With the League of Legends 2021 World Championship on the horizon, the group stage brackets have been decided, and all spectators of LoL Esports can participate in the Worlds Pick’em action. Fans will have a chance at unique rewards this year if they guess the brackets of the tournament correctly. After the play-in stages conclude their games (October 5 – 9), viewers will be able to drag and drop their predictions in order of how they believe the tournament will play out.
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Each team and bracket you accurately predict, will earn you a certain amount of points. The more points you have by the time the tournament concludes, the better your chances will be at receiving rewards. The choosing of seeds will be split into two parts for group stage and knockout brackets so participants have two different chances to fill out their brackets and secure prizes.
The LoL Worlds Pick’em 2021 round one unlocks on October 10 @ 4:00 PM PDT. In our Worlds Play-in breakdown we took a glimpse at the teams poised for success in the tournament and which teams will most likely perform well into the World Tournament Main Event. Most of the teams that will be eligible to be picked for the Worlds Pick’em 2021 are also featured on our LoL Worlds 2021 Power Rankings as the top tier teams from Europe, China, Korea and North America duke it out for international supremacy.
Read also: All the Worlds 2021 Event Pass, Missions and Drop Rewards
Like any other World Championship, Worlds 2021 is slated to feature some of the most fearsome competition ever assembled on the Summoners Rift. This year, veteran talent is at an all time high: Faker, Khan, Canyon, Doinb, Perkz, Xiaohu, Tian, ShowMaker, Chovy, Zven are all in attendance. Returning legends in every single roster are making their bid for the cup.
This year we probably have one of the toughest pick’ems for all stages of the tournament.
The Crystal Ball is the outright esports betting equivalent given by Riot Games for their Pickem challenge. You are given a chance to select the overall winner of Worlds 2021 outright, and if you do so, you will be awarded 20 extra points at the end of Worlds. Crystal Ball picks are already available, and you can select your winner right now.
FunPlus Phoenix is our selection for the Crystall Ball Pick’em Challenge. We decided not to flip-flop in our selection, and will pick the same champion we proposed in our LoL Worlds Betting Odds guide.
LoL Worlds Crystal Ball Pick’em
With such a stacked talent line-up, predicting the Worlds Pick’em is an art form in itself. The Group Stage picks were opened on October 10th.
Our predictions favor the top Chinese and Korean forth into knockouts. With European top seeds looking shaky and a general consensus that North America is the weakest region at Worlds 2021 (apart from wild cards), we are likely going to see an all LPL/LCK line-up come Playoffs. Out of the Play-in stage, only Detonation FocusMe had a surprising performance, with every other team going according to our Worlds 2021 Predictions.
Group A has our Crystal Ball pick in FPX and returning World Champions DWG Kia at the top. Neither Rogue nor Cloud9 were convincing in their home region series or the Play-In (C9), and we doubt either will make it out of Groups this year. This group might hold the Worlds 2021 Finalists as well.
Groups B, C and D are all reserved for the top Korean and Chinese seeds. With Fnatic losing Upset days ahead of the event, we have no faith in any European seed making it out of Groups this year. MAD Lions has a tough group with LNG and Gen.G and even Team Liquid might go 1-1 against them. Detonation FocusMe did come out top in Play-Ins but they are not likely to win a single game against T1 and EDG. 100Thieves might win a single or both games versus DFM but that is as far as they will get.
Finally, PSG Talon is the only dark horse that might have a reasonable shot of coming out of Groups if they perform well against Hanwha Life. Overall, we are looking at a very eastern dominated Worlds event this year.
We made the following selections in each of the four groups:
© Esports.net Worlds 2021 Group Stage Pick’em Prediction
You can read our Group Stage Predictions from 2020 in the toggle box below:
After several back and forth’s between our analysts we finally came down with the following prediction:
© Esports.net Worlds 2020 Group Stage Pick’em Prediction
Our predictions favor the top Chinese, Korean and European seeds to advance forth into knockouts. We came to a general consensus that North America is the weakest region at Worlds 2020 and is likely not having any team into Knockouts this year. Out of the Play-in stage, only the Unicorns of Love and LGD Gaming had interesting performances, but have both been seeded into difficult groups.
In Group C, Gen.G should be the main favorite ahead of Fnatic who are traditionally performing poorly in Round 1 of groups. Once the re-matches kick off, Fnatic should bounce back and finish the group just shy of the Koreans. LGD and TSM might battle for 3rd spot simply because of the bo1 format.
Groups B and D are reserved for the top Korean and Chinese seeds. We have absolutely no faith in Rogue or FlyQuest taking games from LPL or Korean teams. The only real contender are Unicorns of Love who might steal a game from DRX and contest for second in a tiebreaker.
