League of Legends Esports World Cup 2025 Viewer Guide

The Esports World Cup is a young tournament series, announced at the end of 2023 and built on the previously held Gamers8 events. For League of Legends, this will be the first chance to showcase itself at this event. A large prize pool, the world’s strongest teams, and excellent organization — all of this awaits us, the League of Legends fans, at LoL EWC 2025. Let’s take a closer look at all the details of the tournament.

League of Legends Esports World Cup 2025 Format and Dates

The League of Legends Esports World Cup 2025 will take place from July 16 to July 20, with matches hosted at the STC Esports Arena in Riyadh.

The tournament will be split into two stages: the Group Stage followed by the Playoffs. In the Group Stage, there will be two groups, Group A and Group B. All matches will be played in a Bo1 format using Double Elimination. The Group Stage will feature 8 Low Seed teams (6 teams that finished in the bottom spots at MSI 2025, and 2 teams that didn’t qualify for MSI).

This format is incredibly unpredictable, as lower-tier teams can easily take a single map off the favorites, sending them to the lower bracket or even eliminating them from the tournament entirely. The Group Stage will run almost entirely in one day, from July 16 to July 17. But the schedule is designed so that you won’t miss a single match.

The League of Legends Esports World Cup 2025 Playoffs will begin on July 17 and conclude on July 20. They will follow a Single-Elimination bracket. A total of 8 teams will compete in the Playoffs: 4 High Seeds (Top 4 from MSI 2025) and 4 Qualified teams from the Group Stage. All matches will be Bo3, except for the Grand Final, which will be played in a Bo5 format.

LoL Esports World Cup 2025 Teams

Credit: esportsworldcup.com

A total of 12 teams will compete in the Esports World Cup 2025, having secured their spots by proving themselves as the best in their regions and on the international stage.

• Gen.G Esports
• T1
• Anyone's Legend
• CTBC Flying Oyster
• FlyQuest
• KOI
• Bilibili Gaming
• FURIA
• G2 Esports
• GAM Esports
• Cloud9
• Hanwha Life Esports

Detailed team breakdown:

Esports World Cup 2025 brings together the strongest League of Legends teams from around the world — LCK (Korea), LCP (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau), LTA (North and South America), LPL (China), and LEC (Europe) — each roster featuring top-tier players. Every team has earned its spot by making it through tough qualification in their home leagues and international events to be here.

League of Legends Esports World Cup 2025 Prize Pool

The tournament is organized by external operators — the Esports World Cup Foundation, ESL FACEIT Group, and Hero Esports — without direct involvement from Riot Games. That means there won’t be the usual qualification slots for other tournaments on the line, only a large prize pool.

The prize pool for LoL Esports World Cup 2025 is $2,000,000.

• 1st place — $600,000
• 2nd place — $320,000
• 3rd place — $230,000
• 4th place — $160,000
• 5th–8th place — $110,000
• 9th–10th place — $75,000
• 11th–12th place — $50,000

The tournament is organized by external operators — the Esports World Cup Foundation, ESL FACEIT Group, and Hero Esports — without direct involvement from Riot Games. That means there won’t be the usual qualification slots for other tournaments on the line, only a large prize pool.

What to Expect from the Esports World Cup 2025?

Credit: esportsworldcup.com

In my opinion, LoL EWC 2025 is shaping up to be quite an unpredictable tournament for several reasons.

The first reason is the group stage format, which will be played as Bo1. We saw a similar format at LEC Winter 2025, but there the group stage was much longer and every team played each other multiple times. At EWC 2025, a single mistake could mean elimination from the tournament.

The second factor is the new patch releasing on July 16, the very day the tournament starts. This could significantly affect gameplay and shift the meta.

The third factor is the recently concluded MSI 2025. The tournament ended just on the night of the 13th, and all teams playing there—except for Cloud9 and HLE—will also be competing at EWC 2025. The workload is huge with almost no rest: recovering after matches against top-tier teams, coming up with new strategies, traveling. All these things could impact the outcome of the tournament.

As for favorites, the obvious picks are the MSI 2025 finalists—the champions Gen.G and runners-up T1. Even without those titles, they’re currently the strongest teams in the world and tournament favorites every time. There are also the LPL representatives—Anyone’s Legend and Bilibili Gaming. You could also add HLE, who missed MSI 2025 after losing to T1.

But I also want to highlight CTBC Flying Oyster and FlyQuest. Both teams performed excellently at the last MSI. They didn’t just show up—they proved they can win and put up a serious fight against the world’s best. They’ll be very interesting to watch, and considering they had more time to recover, it wouldn’t surprise me if we see one of them in the semifinals or even the final.

Esports World Cup 2025 Betting

League of Legends tournaments are always vibrant and thrilling, and over the years, dedicated fan communities have formed around the game—just like in other popular esports titles. To make watching even more exciting and emotional, you can place a bet on your favorite team.

Think the team you’re cheering for will take the championship title at Esports World Cup 2025? Place your bet, support your favorite players, and share in the joy of victory with them! Don’t want to take risks? No problem—just sit back, enjoy top-tier gameplay, and watch the highest-level matches unfold. With every tournament, the level of play keeps rising, making it even more fun to watch. So get comfortable, enjoy the show, and may your team come out on top!