Riot Games announced that the Worlds Qualifying Series (WQS) has been moved from North America (as previously announced) to South Korea. The pre-Worlds event is meant to pit fourth seed teams from the the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) and League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) against each other to secure the final spot in the 2023 World Championship Play-In. Now that competition will take place at the LoL Park in Seoul, South Korea, on Oct. 9.
Riot explained why it made the change in a social media post:
“Earlier this year, we announced a new format for Worlds 2023. As part of that announcement, we introduced the Worlds Qualifying Series, where the 4th seed from the LEC and the 4th seed from the LCS will battle in a best-of-5 to claim the final Play-In Stage slot at Worlds.
“While we had originally planned to host the Worlds Qualifying Series in North America, we have elected to move the event to South Korea to allow the two potential teams as much time as possible to prepare in the host region, minimize travel [to whomever would be traveling to Worlds to compete after qualifying] and scrim against qualified Worlds teams before the Play-In stage.
We will have more details on tickets and broadcast times soon!”
Riot announced in April that Worlds 2023 would be taking place in South Korea this year from Oct. 10 – Nov. 19, and would open in Seoul, make a stop in Busan, and return to Seoul for the finals at the Gocheok Sky Dome.