Finally, Group A is arguably the hardest one to predict. While G2 Esports are considered the main favorites, anyone that followed the LEC Summer Split knows how poorly G2 performs especially if Claps turns into Craps. Machi Esports and Suning might easily win games against each other and against G2 turning the group upside down. In the end, if G2 performs well they are guaranteed a first seed trailed by Suning with a potential tiebreaker between em.
Read also: Learn how to bet on LoL Worlds
The Knockout Stage is set to begin on October 22nd 2021. Our Pickems for the quarterfinal matches favor the LCK teams heavily, especially after the immense showing in Groups by all Korean participants.
Esports.net
I fully expect all three Korean seeds to move forward. Between the two LPL teams (EDG, RNG) there might be a silver scrapes series that go can go either way. I went for EDG while our other authors went for RNG. Expect a coin toss series there and the selection is down to your personal preference.
For betting related LoL Worlds Odds and predictions, check with our Esports News section.
The Coin is a new addition to the Worlds 2021 Pick’em challenge. If you fail to select winners or picks for a certain stage of the event, the Coin will do it for you. The selections will be random, based on no particular metric, meaning picks will be wacky and all over the place. However, it will enable you to always join late in the challenge and still be able to earn rewards.
While you wait for the Knockout Stage picks, you can read how our predictions last year went, and how we ultimately guessed the World Champion, but failed to anticipate the strength of Suning.
The Worlds Pick’em is a fun prediction based way of looking at the League of Legends World Championship for fans who want to participate in the esports action without having to delve into the stakes. As long as your predictions are correct, your eligibility for prizes continues to accumulate through two different phases. The picks for quarterfinals have unlocked on October 11 @ 4:00 PM PDT, with the locking of picks closing the night before the first match is played.
We correctly assessed the strength of all the participants in our Group Stage Picks but we failed to guess the correct seeding. Our Knockout Stage Pick’em is fairly easier as we already know how most participants scale up to each other.
© Esports.net Worlds 2020 Knockout Stage Prediction
All four match ups are pretty straight forward. As LEC fans we would love to see the European teams perform well, but in reality, the best we can hope for is a single team reaching semifinals.
First up, TOP Esports meets Fnatic in a classic LPL vs LEC match up. It’s the tradition for Fnatic to be eliminated by a Worlds Champion for two years in a row now. While TOP Esports has a huge claim on the trophy themselves, we anticipate the Final is where they will fall short. There were lessons learned in the Fly Quest vs TOP Esports match up in Groups on how to beat the LPL top seed, but Fnatic can at best hope to take one game with a superior force draft. After that TOPs teamfighting and lane dominance should prove too much for FNC to handle.
Suning vs JD Gaming is an interesting match up due to both teams preparing very specific drafts for one another. When two teams from the same region meet we can expect the Worlds meta to be ignored and very specific and niche matchups to decide the outcome. Over the course of the entire season JD has been the better team, and we can expect this trend to continue into Knockouts.
G2 Esports vs Gen.G is where the LEC is putting their hopes in for a strong EU finish at Worlds. Gen.G has looked shaky at best in Groups and are hardly considered favorites in this match. If G2 doesn’t Craps themselves from the get go, we can expect a swift 3-0 from the Europeans.
Finally, DAMWON vs DRX is a repeat of the LCK 2020 Summer Finals. We already know how this match-up goes as DAMWON is an absolute bully when it comes to beating teams from their own region. DRX didn’t grow that much in the past two months, that they would suddenly become a challenger for DAMWON. We can fully expect another swift 3-0 here.
Update 23/10: Our bracket still holds true regardless of the Suning vs JD Gaming result. We are still confident TOP Esports can beat Suning with relative ease and advance to the Worlds 2020 Finals.
League of Legends Worlds Pick’em bares a similar resemblance to fantasy esports in that most fans can still participate in the competitive result aspect of League of Legends in a manner separate from Fanduel or DraftKings betting options.
While certain sites like DraftKings esports possess a slew of options for bettors in a variety of formats that could be appealing for tournaments as decadent as Worlds 2021, the LoL Worlds Pick’em is a streamlined attempt at getting spectators to jump in on the action regardless of result. While esports betting in the USA is still restricted in some areas from participating in those options, a LoL Worlds 2021 Pick’em seems to make a lot more sense for fans who want to get their foot in the door on competitive League of Legends betting formats. The skills it takes to have an elite bracket within a Worlds pick’em are just as valuable for these other sites as well.
For each lock-in phase successfully executed, each player will be awarded small blue essence awards. The Crystal Ball pick will award you 300 BE, while Group Stage locks will earn you 500. For locking in any full stage picks, you will be awarded with 1000BE and a Hextech Chest + Key combo to utilize in the craft section of the league client.
Finally, fans that guess correctly for every stage of the competition will be eligible to win the following prizes:
Check back on this page on October 10 @ 4:00 PM PDT. You will be able to view all our picks for the Group Stage, before you play your own 2021 Worlds Championship Pick’em Challenge.
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