (play-in stage & main group stage) Guangzhou (quarterfinals) Shanghai (semifinals) Beijing (finals)
Teams	24
Purse	$4,596,591[2]
Final positions
Champion	Samsung Galaxy
Runner-up	SK Telecom T1
MVP	Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk (Samsung Galaxy)
← 2016 2018 →

The finals featured a rematch of last year's competitors, and in 2017, Samsung Galaxy secured their second championship win after defeating the three-time world champion SK Telecom T1, with a 3–0 sweep in a best of five final series. Samsung has previously won the 2014 League of Legends World Championship. Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk, the AD carry of Samsung, was named the MVP of the tournament for his outstanding performances.^[3]

Against The Current and Jay Chou collaborated with Riot Games to produce two exclusive songs titled "Legends Never Die" and "Hero" respectively for the tournament, while Alan Walker also produced his own remix of "Legends Never Die".

The 2017 World Championship was praised for its ceremonial performances,^[4][5] while receiving attention worldwide due to the high quality of the tournament, its multiple dramatic and emotional series,^[6][7][8][9] and SK Telecom T1's tributary moments.^[10] The finals was watched by 60 million unique viewers, breaking 2016's viewer record.^[11] A donation of US$2.35 million was also raised through the sales of Worlds 2017 Championship Ashe skin.^[12]

Teams and qualifications

Based on the results of MSI and the World Championship in the previous two years, all teams from South Korea (LCK) were seeded directly into the group stage and Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau (LMS) received an extra seed. With the ranking of the 2017 Mid Season Invitational, Southeast Asia (GPL) received a group stage seed for the summer champion team and one more slot in the play-in stage for the summer runner-up team, and the North American (NA LCS) summer split champion team was seeded to Pool 2 due to not qualifying for the top 4 at the MSI.

Region	League	Path	Start in	Pool	Teams	ID
China	LPL	Summer Champion	Group stage	1	Edward Gaming	EDG
		Championship Points		2	Royal Never Give Up	RNG
		Regional Finals	Play-in stage	3	Team WE	WE
Europe	EU LCS	Summer Champion	Group stage	1	G2 Esports	G2
		Championship Points		2	Misfits Gaming	MSF
		Regional Finals	Play-in stage	3	Fnatic	FNC
North America	NA LCS	Summer Champion	Group stage	2	Team SoloMid	TSM
		Championship Points			Immortals	IMT
		Regional Finals	Play-in stage	3	Cloud9	C9
South Korea	LCK	Summer Champion	Group stage	1	Longzhu Gaming	LZ
		Championship Points		2	SK Telecom T1	SKT
		Regional Finals			Samsung Galaxy	SSG
Taiwan Hong Kong Macau	LMS	Summer Champion	Group stage	1	Flash Wolves	FW
		Championship Points		2	ahq e-Sports Club	AHQ
		Regional Finals	Play-in stage	3	Hong Kong Attitude	HKA
Vietnam ►Southeast Asia	VCS►GPL	Summer Champion	Group stage	2	GIGABYTE Marines	GAM
		Summer Runner-up	Play-in stage	4	Young Generation	YG
Brazil	CBLOL	Summer Champion			Team oNe Esports	ONE
CIS	LCL				Gambit Esports	GMB
Turkey	TCL				1907 Fenerbahçe	FB
Japan	LJL			5	Rampage	RPG
Latin America North	LLN				Lyon Gaming	LYN
Latin America South	CLS				Kaos Latin Gamers	KLG
Oceania	OPL				Dire Wolves	DW

Venues

Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing were the four cities chosen to host the competition.^[13]

China
Wuhan, Hubei	Guangzhou, Guangdong	Shanghai	Beijing
Play-ins and Group Stage	Quarterfinals	Semifinals	Finals
Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium	Guangzhou Gymnasium	Shanghai Oriental Sports Center	Beijing National Stadium
Capacity: 7,000	Capacity: 10,000	Capacity: 18,200	Capacity: 91,000
Sep 23 – Oct 15	Oct 19 – Oct 22	Oct 28 – Oct 29	Nov 4
Wuhan Guangzhou Shanghai Beijing

Play-in stage

Groups

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PCT	Qualification
1	Team WE	4	4	0	1.000	Advance to play-in knockouts
2	Lyon Gaming	4	2	2	.500
3	Gambit Esports	4	0	4	.000

Group A

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PCT	Qualification
1	Cloud9	4	4	0	1.000	Advance to play-in knockouts
2	Team One Esports	5	2	3	.400
3	Dire Wolves	5	1	4	.200

Group B

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PCT	Qualification
1	Fnatic	4	3	1	.750	Advance to play-in knockouts
2	Young Generation	4	2	2	.500
3	Kaos Latin Gamers	4	1	3	.250

Group C

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PCT	Qualification
1	1907 Fenerbahçe Espor	5	4	1	.800	Advance to play-in knockouts
2	Hong Kong Attitude	5	3	2	.600
3	Rampage	4	0	4	.000

Group D

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)

Knockouts

	Round 1
	Team WE		3
	Young Generation		0
	Cloud9		3
	Lyon Gaming		0
	Fnatic		3
	Hong Kong Attitude		0
	1907 Fenerbahçe		3
	Team oNe Esports		1

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)

Group stage

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PCT	Qualification
1	SK Telecom T1	6	5	1	.833	Advance to knockouts
2	Cloud9	6	3	3	.500
3	ahq e-Sports Club	6	2	4	.333
4	Edward Gaming	6	2	4	.333

Group A

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PCT	Qualification
1	Longzhu Gaming	6	6	0	1.000	Advance to knockouts
2	Fnatic	8	4	4	.500
3	GIGABYTE Marines	7	2	5	.286
4	Immortals	7	2	5	.286

