LoL Worlds 2022 Predictions: Preview, Teams and Daily Odds

The 2022 League of Legends World Championship is finally ready. All the teams have arrived in North America and are currently undergoing preparations. There’s no better time for a short preview and our overall LoL Worlds predictions! Here is everything you need to know about the teams, structure, and betting strategies for the biggest League of Legends tournament of the season.

Additionally, we provide you with info and links about all the LoL Worlds 2022 resources you will need to safely navigate and stay on top through everything the event has to offer.

Worlds 2022

LoL Worlds 2022 Preview & Tournament Format

Worlds is happening between September 29th – November 6th 2022 across North America. 22 teams from 10 different regions are set to compete for the Summoners Cup and the glory of being the best League of Legends team in the world. The Worlds Group Draw seeded all participating teams in their respective groups and the stage is set for an all out brawl toward the trophy.

The 2022 event marks the 12th anniversary of League of Legends and Worlds competition and an opportunity to crown the 8th Worlds Champions team. Here’s a full history of LoL Worlds and previous Worlds Champions.

Worlds Play-In Stage

Worlds Play-In Stage

The Worlds 2022 Play-in stage lasts four days, kicking off on September 29th. Twelve teams battle for the final four spots in the Worlds Main event. The participants have been seeded in two groups of five and will play a single robin stage before engaging in a series of best-of-five matches.

The Play-Ins Teams are divided as follows:

Image Credits | Riot Games

Several changes have been made to the tournament format for this years event. With the LCL teams not in attendance, the whole Play-In stage once again shifted into a format that better accommodates the remaining teams.

After completing their single round robin stage, the 1st placed team in each group advances directly to the Main Event and the last place team is eliminated. The three teams in the middle will play between each other. First up, the 4th and 3rd place team in each group will play a best-of-five series. The winner of this series will then play a best-of-five series against the 2nd place team, with the winner of that best-of-five also advancing to the main event.

You can read how the new format is actually better then before in our in-depth LoL Worlds Play-In article.

Worlds Main Event

With the conclusion of Play-Ins all 16 teams for the group stage will be set and the Main Event can commence. At the same time, Group Stage Worlds 2022 Pick’em will become available for prediction. The teams already seeded into the Group Stage and awaiting their final participant are divided as follows:

LoL worlds Groups Standings after Day 3

The Main Event follows the good old tried and tested format. Four double-round robin groups each send their two best teams into the Knockout Stage. A new draw will be completed after the Group Stage to determine the Knockout stage matches. Teams coming from the same group cannot be seeded on the same side of the bracket, meaning they can only meet again in the Worlds 2022 Final.

Read also about LoL Worlds Tickets

Where to watch LoL Worlds?

You can watch LoL Worlds Live at both Twitch and Youtube for both English Language broadcasts. The channels that broadcast each regional league on Twitch will also have their own localized streams in their native languages.

For China, the main broadcasting rights for Worlds 2022 belong to platform Bilibili. Last year, Bilibili shared their Chinese media rights with Penguin Esports, DouYu, and Huya, a move that is likely to repeat this year as well.

We can also expect a LoL Worlds Live Stream on TV on regional broadcasters in the later stages of the event. 

LoL Worlds 2022 Predictions

League of Legends World Championship predictions are the pride and glory of every aspiring analyst, color caster and spectator. Trying to figure out the meta and who performs well is the ultimate self-congratulatory achievement. It also provides us with valuable intel about LoL Worlds Betting and Pick’ems, but this is more of a perk then a feature.

We have scoured all available data and below we present you our selection of favorites and LoL Worlds predictions, for you to use as you see fit.

LoL Worlds Favorites

This year is all about the LPL once again. The outright Worlds favorites reflect this sentiment as we predict both EDG and RNG as potential Worlds Champions. If you are looking into Outright betting for the Worlds 2022 winner you can place a bet on either of these two teams. If you like to play safer, you can try placing bets on EDG to defend their trophy.

