More than one League of Legends team from the LCS or LEC competitions making it into the 2024 World Championship playoffs was always going to be a surprise, but fans will be dismayed to see just how long the odds on Western teams are this year.
The numbers, crunched by a League tech whizz on their Worlds Simulator app, are rough reading for European and North American fans alike: If every Worlds team plays to their betting odds—in this case, Bet365 was used—then there’s a 65.44 percent chance a single Western team qualifies for the eight-team quarterfinals. Chances then plummet to as low as 1.21 percent regarding two teams from the competitions surviving groups.
In the calculations, G2 Esports and Team Liquid rank as (though still outside) favorites for Western League fans, which makes the most sense considering they’re the reigning EU and NA champions respectively. FlyQuest and Fnatic rank as third and fourth.
Brutally, three Western League teams performing so well in the Swiss Stage that they all make the glamorous playoffs is so unlikely its percentage chance actually records as zero.
There are better possibilities, with simulations running the Worlds 2024 bracket through with totally randomized odds (dubbed “the ultimate cope” by the sim’s creator) seeing three teams from the LCS and LEC making it through five in every twenty scenarios. At least two Western teams survived through to Worlds playoffs four times in ten with the same parameters.
Unfortunately for Western League fans, however, these sobering numbers line up fairly closely with the real-world results seen in past campaigns; the last time more than two teams from Europe or the U.S. contested the same playoffs bracket at Worlds was 2019.
Between that run, where G2 Esports, Fnatic, and Splyce all qualified—and G2 made it to the decider before losing 0–3—and today, there were two European teams in the last eight in 2020 (Fnatic and G2), two again in 2021 (Cloud9 and MAD Lions), and then just one each in 2022 and 2023, with those being Rogue and NRG Esports.
Here’s every Western team to make top eight across 13 Worlds:
- 2011 — Five (Fnatic, TSM, Against All Authority, CLG, Epik Gamer). No Korean or Chinese teams attended this Worlds.
- 2012 — Two (TSM, CLG Europe)
- 2013 — One (Fnatic)
- 2014 — Two (TSM, Cloud9)
- 2015 — Two (Fnatic, Origen)
- 2016 — Two (H2K Gaming, C9)
- 2017 — Three (Fnatic, C9, Misfits Gaming)
- 2018 — Three (G2 Esports, Fnatic, C9)
- 2019 — Three (G2, Fnatic, Splyce)
- 2020 — Two (G2, Fnatic)
- 2021 — Two (C9, MAD Lions)
- 2022 — One (Rogue)
- 2023 — One (NRG)
Since the LCK and LPL were formed, the West has averaged two quarterfinalists.
Hope’s not particularly high across the fandom heading into 2024’s event either, with content creators like Caedrel ranking G2 as the only true chance to succeed at the European event. NA champions Liquid have also been ranked generously by some.
There’s always a chance though: No one expected NRG to make it so far last season and if there’s one thing NA and EU alike love to do, it’s flip the script as underdogs.
You can test your own “cope” Worlds scenarios at WorldsSimulator.vercel.app.
