It’s Worlds time again! 17 teams made it to this year’s biggest tournament. But of these 17, only one will take it all and add to the legacy of this prestigious League of Legends tournament.
So, what can we expect there? Who will win LoL Worlds 2025?
T1 being one of the best teams at LoL Worlds is simply inevitable. After a hesitant Swiss stage, they finally shook off their Summer form and put on their usual Worlds mantle. In the Knockout stage, T1 got the better of a surprisingly strong Anyone’s Legend, then swept Top Esports. In the finals, KT Rolster fought well and got very close, but it was already too late by that time. T1 had plot armor and used it to successfully ward off all of KT’s efforts. The LoL Worlds winners are once again T1 in 2025, for the third year in a row.
Now that only two teams are left in the running as we wait for the LoL Worlds finals, let’s see what happened to our favorites.
FLY won easily against the worse teams, presented no resistance to the better teams, and lost a close match to G2. They lost in the Swiss stage and were far less inspiring than they were in 2024.
BLG looked like a shadow of themselves at Worlds. They lost to 100T, to G2, and eventually to TES. They avoided all of the Korean teams, and still went out in the Swiss stage.
After beating T1 in a Best of 1 and holding their own against AL in a Best of 3, the Flying Oysters eventually made it to the Knockout Stage by eliminating FlyQuest. There, they went on to face an unexpectedly strong KT that made quick work of them in the quarterfinals.
This year, G2 finally managed to reach the Knockout stage again. The first LEC team to do that since 2022. But alas, their luck would end shortly. Looking nowhere near competitive enough for the job, G2 was taken out by TES in the quarterfinals, going 1-3 in the series.
Just like every single year, TES displayed a masterful performance initially, before starting their usual Worlds decline that resulted in them getting eliminated 3-0 by T1 in the semifinals, in the quickest series of the event.
Just like CFO, GenG ended up on the receiving end of an encounter with “an unexpectedly strong KT”. Only that this time, no one would have predicted this outcome. GenG looked good all the way through their Worlds run. In the semifinals though, they didn’t perform quite as well, making costly individual mistakes. They didn’t play poorly, just not to the GenG level. And KT did not let that go unpunished, eliminating the heavy favorites 3-1.
The one team that is heavily favoured to win the 2025 League of Legends World Championship is GenG.
GenG has won almost everything this year. They narrowly missed out on First Stand (and the LCK team that qualified over them was head and shoulders above the other regions), but after that, they went through the entirety of the year winning 40 series while only losing one BO3 and one BO5.
They simply look unbeatable, with no area of weakness. And what’s worse, since they’ve almost never lost, there’s little to look at to study their cracks and learn how to beat them.
That being said, the beginning of the Swiss stage plays BO1s, and GenG has exclusively played BO3s and BO5s since March. And with the addition of Fearless drafts, BO1s require and test different skills than a series does. So it’s possible for GenG to not be as dominant in BO1s.
Now, even with that considered, they remain the favourites against any team. And as no team can be eliminated without losing a BO3, this might allow one or two opponents to slip past them, but GenG not reaching the playoffs sounds unfathomable.
T1, T1, T1. Sometimes they’re the team to beat all year long. Other years, they’re a shaky contestant and barely make Worlds. But no matter what, T1 at Worlds is a different beast altogether and always, always a top contender.
Of the 9 times they’ve made Worlds, not only have they won 5 of them, but they’ve also never finished below the semifinals. Of course, some things never happen until they first do, but this shows that T1 is consistent and extremely good at Worlds, regardless of the circumstances.
This year should be no different, and they seem like a genuine threat to GenG – especially being one of the two teams that beat them during the season.
Image Credit: Liu YiCun/Riot Games
Hanwha Life Esports has spent all of 2025 being a close second to GenG. Their consistency is nowhere near that of the champions, but they always take GenG to 5 games, and even managed to beat them twice in the LCK Cup to take the spot for First Stand.
Worlds means facing several challenges back-to-back and having to beat them all. And I would expect Hanwha Life to falter at one of those stages. But they can beat anyone individually – even GenG.
Bilibili Gaming and Top Esports, the two strongest teams out of the LPL, are a force to be reckoned with and one that at least the West will be afraid of. As for the LCK… well, they’ve proven to be simply better than China this year.
But Summer Split means three months without being able to measure the relative strength of regions, and it’s always possible for the LPL to have levelled up compared to the LCK during that time. Possible – but also unlikely.
These are almost certainly not the teams that will win LoL Worlds 2025, but they have the most potential to eliminate an opponent seen as being much better than them.
G2 Esports, Europe’s champion, has a glorious past and a history of aiming high and not being afraid of the East. With Europe’s current and recent level, and the fact that they haven’t shown these performances in years, it’s unlikely that they’ll manage much this year either. But maybe, just maybe, this year could be the one?
Image Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games
FlyQuest, the villains of America, shocked the world last year by almost beating GenG in the quarterfinals. They have their picks, they play their game, and it might just work. It might also just fall short again. But they’re an unknown factor, and one that’s sure to put up a show.
And lastly, CTBC Flying Oyster. At the beginning of the year, they entered First Stand as the wildcard team, the team from a minor region that everyone would write off. The easy win for everyone besides the LEC whose speciality is to choke against weaker regions.
And instead, CFO went on to clearly be the second-best team in the round robin and the third-best in the playoffs. And while their MSI wasn’t as impressive, they still put up more of a fight than both EU and NA did.
They then returned to the LCP and stormed through the region again, and they’re also known to be scrimming teams from the LPL and the LCK. They earned the world’s respect and are ready to go blow for blow at the World Championship.
Image Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
There sure is competition, but for me, it should most likely be GenG who will win LoL Worlds 2025. They’re very close to having won everything this year, and have kept looking like the clear favourites against any team all year long.
That being said, when a team enters Worlds as the heavy favourites, they rarely end up winning unless their name is T1. So… stick around, and keep following this page for updates!
Worlds begins on October 14th. You can find more info on match dates by checking out the LoL Worlds schedule.
Featured Image Credit: Liu YiCun/Riot Games
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