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Esports
LoL World Champions 2011-2024: Every winner and team
Look back at the League of Legends World Championships’ illustrious history and the story of all LoL Worlds winners.
The League of Legends World Championships are iconic. Few esports tournaments can match the longevity, let alone the prestige, of Riot Games’ masterpiece.
2024 marks the 14th year of the historic championships which see the best teams from every corner of the globe battle it out for one of esports’ most coveted prizes, The Summoner’s Cup.
Worlds is a special time and despite excessively high expectations, the tournament always delivers. And it’s even better once you know the history and stories of all the teams. But don’t worry if you’re not up to date, we’re here to give you a rundown of the key moments and context from every year of Worlds, as well as who won each tournament.
01
League of Legends Season 1 World Championship – Fnatic
The first-ever World Championship looks almost unrecognisable compared to the massive six-week event we expect these days. Back then, the community joked the tournament was held in commentator David 'Phreak' Turley’s basement.
The tournament was held at DreamHack Summer 2011, at this time it wasn’t even an independent event and there was 'only' $100,000 USD up for grabs. But back then, it was still one of the biggest competitions in esports.
Season 1 will always hold a special place in EU fans’ hearts, as it’s still the only time a European team has won Worlds. Fnatic and popular midlaner Enrique 'xPeke' Cedeño Martínez came out on top, beating fellow European side against All authority in the final, while North American side Team SoloMid came in third.
02
League of Legends Season 2 World Championship – Taipei Assassins
After the release of more servers, the second World Championship is where the Eastern teams started their reign of dominance. The first World Championship only featured two teams from the East, neither of which made the top four, but the second Worlds opened things up to many more.
South Korean teams showed up for the first time, including Azubu Frost who were tournament favourites alongside Europe’s Moscow Five. However, it was Taiwan’s Taipei Assassins (TPA) who came out on top in a monumental upset to claim the first-place prize of $1m USD.
This was where Worlds really started to feel like a massive deal. The money on offer was huge, the event felt different to all the others across the year, and there was no doubt that it was the very best teams from all around the world that were competing for the title.
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03
League of Legends Season 3 World Championship – SK Telecom T1
For the second year in a row, Worlds was held in Los Angeles, USA and this was where we were introduced to the greatest LoL player of all time, Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok. The Korean star took first place at Worlds in Season 3, alongside the rest of the SK Telecom T1 roster, as they beat Chinese side Royal Club 3-0 in the final.
Europe’s Fnatic did respectably make the top four, but it was clear that the Eastern teams, especially the Koreans, were starting to improve at a much quicker rate than NA and EU.
A young Faker and his SKT team-mates celebrate their Worlds win
© Riot Games
04
League of Legends Season 4 World Championship – Samsung White
LoL had taken South Korea by storm and their teams got really, really good. Riot decided to finally bring Worlds to the East by hosting the 2014 World Championships in Korea with the final at Seoul’s ginormous World Cup Stadium.
It was another that a Korean team won, as Samsung White took down China’s Star Horn Royal Club who once again finishing runner-up. The Korean crowd of 40,000 people went home happy and, for the first time, the world saw just how big Worlds could be.
05
League of Legends Season 5 World Championship – SK Telecom T1
Season 5 took Worlds back to Europe for the first time since Season 1 and proved that the city-hopping, month-long format of Worlds could work globally – and not just in Korea.
It was another memorable tournament as EU teams Fnatic and Origen both made the top four on home soil to excite the fans, but the Koreans won again, with SKT and Faker claiming their second World Championship.
06
League of Legends Season 6 World Championship – SK Telecom T1
Season 6 saw Worlds return to NA with the final held in Los Angeles’ sold-out Staples Center and it's considered to be one of the most memorable LoL tournaments ever.
Russian Wildcards Albus NoX Luna surprisingly reached the quarter-finals. The intense five-game semi-final between SKT and Rox Tigers is, to this day, one of the greatest and most entertaining LoL series ever played. And the final was full of drama too as Samsung Galaxy almost completed a reverse sweep, but ultimately fell short in Game 5, meaning SKT became the first and only team to ever win back-to-back Summoner’s Cups.
Faker and SKT after their second consecutive Worlds title win
© Riot Games
07
League of Legends Season 7 World Championship – Samsung Galaxy
The 2017 World Championship was a big deal. The event went to China for the first time, with the final held in Beijing’s 80,000-seater Bird’s Nest stadium. The packed crowd was an impressive sight and the iconic CGI dragon during the opening ceremony is still one of the coolest things ever seen in esports.
Fans were treated to a legendary rematch of the previous year’s final as Samsung Galaxy took their revenge on SKT in a shocking 3-0 sweep which left a teary Faker in disbelief.
08
League of Legends Season 8 World Championship – Invictus Gaming
In 2018, the World Championships returned to Korea which seemed fitting given the country’s dominance in the competition. But in a shocking turn of events, there wasn’t a single Korean team in the top four, let alone the final.
