IEM Season 11 World Championship: Schedule and how to watch

Domestic League of Legends competitions around the world are taking the week off, as it’s time for the biggest non-Riot sponsored tournament: the IEM Season 11 World Championship. Following previous IEM Season 11 events at Oakland (won by the Unicorns of Love) and Gyeonggi (won by Samsung Galaxy), eight teams will take to Katowice, Poland for the four-day tournament.

The Unicorns of Love will be there, along with two of the other best teams in Europe — G2 Esports and H2K. The smart money’s on one of those European teams winning in their home region, but bottom-of-the-table Korean teams (ROX Tigers, Kongdoo Monsters) or perennial Taiwanese contenders Flash Wolves could also make a compelling run. Kongdoo finished as runners-up to Samsung at IEM Gyeonggi, while Flash Wolves were runners-up to UOL at IEM Oakland.

Just a few weeks ago, the field for this tournament looked significantly more stacked, with North American and Chinese front-runners Cloud9 and EDward Gaming, respectively, scheduled to attend. Both teams dropped out just before the tournament, however, replaced by G2 and the LMS’s Hong Kong Esports, respectively.

The eighth and final team attending will be the LCL’s M19, who fans will surely remember as the roster of Worlds darlings Albus NoX Luna.

The tournament will be a double elimination bracket, meaning teams will have to lose two series to be eliminated. The first round of play will be best-of-ones, followed by best-of-threes in the second round and semifinals and a best-of-five for the final. The teams have also been split into two groups.

Group A will consist of ROX, M19, H2K and Hong Kong Esports. Group B will be Kongdoo Monster, Unicorns of Love, G2 Esports and the Flash Wolves.

Here is the week’s schedule. All times are Eastern (GMT-5). All games will be streamed on the ESL_LoL Twitch page.

Wednesday, February 22

ROX Tigers vs. M19, 8 a.m.

H2K vs. Hong Kong Esports, 9:20 a.m.

Kongdoo Monster vs. Unicorns of Love, 10:40 a.m.

G2 Esports vs. Flash Wolves, 12 p.m.

TBD vs. TBD, 1:20 p.m.

Thursday, February 23

TBD vs. TBD, 6 a.m.

TBD vs. TBD, 9:30 a.m.

TBD vs. TBD, 1 p.m.

Saturday, February 25

TBD vs. TBD, 8:15 a.m.

TBD vs. TBD, 11:45 a.m.

Sunday, February 26

Semifinal 1: TBD vs. TBD, 6:30 a.m.

Semifinal 2: TBD vs. TBD, 10 a.m.

Finals: TBD vs. TBD, 1:40 p.m.