Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems are on the Swiss Stage right now: you pick the 8 teams that reach three wins, and your first three picks double as record calls for 3-0, 3-1 and 3-2. Picks lock Oct 23 at 17:05 UTC, a few minutes after the first Swiss match in Allen, Texas. Our short answer on the LoL Pick’Ems Swiss bracket: Gen.G for 3-0, Hanwha Life for 3-1, T1 for 3-2, then Bilibili Gaming, G2, Anyone’s Legend, Dplus KIA and LYON to round out the eight. Below you get the scoring, every lock time, the Play-In results, the full 16-team field with each team’s round 1 opponent, and the reasoning behind every pick.
We run a Pick’Ems leaderboard inside the booster team every year, and the person who wins it is never the one who watches the most LPL. It is whoever fills in every stage on time and does not get cute with the Bo1 rounds. If you want the event overview instead (venues, dates, how Fearless Draft works), start with our full Worlds 2026 schedule, venues and format and come back before Swiss locks.
How Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems works this year
Each stage gets its own bracket, and a stage only opens once the one before it has finished. Worlds 2026 runs Oct 15 to Nov 14 in the United States on patch 26.20, the patch Riot flagged as the Worlds patch in its 26.19 notes. The structure follows Riot’s Worlds 2026 format announcement: a four-team Play-In, a 16-team Swiss Stage, then an eight-team knockout bracket.
We read the numbers below straight off the official Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems page and its scoring settings (last checked October 2026, with Swiss picks open). Times are UTC, so convert before you set an alarm.
| Stage | What you pick | Points | Picks open | Picks lock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Play-In (finished) | Winner of all 6 double-elimination matches | 5 per match, 10 for the final match (35 max) | Oct 10, 21:40 UTC | Oct 15, 18:20 UTC |
| Swiss (open now) | 8 teams that reach 3 wins; your first three picks are record calls for 3-0, 3-1 and 3-2 | 10 per correct advancer, plus 15 for each record call that lands (125 max) | Oct 18, 20:50 UTC | Oct 23, 17:05 UTC |
| Knockouts | Full bracket: 4 quarterfinals, 2 semifinals, the final | 10 per quarterfinal, 20 per semifinal, 80 for the final (160 max) | Nov 1, 05:00 UTC | Nov 3, 22:05 UTC |
Add it up and a perfect run is worth 320 points. Two details are easy to miss. First, you can edit your picks as often as you like until the stage locks, so there is no reason to lock in early and then watch a roster news story wreck you. Second, the Swiss record bonus is three single bets: the first team you pick has to finish exactly 3-0, the second exactly 3-1, the third exactly 3-2. Two teams will go 3-0 and three each will go 3-1 and 3-2, but you only get one call per record. A record call that misses still scores its 10 if the team advances, so the downside is small. There is no 0-3 pick and no points for calling who goes home.
Crystal Ball (the side game where you predict stats like most-picked champion) and Factions (team-based leaderboards where only the top 75% of a faction count toward its average) are both back. They are fun, but they do not touch your main Pick’Ems score.
Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems rewards and what it takes to earn them
The reward bar is lower than you think, and the easiest way to miss it is to skip a stage. Rewards are handed out by percentile, which means you are competing against everyone who played, including the millions who filled in one stage and forgot about the rest.
The rewards panel on the Pick’Ems page lists the tiers (last checked October 2026):
- Make a pick: a participation reward (“Laying It Down”) just for playing.
- Top 50%: Groovy Pup Icon.
- Top 25%: Spicy Dog.
- Top 5,000: True Damage Yasuo, skin and champion.
- Perfect score: the Ultimate skin bundle, same as last year: DJ Sona, Elementalist Lux, Gun Goddess Miss Fortune, K/DA ALL OUT Seraphine, Pulsefire Ezreal, Soul Fighter Samira and Spirit Guard Udyr, with the champions included.
Scores finalize after the Nov 14 grand final. Riot’s Worlds 2026 primer says rewards are targeted to arrive within 48 hours, and Nov 21 is the deadline to contact Player Support if one is missing. As for how hard the tiers are, MSI 2026 is the best reference we have. Riot’s MSI 2026 Pick’Ems page shows the top-50% cutline at 70 points and the top-25% cutline at 90 points, out of a possible 370. Just over 1 million players cleared the top-50% line, which puts total entries somewhere around 2.1 million. The Perfect tier on that same page shows zero players. So aim for the top 25%. You get there by being boringly right about the favourites, and a miracle bracket is a bonus you should never plan for.
