Developer and publisher Riot Games has announced that the Legends of Runeterra World Championship will return in 2023, with several structural changes.
The 2023 competitive format will be divided into three seasons, followed by a full month of Last Chance Qualifiers ahead of the event.
This upcoming year will begin as a Beta Season, with changes expected to be made on short notice. Moreover, more concrete plans for the World Championship Finals will be made public at a later date, including the date and location of the event. It is currently unclear when Riot intends to conclude Beta Season.
Starting in February, each month there will be a Monthly Runeterra Open during Beta Season. This will be a large tournament with no entry fee that anybody will be able to participate in, according to the release. After Beta Season concludes, a second layer of competition will be added to the Runeterra Opens.
Once the format moves out of Beta Season every second Runeterra Open in a season is going to be upgraded to a World Qualifier Open. Placing first in the World Qualifier Open will auto-qualify players for the World Championship — as opposed to Regional Qualifiers in the past. The rewards structure for the Qualifiers hasn’t been shared yet either, with developers promising to update fans after the Beta Season finishes.
Moving forwards, Ladder competitions will no longer be an avenue to gain entry to Seasonal Tournaments, essentially meaning that competitive leaderboards will be scrapped.
The release also touched upon grassroots tournaments. It stated that with enough interest from fans, it could become a reality in the future. However, developers emphasised that it would require a deep dive into what sort of support Riot can legally provide, on top of the game needing some feature requests.
Legends of Runeterra was released in April 2020.
