LoL Worlds Final 2023: A Bettor’s Game-Day Guide
Published: Nov 18, 2023 - Last Updated: Jul 22, 2024
It’s finally here, the biggest event in the League of Legends esports calendar. An exhilarating matchup between T1 and Weibo Gaming, Korea vs China; the World Championship final. Both teams have defied the odds to get here and each now only requires one more best-of-five victory to write their names into the history books.
Bet on the Grand Final: Best Promos
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Pre-Show and Opening Ceremony
The main action will get underway at 17:00 KST / 9:00 CET / 00:00 PST, though keen viewers will be able to tune in to the pre-show sometime before to see the analyst desk’s buildup to the main event.
That will be followed by the ever-anticipated opening ceremony, set to feature a performance from K-pop group NewJeans of the official Worlds anthem GODS as well as an appearance by the LoL universe’s latest virtual group HEARTSTEEL.
What’s the Draft Phase?
Getting into the games themselves and each match of the best-of-five series will start with the pick-and-ban phase. This allows each team to pick and ban five of the game’s 165 champions.
This is done in a rotating order between the teams, allowing each to take turns banning three champions, then picking three and then banning and picking two.
Each team will strategize their picks and bans carefully due to each champion’s unique strengths and weaknesses. In addition, they’ll have to consider their opponent’s performances in the previous LoL Worlds betting brackets.
Missing the right pick can allow it into the enemy team’s composition, but showing your hand too early gives the opponent a chance to counter-pick later in the drafting phase.
More on the Weibo vs T1 finals:
- Weibo vs T1 Preview: Analysis, Odds & Prediction
- LoL Worlds Final Betting Tips: GG.Bet Markets
- LoL Worlds Final Match MVP Odds & Prediction [Updated]
League Match Setup
The games themselves are generally split into three stages – early, mid and late game.
| Early Game | The early game lasts until around 14 minutes and will see players try to gain advantages in their respective lanes through dueling and farming minions for gold and XP. Earning XP is important to level up champions, allowing them to unlock and upgrade abilities. Gold is needed to buy items that provide crucial stat increases and in some cases even give additional abilities. During this early game, junglers will look to gain early control of the map. Doing so will grant them access to the early spawning objectives of Rift Herald and dragon along with the possibility of setting up kills for their lanes. |
| Mid Game | The mid game then kicks in, lasting until around 30 minutes. This time will see teams begin rotations around the maps, moving the players out of their main lanes to compete for the next objectives. These objectives include additional dragons, the strong Baron Nashor as well as beginning to take down opponent towers to move closer towards their base. |
| Late Game | While some matches may not even reach the late game, those that do become much more nervy. At this stage, players are more advanced in their builds, with carries dealing much more damage and being able to blow up misstepping opponents. This means that mistakes are much more costly, especially since death timers increase the higher level champions become. It’s also at this stage where the elder dragon may spawn, granting the team that kills it the most significant buff and more often than not putting the other side at an unsurmountable disadvantage that usually signals the end of the game. |
In a best-of-five series, each team aims to win three matches in order to claim an overall victory, meaning either a 3-0, 3-1 or 3-2 scoreline is needed to claim the Summoner’s Cup.
The team that does so will go down in history, winning the greatest title in League of Legends esports and netting a cool $486,500 in the process – more in our LoL Worlds prize pool discussion.
LoL Worlds Final Team Lineups
T1
- Top – Choi “Zeus” Woo-je
- Jungler – Mun “Oner” Hyeon-jun
- Mid – Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok
- ADC – Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong
- Support – Ryu “Keria” Min-seok
Weibo Gaming
- Top – Kang “TheShy” Seung-lok
- Jungler – Wei “Weiwei” Bo-Han
- Mid – Li “Xiaohu” Yuan-Hao
- ADC – Wang “Light” Guang-Yu
- Support – Liu “Crisp” Qing-Song
Read Team Stories:
- T1 Faker Faces Final Hurdle to Cement Legacy at LoL Worlds
- TheShy and Weibo Dreaming of an Upset at LoL Worlds
Commentary
Stepping up to commentate on the series will be play-by-play caster Max “Atlus” Anderson and colour casters Maurits “Chronicler” Jan Meeusen and Isaac “Azael” Cummings-Bentley.
Atlus and Chronicler are both LCK regulars, meaning they can provide especially key insight into final favourites T1.
While Azael usually casts North America’s LCS, he’s been trusted with the biggest game of all due to his analytical talent and is a fan-favourite commentator. Chronicler and Azael will both be casting a World Championship final for the first time in their careers.
