Here’s how the group draw for the 2018 World Championships will work

The World Championships are almost here and we even know most of the teams that are going. Now that we know who is competing, it’s almost time to separate all of these teams into groups, which can be a slightly confusing process. So we’re here with your official explanation of how the 2018 World Championship Group Draw is going to work.

The World Championship tournament is split into two halves. The first is the play-ins. This is a competition between the smaller regions — and some of the lowest finishers from the big regions — to determine which teams will make it to the official World Championship group stage.

While the first matches of Worlds 2018 don’t kick off until Oct. 1, the Worlds Draw Show is the real starter’s pistol for the World Championships. The draw itself will be used to determine which teams have to face off during the first stage of both the play-in and group phases of the tournament. This draw will be held on Sept. 23 at 8 a.m. ET.

During the play-in draw, teams will be split into three different pools, one team from each pool must be in each group, with no two teams of the same region in the same pool.

During the Group Stage draw, teams will once again be placed into three pools, this time with one team from pool one, which will be made up of the number one seeds from the LMS, EU, LPL and LCK, two teams from pool two and one team from pool three, which will include all four of the teams that qualified from the play-in stage. Once again, no team from the same region may be in the same group.

From these groups teams will compete in an attempt to make it to the knockout round of either the play-ins or group stage to continue on in the tournament.

Riot’s Worlds 2018 group draw show will be broadcast live on their Twitch and YouTube channels, as well as on lolesports.com starting on Sept. 23 at 8 a.m. ET.