Place a bet on either one of these three contestants, and your betslips would look like this:

World Championship 2022 – Winner
RNG @ 6
T1 @ 3
DWG Kia @ 4.5

Staking 10$, you can expect a return from anywhere between 30$ to 45$ for an outright wager at GG.BET.

Play-Ins Favorites

The Play-Ins will need to provide us with four “winners” once everything is said and done. Based on the groups and format, we expect the following four teams to make it out of Play-Ins.

Group A: Fnatic & Evil Geniuses
Group B: DRX & RNG

Our Group Draw analysis will provide you with info about why we feel these teams are fit to advance forward.

Main Event Favorites

Main event predictions are hard to make based on how strong the competition is at Worlds this year. Individual match predictions will be made in our Daily Betslip below. Meanwhile, you can select teams likely to advance out of Groups outright. Based on our analysis we come up with the following recommendations:

Group A: Fnatic & T1
Group B: DWG Kia & G2
Group C: Rogue & TOP Esports
Group D: RNG & Gen.G

The odds for all these participants are extremely low as they are all heavy favorites on coming out of groups.

LoL Worlds Daily Betslip & Match Analysis

The last semifinal will be between the LCK fourth and first seeds DRX and Gen.G. Will DRX manage to continue their dark horse run or will GEN.G finally stop them and earn themselves a spot in the finals vs T1?

DRX vs Gen.G – How close will this series get?

Gen.G came into Worlds as one of the top three teams that were supposed to dominate the tournament. They had dominated throughout Summer in the LCK and looked like the best shot from its region for the World Championship. Gen.G was seeded into Group D with Royal Never Give Up, CTBC Flying Oyster and 100 Thieves, in what should’ve been an easy group stage for them… but the start wasn’t ideal.

Initially, Gen.G lost against RNG in the first round robin, but they managed to come back in the second one and ended in first place of the group. While having the first seed should’ve been a great advantage for them, Gen.G weren’t that lucky, as they were drawn against their domestic rivals DWG Kia who had a major evolution at Worlds. As a result, the series turned out to be much tougher than expected, with the two teams going to Silver Scrapes and Gen.G barely making it out.

Both teams played extremely well but this series proved to us that Gen.G isn’t the unbeatable team that we saw during Summer anymore. The meta shift from bot lane toward the top side of the map might have been a major factor. Nonetheless, the team has found a way to work around it thanks to the incredible individual talents they have on the team. Ruler is still able to carry his team and the same goes for Chovy: these two are the shining stars of the lineup.

Deft Ruler Worlds

That being said, there’s an important issue Gen.G has which emerged in the series against DK. Jungler Peanut was heavily outperformed by Canyon and he was put on tank duty for the majority of the series. We mentioned in the past how his supportive and utility role works well with the identity of the team, but if he gets countered and targeted, it becomes hard for Gen.G to find opportunities on the map. Against another aggressive jungler with pocket picks like Pyosik, Peanut might have a hard time once again.

Speaking of Pyosik, the young Korean star is having his redemption in one of the best moments for the team. He went from being benched in the LCK summer playoffs to first place in the group stage to make it to the semifinals. His recent performances have been on point and the polar opposite of the bad plays he used to have. Having said that, all the DRX members are at their peak level: Kingen and BeryL are playing consistently, Deft is the backbone of the team and Zeka is one of the best mids at this tournament. His Sylas, Azir and Akali are insane, especially in terms of mechanics and it will be a great problem for Gen.G to deal with.

Prediction

On paper, the two teams still have a gap, especially when it comes to game execution. In spite of this, I feel like DRX will perform better than they ever did and they will be able to match Gen.G at certain points of the series. Gen.G technically have the better macro but DRX are great when it comes to skirmishing: expect explosive fights around the objectives during the mid-game. As for the early game, everything will basically depend on the draft: both teams have spicy picks in the bot lane and in the jungle pools that can be utilized.