Play-In results: Karmine Corp are through
The Play-In went to form, which is good news for anyone who picked by power ranking. Karmine Corp, the LEC third seed, won it without dropping a series, and only Cloud9 KIA took them to a fifth game. Here is every series, from the Riot Games Arena in Los Angeles:
| Date | Match | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 15 | Opening match | Karmine Corp 3-2 Cloud9 KIA |
| Oct 15 | Opening match | MVK Esports 3-0 FURIA |
| Oct 16 | Winners’ match | Karmine Corp 3-0 MVK Esports |
| Oct 16 | Elimination match | FURIA 3-1 Cloud9 KIA (C9 out) |
| Oct 17 | Decider | MVK Esports 3-1 FURIA (FURIA out) |
| Oct 18 | Qualification match | Karmine Corp 3-0 MVK Esports |
If you picked the higher-rated team in every series, you scored 30 of the 35 points. The one call that hurt people was FURIA over Cloud9 in the elimination match. Plenty of brackets had the LCS team cruising there, and C9 left Worlds without winning a series. KC also go into Swiss with 11 stage games on patch 26.20 behind them, more than any other team in the field.
The Swiss Stage field and how each team is playing
The single most useful thing you can do before filling in a bracket is ignore seed numbers and look at actual form. Seeds tell you how a team did in its home league playoffs; they say very little about how it stacks up against other regions. The cleanest cross-region number available is Riot’s own LoL Esports Global Power Rankings, an Elo-style rating of every tier-one team. The ranks below were calculated Oct 19, 2026, after the Play-In, and the round 1 pairings come from the Oct 18 draw (both last checked October 2026).
| Team | Region and seed | GPR rank (Oct 19) | Round 1 opponent | 2026 form |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hanwha Life Esports | LCK 2 | 1 | Top Esports | Won MSI 2026, 3-2 over BLG; lost the LCK final 1-3 to Gen.G |
| Gen.G | LCK 1 | 2 | Invictus Gaming | Back-to-back LCK champions, 3-1 over HLE on Sep 13 |
| Bilibili Gaming | LPL 2 | 3 | Movistar KOI | Won First Stand, MSI runner-up, lost the LPL Split 3 final 1-3 to AL |
| G2 Esports | LEC 1 | 4 | Dplus KIA | LEC Summer champions, swept KOI 3-0; MSI 2026 4th |
| T1 | LCK 3 | 5 | LOS | Defending champions; lost the LCK lower final 1-3 to HLE |
| LYON | LCS 2 | 6 | Team Secret Whales | MSI 2026 3rd; lost the LCS Summer final 1-3 to TL |
| Karmine Corp | LEC 3 (Play-In winner) | 7 (tied) | Anyone’s Legend | Won the Play-In 9-2 in games |
| Dplus KIA | LCK 4 | 7 (tied) | G2 Esports | No 2026 international event |
| Anyone’s Legend | LPL 1 | 7 (tied) | Karmine Corp | LPL Split 3 champions; went 3-0 in the Worlds 2025 Swiss |
| Team Liquid Alienware | LCS 1 | 11 | CTBC Flying Oyster | LCS Summer champions, 3-1 over LYON |
| Team Secret Whales | LCP 1 | 12 | LYON | LCP champions; MSI 2026 5th-6th |
| Top Esports | LPL 3 | 13 | Hanwha Life Esports | Took the third LPL seed 3-1 over iG; Worlds 2025 semifinalist |
| Invictus Gaming | LPL 4 | 15 | Gen.G | 18-25 in series this year, the weakest record of any LCK/LPL team here |
| Movistar KOI | LEC 2 | 17 | Bilibili Gaming | Swept 0-3 by G2 in the LEC final; went out 2-3 in the Worlds 2025 Swiss |
| CTBC Flying Oyster | LCP 2 | 20 | Team Liquid Alienware | Worlds 2025 quarterfinalist |
| LOS | CBLOL 1 | 39 | T1 | CBLOL champions |
Two things jump out. LYON sit sixth, above half the Korean and Chinese field, off the back of a third-place MSI run, and Karmine Corp now rate ten places above their own league’s second seed. The round 1 draw is lopsided too: G2 are the only top-five team with an awkward opener (Dplus KIA), while AL vs KC pits two GPR-tied teams in a Bo1, about as close to a coin flip as round 1 gets.
Swiss Stage base rates from the last three Worlds
History says the bracket is LCK and LPL by default and you need a reason to deviate. These are the Swiss outcomes from 2023 to 2025, the three years Worlds has used this 16-team format:
| Year | 3-0 | 0-3 | LCK + LPL teams that advanced | Everyone else who advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Gen.G, JD Gaming | Team Liquid, Team BDS | 7 of 8 | NRG (3-1) |
| 2024 | Gen.G, LNG Esports | MAD Lions KOI, paiN Gaming | 7 of 8 | FlyQuest (3-2) |
| 2025 | KT Rolster, Anyone’s Legend | Fnatic, PSG Talon | 6 of 8 | G2 (3-1), CTBC Flying Oyster (3-2) |
We took these records from each year’s Swiss bracket on Wikipedia (last checked October 2026). For your picks, the pattern is blunt: all six 3-0 finishes went to LCK or LPL teams, with Gen.G there twice. All six 0-3 finishes went to teams from outside those two leagues. And 20 of the 24 advancing spots went to Korea or China, with exactly one or two Western or Asia-Pacific teams sneaking through each year. This year’s LPL contingent is thinner than usual, though, with TES and iG rated 13th and 15th, which is why our eight below has room for two Western teams.