North America’s Cloud9 and Europe’s G2 Esports both reached the semi-finals, while the final was made up of another European team in Fnatic and Chinese team Invictus Gaming.
However, Fnatic weren’t able to repeat their Season 1 heroics as they were comfortably beaten by IG, China’s first-ever World Champions. After years of work, the rest of the world had caught up to South Korea and the notorious gap between the Eastern and Western teams was finally closing.
Cloud9 had an impressive Worlds run to the semi-finals in 2018
© Riot Games
09
League of Legends Season 9 World Championship – FunPlus Phoenix
The LoL World Championships’ return to Europe couldn’t have been timed better after Fnatic’s great Worlds run the previous year and G2 Esports Mid-Season Invitational 2019 triumph – Europe’s first international title since Fnatic won the first Worlds eight years prior.
And G2 were still the team to beat, they reached the final after defeating SKT in the semi-finals only to be humbled 3-0 in front of a home crowd in Paris at the hands of China’s FunPlus Phoenix.
G2 in the Worlds 2019 final
© Stephanie Lindgren/Red Bull Content Pool
10
League of Legends Season 10 World Championship – DAMWON Gaming
After consecutive Worlds wins for Chinese teams, LoL had officially entered a new era and, fittingly, the 2020 World Championships returning to China.
The tournament still went ahead with games in-person despite the pandemic, but there were no fans in attendance until the final in Shanghai’s Pudong Football Stadium. Due to visa and quarantine issues, Vietnam’s two representative teams, Team Flash and GAM Esports, were unable to attend and Taiwanese team PSG Talon had to field substitutes for their two Korean players who were unable to attend the Play-In stage.
As for in-game, South Korea returned to the top as the new generation of stars of DAMWON Gaming were able to take down China’s surprise package, Suning.
11
League of Legends Season 11 World Championship – EDward Gaming
The World Championships were due to return to China once again but after travel complications, the event was moved to Reykjavík, Iceland which had also hosted MSI earlier in the year.
The tournament was full of exciting games and drama throughout, including a superb five-game final. DAMWON, now named DWG KIA, put up a good fight but it was EDward Gaming, who hold a record six domestic titles in China, who came out on top as the storied organisation finally didn’t choke on the international stage.
12
League of Legends Season 12 World Championship – DRX
The 2022 Worlds final saw school-mates Deft and Faker clash
© Riot Games
The 12th iteration of Worlds was held in Mexico and USA and is another contender for the greatest tournament in LoL history with tonnes of exciting games, moments, and stories.
All eyes were on one man, Kim 'Deft' Hyuk-kyu. Deft actually went to high school with Faker, but had yet to reach the same heights. Despite competing since 2013 and being considered one of the best players in the world, Deft had agonisingly crashed out of Worlds at the quarter-finals stage an astonishing five times and had never made it further.
His team, DRX, were underdogs from the start as Korea’s fourth seeds and had to fight through the Play-Ins just to qualify for the main event. However, the team went on an incredible run all the way through the finals where Deft overcame his old school-mate Faker and the rest of T1 (formerly SKT) 3-2 in one of the most dramatic endings to a Worlds final ever. It’s the only time a Play-Ins team has ever gone on to win the tournament.
13
League of Legends Season 13 World Championship – T1
T1, formerly SKT, won their fourth Worlds title in 2023
© SonStar/Red Bull Content Pool
After a five-year wait, South Korea was once again able to host the World Championships. After the failures of LCK teams in 2018, Korean fans were hoping they would finally get to watch one of their own teams win on home soil again. But standing in their way was a crop of very scary Chinese teams including tournament favourites JD Gaming who had won every title they competed for that year.
However, JDG didn’t even reach the final as they were taken down by legendary Korean outfit T1. Faker and his team then went on to earn their incredible fourth Worlds title to the delight of fans in attendance after a dominant 3-0 victory over Chinese underdogs Weibo Gaming. T1 had finally returned to their otherworldly best with the organisation's first Worlds trophy since 2016.
14
League of Legends Season 14 World Championship – T1
T1 maintained their status as LoL's greatest team with another Worlds title
© Riot Games
In one of the greatest accomplishments in League of Legends history, T1 won back-to-back Worlds titles for the second time and this time did it with the exact same roster as 2023.
It was a third-consecutive Worlds final for the iconic squad and they once again performed when it mattered most following a difficult domestic season that saw them barely qualify for the international tournament as Korea's fourth seeds.
Faker won yet another Summoner's Cup, 11 years after his first
© Riot Games
The extremely tense series went all the way to five games, as BLG snowballed their early games and T1 showcased excellent sieging and macro by focussing on the Voidgrubs. However, the fifth and final game was decided by clutch fights and split-second decision making. Faker had an immense game on Galio – a pick he has historically punished LPL teams with – though support Ryu 'Keria' Min-seok also deserves a shoutout for a genius Poppy ult onto Ahri that bought enough time for Faker's miraculous play in the series-winning skirmish.
