Worlds 2019: Fans upset over ticket sales, Fnatic qualify for group stages, UoL make play-ins (with a former UK scene player)

The 2019 League of Legends World Championship is fast approaching – and hype is building around the tournament.

The play-in stage is just a matter of weeks away, starting on October 2nd in Berlin.

Splyce secured the European play-in slot, while Unicorns of Love (technically a European org) made it through via the Russian/CIS region.

One of their players – Bulgarian ADC Nihat ‘Innaxe’ Aliev – hails from the UK League of Legends scene, most recently playing for Excel Esports. You can watch an old interview of ours with Innaxe and his then teammate Aux at the UK’s Insomnia Gaming Festival.

Speaking of the UK, London-based organisation Fnatic have qualified for the group stages, taking a European slot, as have G2.

They have British jungler Daniel ‘Dan’ Hockley among their ranks as a substitute, who was called up to the Fnatic first team earlier this year.

The likes of SKT T1 and Griffin (Korea), Cloud9 and Team Liquid (NA), FunPlus Phoenix, Royal Never Give Up and Invictus Gaming (China) have also qualified for Worlds 2019. You can see more teams taking part on LoLGamepedia here.

What made the most headlines around Worlds this week, however, was the problems around ticket sales.

Tickets for the finals in Paris went on sale yesterday (September 16th) and a lot of fans were stuck in a queue and unable to obtain tickets. Some tickets have since been listed on reseller websites for hundreds of pounds a pop.

Aside from this, it seems there was confusion around the time tickets would be available to buy online. Many fans expressed their dissatisfaction on Reddit and Twitter.

Tickets for the final were supposed to go live at 4pm CET on September 16th, yet many fans reported tickets going on sale earlier, and that they went on sale at 4pm CEST, not CET.

Rioter RiotJokrCantSpell said on Reddit: “The earlier sale represented only a small portion of the total available tickets. It was meant for our partners who this year had to secure tickets through the ticket portal. The vast majority of tickets went on sale at the designated time.”

The UK is missing out on hosting Worlds this year, with Riot opting for Spain, Germany and France instead.

Dom Sacco

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.

As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.