Group B

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)
Rules for classification: 1) Winning percentage; 2) Tiebreaker match(es); 3) Total game victory time^[a]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PCT	Qualification
1	Royal Never Give Up	6	5	1	.833	Advance to knockouts
2	Samsung Galaxy	6	4	2	.667
3	G2 Esports	6	3	3	.500
4	1907 Fenerbahçe Espor	6	0	6	.000

Group C

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PCT	Qualification
1	Team WE	6	5	1	.833	Advance to knockouts
2	Misfits Gaming	7	4	3	.571
3	Team SoloMid	7	3	4	.429
4	Flash Wolves	6	1	5	.167

Group D

Source: LoL Esports (Archived 2018-12-18 at the Wayback Machine)

Knockout stage

Bracket

The stage for the finals between SKT T1 and Samsung Galaxy in the Beijing National Stadium

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Final

A1

SK Telecom T1

3

D2

Misfits Gaming

2

SK Telecom T1

3

Royal Never Give Up

2

C1

Royal Never Give Up

3

B2

Fnatic

1

SK Telecom T1

0

Samsung Galaxy

3

D1

Team WE

3

A2

Cloud9

2

Team WE

1

Samsung Galaxy

3

B1

Longzhu Gaming

0

C2

Samsung Galaxy

3

Quarterfinals

Quarterfinals	October 19	Longzhu Gaming	0	–	3	Samsung Galaxy	Guangzhou, China
		Source					Guangzhou Gymnasium
		0	Game 1			1
		0	Game 2			1
		0	Game 3			1

Quarterfinals	October 20	SK Telecom T1	3	–	2	Misfits Gaming	Guangzhou, China
		Source					Guangzhou Gymnasium
		1	Game 1			0
		0	Game 2			1
		0	Game 3			1
		1	Game 4			0
		1	Game 5			0

Quarterfinals	October 21	Royal Never Give Up	3	–	1	Fnatic	Guangzhou, China
		Source					Guangzhou Gymnasium
		1	Game 1			0
		1	Game 2			0
		0	Game 3			1
		1	Game 4			0

Quarterfinals	October 22	Team WE	3	–	2	Cloud9	Guangzhou, China
		Source					Guangzhou Gymnasium
		1	Game 1			0
		0	Game 2			1
		0	Game 3			1
		1	Game 4			0
		1	Game 5			0

Semifinals

Semifinals	October 28	SK Telecom T1	3	–	2	Royal Never Give Up	Shanghai, China
		Source					Shanghai Oriental Sports Center
		0	Game 1			1
		1	Game 2			0
		0	Game 3			1
		1	Game 4			0
		1	Game 5			0

Semifinals	October 29	Team WE	1	–	3	Samsung Galaxy	Shanghai, China
		Source					Shanghai Oriental Sports Center
		1	Game 1			0
		0	Game 2			1
		0	Game 3			1
		0	Game 4			1

Final

Final	November 4	SK Telecom T1	0	–	3	Samsung Galaxy	Beijing, China
		Source					Beijing National Stadium
		0	Game 1			1
		0	Game 2			1
		0	Game 3			1

Final standings

Final standings, 2017^[14]

Places	Team	Prize (USD)
1st	Samsung Galaxy	$1,855,114
2nd	SK Telecom T1	$667,841
3rd–4th	Royal Never Give Up	$346,288
	Team WE
5–8th	Longzhu Gaming	$197,879
	Misfits Gaming
	Fnatic
	Cloud9
9–11th	Team SoloMid	$111,307
	G2 Esports
	GIGABYTE Marines
12–13th	Edward Gaming	$86,571
	ahq e-Sports Club
14–16th	Flash Wolves	$61,837
	Immortals
	1907 Fenerbahçe
17–20th	Lyon Gaming	$37,102
	Hong Kong Attitude
	Team oNe Esports
	Young Generation
21–24th	Rampage	$24,735
	Kaos Latin Gamers
	Dire Wolves
	Gambit Esports
Total		$4,946,970

Entertainment

League of Legends Live

League of Legends Live was held on the eve of the finals, November 3, in Beijing National Aquatics Center (or known as the Water Cube) to commemorate the tournament, featuring international artists and League of Legends community musicians. It featured performances of a wide variety of music from League of Legends, including Get Jinxed, hits from Pentakill, DJ Sona, Warsongs, Star Guardian, The Curse Of The Sad Mummy, medleys of a wide variety of Worlds and Champion themes, DJ and music producer Alan Walker, and many other tracks over the course of the 90-minute show.^[15]

Opening and closing ceremonies

During the opening ceremony of the finals, dancers wore different masks, as the ground around them had visual effects and colors. It was followed by Jay Chou's Worlds 2017 remix Hero performance, and a live version of Legends Never Die by Against the Current, with Chou playing the piano behind. An augmented reality dragon (modeled after the in-game Elder Drake) also flew around the arena halfway through the performance, with the Summoner's Cup rising from the grounds of the stadium at the same time. The closing ceremony featured Alan Walker performing his own remix of Legends Never Die, with Chrissy Costanza on the vocals.^[16] The overall performances of the ceremonies were well received.^[4][5]

Legacy

The finals had 60 million unique viewers worldwide, breaking 2016's viewer record.^[11]

League of Legends fans raised over US$2 million for three different charities (BasicNeeds, Learning Equality and the Raspberry Pi Foundation) with the sales of the "Worlds 2017 Championship Ashe" skin.^[17]

The loss of SK Telecom T1 in a 0–3 defeat, as well as Faker's emotional moment is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in League of Legends' history, and noticeably caught the attention of League of Legends' fans throughout the world, with many tributes given to the team and Faker for their success.^[10]

Notes

1. The total amount of time it took a team to win their games against all other teams in the tiebreaker