For DRX, you always have the Ashe-Heimerdinger duo, while Lehends has Yuumi and Renata as his preferred picks. In the mid lane, Chovy and Zeka will most likely exchange picks like Sylas, Akali and Azir so we might get to see some 1v1s there as well. Kingen and Doran will also be an interesting matchup which I see slightly favored towards Kingen for having the extra Fiora pick, which is considered god tier at Worlds.

Overall, the series will be tough to predict as DRX might have the plot armor and surprise us with another major upset. This year’s Worlds has given us a lot of surprises and I’m expecting to see even more of it. Rationally speaking, though, Gen.G are favored coming into this series. It will likely not be a clear 3-0, as I think DRX will at least get one game during the series. There are great opportunities in this series, especially since DRX are considered the underdog by bookmakers. Below you can find some of the best odds for this series, as usual offered by GG.bet:

  • Map Duration: over 32.5 (1.79x) – Korean teams usually play slow their first game of the series since they don’t want to mess up
  • Total kills: under 23.5 (2.01x)
  • Total maps: over 3.5 (1.43x) – very likely to happen
  • Correct Map Score: Gen.G 3-1 DRX (3.15x)
  • First Blood: Gen.G (1.68x) – can also go for DRX if you see an aggressive pick by Pyosik
  • Total Towers: over 12.5 (2.4x)
  • Total Dragons Slain: over 4.5 (1.94x)
Worlds 2022 – DRX vs EDG Quarterfinals – Sunday 23rd October

The last quarterfinal will be between yet another KR vs CN battle: the LCK fourth seed DRX will face last year’s champions EDG to determine who will advance to the top 4. Will DRX manage to continue their dark horse run or will EDG stop them and keep their chances of become back-to-back champions alive? Let’s break everything down in our preview.

Worlds 2022 – DRX vs EDG Quarterfinals – Sunday 23rd October

Out of all the teams in the top eight, DRX is truly the dark horse of this year’s Worlds. Before the end of the LCK summer split, no one would’ve ever thought to see them fighting in the Knockout stage. They didn’t look good during the regular split and almost failed to make it to Worlds if it weren’t for the regional gauntlet when they beat Liiv Sandbox. And even then the team’s play seems to be off.

Being the LCK fourth seed, DRX also had to through the play-ins stage where they unexpectedly beat RNG in their opener, earning their direct qualification to the group stage. In Group C, the level of competition was tough since DRX ended up with LEC’s Rogue and Top Esports, which were considered the favorites. Not only DRX was able to qualify but they did it by beating both RGE and TES, coming out of the group as the first seed.

A lot of the merit must go to Pyosik, who is finally showing why the organization invested so much into him. The Korean jungler had been underperforming throughout the summer, to the point where he was benched in favor of Juhan. Now, paired with the return of carry junglers, he seems to have found his dimension again, playing the champions he’s been comfortable on. (Graves, Kindred, Vi)

Not only that, but DRX’s mid laner Zeka has been a major revelation at this year’s tournament. He had great performances in play-ins and he has kept the consistency up throughout the group stage. Considering that DRX also has one of the most decorated ADCs in the world in the name of Deft, the impression is that DRX has finally unleashed their true potential.

The team is particularly strong at playing through the early game with early herald pickups and consistent actions around the map. They prefer giving the resources to Deft, who in turn helps open the map. They seem to be particularly strong at playing blue side, having a 100% win rate across four games (compared to 33% win rate on red side).

Overall, DRX is a team that has surprised teams over and over again at Worlds. While they don’t seem to excel particularly at something, they have solid gameplay and spicy picks like Heimerdinger support: they seem to be ready to fight…

EDward Gaming were probably expecting to get out of Group A in first place before they were dominated by T1 in the second round robin. While I think last year’s champions are still a strong team, there are some clear weaknesses that have emerged.