Our Worlds 2026 Swiss Stage picks
Here is the bracket we would lock in, in the order you enter it on the page. Remember that the first three picks are the record calls.
| Pick order | Team | Our call | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (3-0 slot) | Gen.G | 3-0 | Softest round 1 draw of any contender (iG), LCK champions, 3-0 in two of the last three Swiss Stages |
| 2 (3-1 slot) | Hanwha Life Esports | 3-1 | GPR #1 and MSI champions, but TES in round 1 and a likely LCK or LPL heavyweight in round 2 make a dropped Bo1 likely |
| 3 (3-2 slot) | T1 | 3-2 | Went 3-2 last year and won the whole thing; T1 tend to lose a Bo1 they should win and then win every Bo3 |
| 4 | Bilibili Gaming | Advance | GPR #3 and 48-11 in series this year |
| 5 | G2 Esports | Advance | GPR #4, 3-1 in last year’s Swiss, best Western team by a distance |
| 6 | Anyone’s Legend | Advance | LPL champions and last year’s 3-0 team |
| 7 | Dplus KIA | Advance | Fourth LCK team; LCK fourth seeds have won three of the last four Worlds |
| 8 | LYON | Advance | GPR #6, MSI 3rd, favourable opener against TSW |
Our two 0-3 calls, for bragging rights only since Riot does not score them: LOS and CTBC Flying Oyster. LOS are 39th in GPR and open against T1. CFO open against Team Liquid, rank 20th, and have a 12-14 series record this year. Every 0-3 team in the last three years came from outside the LCK and LPL, and iG are the only Korean or Chinese team we would even consider for one.
The two calls we argued about longest:
- Gen.G vs Hanwha Life for the 3-0 slot. HLE are rated higher and won MSI. Gen.G beat them 3-1 in the LCK final five weeks ago and get iG in round 1 instead of TES, and a 3-0 run has to survive two Bo1s. HLE for 3-0 and Gen.G for 3-1 is a perfectly sane swap.
- LYON vs Karmine Corp for the last spot. KC have stage reps on patch 26.20 that nobody else has, but they open against AL while LYON get Team Secret Whales, and a 0-1 start means winning three of your next four. If you want a contrarian edge, swap KC in for Dplus KIA, not for LYON.
How to fill the Swiss Stage without getting burned
Swiss is where brackets die, and the reason is format. Rounds 1 and 2 are best-of-one, and so are the 1-1 matches in round 3. Only the matches that decide advancement or elimination go to Bo3. A Bo1 in League is decided by draft, one early skirmish and whoever the patch favours that week, which is why a ranking gap of ten places can evaporate in 35 minutes. The favourites usually recover in the Bo3s, but the record bonus is where Bo1 chaos hits your score.
Worlds 2025 is the cautionary tale. The two teams that went 3-0 were KT Rolster and Anyone’s Legend. Gen.G, the two-time reigning MSI champion at the time, went 3-1, and so did Hanwha Life. Bilibili Gaming went out at 2-3. T1 came through the Play-In, scraped out of Swiss at 3-2, and then won the whole tournament. If you put Gen.G in the 3-0 slot, you still scored the 10 for them advancing, but you left the record bonus on the table.
Here is how we fill it:
- Advancers first, records second. Pick your eight advancers purely on strength. The 10 points per correct advancer is 80 of the stage’s 125 points, so do not sacrifice a likely advancer to chase a spicy record call.
- The 3-0 slot goes to the most consistent team with the softest draw, not the most famous. Plenty of people will put T1 in it for the story. Last year’s r/leagueoflegends thread on everyone’s 3-0 picks is worth a scroll before you lock in, because the crowd’s favourite 3-0 calls are exactly the ones that do not separate you from the crowd.
- The 3-2 slot is for a good team with a rough draw or a slow starter. Teams that struggle in Bo1 but win Bo3s live here. Last year that was T1. The LCK fourth seed has won three of the last four Worlds (DRX in 2022, T1 in 2024 and again in 2025), so do not write off a low seed just because it has to grind. This year that seed is Dplus KIA.
- Leave at least one Western team in your advancers. G2 went 3-1 last year and CTBC Flying Oyster made the quarterfinals. The field is not eight Korean and Chinese teams by default, and with this year’s LPL third and fourth seeds rated outside the top 12, it is less likely than usual.