First, Flandre proved to struggle when facing very mechanical players like Zeus. T1’s top laner could do whatever he wanted and Flandre took a hard beating in all the games they played against each other. He’s a strong weaksider but it feels like he cannot match the elite tops of the tournament.

The second thing that is slightly bothering is their teamfighting. EDG sometimes gets overconfident and overstep thinking they would mechanically outplay the opponents, but the skill gap is not as wide as it might have been in the LPL so they get punished. If EDG is ahead, the problem isn’t there and they can fight to extend to lead, but in situations where the game state is even, this flaw can be lethal, especially for the momentum in best-of-five series.

Nonetheless, EDG are slightly favored coming into the series. DRX struggled against TES, losing twice against them and I’m expecting the Korean team to struggle against most LPL teams, including EDG. That being said, DRX’s chance will be around those mid game teamfights when EDG group excessively to force the fights, so it will be more about who can capitalize more on each other’s weaknesses. For these reasons, I’m expecting this series to be quite drawn out… both in terms of the series as well as game duration. If you want to bet on this match, feel free to check out other great odds below, offered by GG.bet:

  • Winner: EDG (1.57x)
  • Map 1 Winner: EDG (1.67x)
  • Race to 10 kills: EDG (1.77x)
  • Map Duration: over 33.5 (2.54x)
  • Map 1 Total Kills: over 24.5 (1.78x)
  • Odd/Even Maps: Odd (1.51x)
  • Correct Map Score: EDG 3-2 DRX (4.56x)
  • Match Total kills: over 100.5 (1.74x)

For our Worlds 2022 Grand Finals analysis check our LoL News section for a dedicated article. Alternatively, head over to our Worlds 2022 Pick’em predictions to find our selections.

LoL Worlds Betting Tips

We have already completed a complete Worlds 2022 Betting Guide with all the betting necessities at your disposal. However there are 3 essential betting tips to help you make sense of the chaos:

1. Anything Can Happen

You need to be open-minded and aware that Worlds is no longer easy to predict. Experts and analysts might be claiming that they know which team is going to take the trophy, but it’s nigh impossible to accurately gauge everyone’s power levels when there are so many variables to account for. The best way to circumvent this is to trust your own eyes. Keep tabs on the Twitch stream and try to figure out what are the strengths and weaknesses of attending teams. Finally, use this knowledge to predict how they match up against each other.

2. Pick Your Battles

There’s going to be a lot of teams at Worlds 2022. For many of them, this will be the first international event in their history. For others, the pressure might get so overwhelming that their rosters will implode from within. That’s all to say that it’s incredibly risky to gamble on untested lineups. Whether you’re dealing with a squad of promising up-and-comers or a domestic powerhouse that’s just making its international debut, things can go horribly wrong in a matter of seconds. So think twice before you bet any money on them.

3. Control Your Spending

The final tip in our 2022 LoL Worlds Predictions has to do with spending. The League of Legends World Championship is the biggest tournament in the LoL esports scene, so many punters take it as a cue to make high-stakes wagers. Yet, the principal rules of bankroll management remain the same. You never want to bet more than 5% of your gambling budget on a single matchup—otherwise, you’ll be way too susceptible to variance. And it’s only when you learn to control the swings that you will be able to make money to spend money.

LoL Worlds 2022 Resources

Here are some additional links and places on our platform that will help you in your having the best Worlds 2022 experience.

For a list of potential odds and comparison of coefficients between providers you can look at our dedicated Best Odds for Worlds 2022 section. Additionally, our LoL Worlds Power Rankings will provide you with a breakdown of all the strengths and weaknesses in each participant.

You can take a trip down memory lane with our list of Worlds Songs or get extra insight with our Wiki section. Finally, Pick’em and Fantasy LoL are the ultimate way to spice up your Worlds viewing experience.

In the end, our daily Esports news will cover every important story happening at LoL Worlds 2022 as the event goes on!