Pick’Ems is a nice break from queueing, but the Worlds meta leaks into solo queue fast once pros start spamming a champion on stage. If you want the translation, our breakdown of what the Worlds meta actually changes in solo queue covers which pro picks survive contact with your ranked games. And if you would rather watch Worlds than grind through your current division, our League of Legends boost team keeps your climb moving while you watch.
Knockout picks: the final is half the stage
Knockout picks open Nov 1 once the Swiss Stage and the Oct 31 quarterfinal draw are done, and we will cover that bracket in its own guide after Swiss. Four quarterfinals at 10 points each and two semifinals at 20 add up to 80. The final alone is also worth 80. Get the champion right and a messy quarterfinal set barely matters; get it wrong and a perfect quarterfinal run still leaves you mid-table.
That changes how you should think about risk. In the quarterfinals, pick the favourite every time, because a correct favourite and an incorrect upset are both only 10 points. In the final, think about the leaderboard. If most of your friends’ group (or most of the planet) is taking the same favourite, you only move up the percentile table when the favourite wins, and so does everyone else. A contrarian final pick is the one place where a moderate underdog is a real option if you are chasing top 5,000 rather than top 25%. For top 25%, stay boring.
One regional note: all-LCK or LCK vs LPL finals have been the norm lately, and T1 have now won three of the last four titles, including two from the fourth seed. Past results decide nothing on their own, though they make a strong prior when the teams involved are mostly the same. Also worth knowing: the two 3-0 teams are placed on opposite sides of the bracket and face 3-2 teams in the quarterfinals, so a 3-0 finish buys a softer path.
Where this advice goes wrong
Every method here has a hole, so here they are. GPR is an Elo-style rating built on results, which means it lags reality. A roster swap, a team that figured out patch 26.20 faster than everyone else, or a squad that peaked in July and faded since will all look better or worse on paper than they are. Treat the rank as a starting point, then adjust for anything that happened in the last two weeks.
Bo1 variance also cuts both ways. We tell you to avoid famous teams in the 3-0 slot, but sometimes the famous team is also the best team and simply goes 3-0. Contrarian record picks are only worth it where the scoring rewards them, and in Swiss the advancer points are worth more than any bonus. Our own bracket bets on two Western teams (G2 and LYON), right at the top of the historical range. Finally, patch knowledge matters more than history. Worlds is played on 26.20, and whichever region reads that patch best in the first week can flip the whole Swiss table. None of our tables can see that coming.
Frequently asked questions
How do LoL Pick’Ems work?
You predict results stage by stage on lolesports.com: match winners for the Play-In, the eight teams that advance from Swiss (with a 15-point bonus each for correct 3-0, 3-1 and 3-2 calls), and the full knockout bracket. Points add up across stages, and rewards are handed out by percentile, with top-5,000 and perfect-score tiers on top.
When do Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems lock?
Swiss picks lock Oct 23 at 17:05 UTC, just after the first Swiss match starts. Knockout picks open Nov 1 at 05:00 UTC and lock Nov 3 at 22:05 UTC. The Play-In stage already locked on Oct 15 and has been scored.
Who should I pick to go 3-0 in Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems?
We pick Gen.G, who open against Invictus Gaming and went 3-0 in the 2023 and 2024 Swiss Stages. Hanwha Life, the GPR number one and MSI 2026 champions, are the other strong option. Every 3-0 team in the last three years came from the LCK or LPL.
What are the Worlds 2026 Pick’Ems rewards?
A participation reward for making a pick, a Groovy Pup Icon for the top 50%, Spicy Dog for the top 25%, True Damage Yasuo for the top 5,000 and the Ultimate skin bundle for a perfect score. Riot is targeting delivery within 48 hours of the Nov 14 final.
Has anyone gotten a perfect Pick’Ems in LoL?
It is extremely rare. Riot’s MSI 2026 Pick’Ems page shows zero players in the Perfect tier out of roughly 2.1 million entries, and one Bo1 upset in Swiss is usually enough to end every perfect bracket.
Can you change your Pick’Ems after submitting?
Yes. You can edit your picks as often as you like until that stage locks. Once it locks, your picks are final for that stage.
What happens if you miss a Pick’Ems stage?
You score zero for that stage but can still play the next one. Missing the Play-In costs you 35 points at most, so jump in on Swiss. At MSI 2026 the top-50% cutline was 70 points, which a solid Swiss bracket alone can clear.
So the plan is simple: get your Swiss picks in before Oct 23 at 17:05 UTC, take your eight advancers on form rather than seed, give the 3-0 slot to the best team with the softest draw, and come back for knockouts on Nov 1, where the final is half the stage. Worlds is a great few weeks to watch and a terrible few weeks to climb, since everyone is copying stage picks badly. If you want your account moving while you watch, our team handles division climbs, placements and duo queue on your schedule.
