Worlds 2026 Pick'Ems: Deadlines, Reward Tiers and Stage Format

Worlds 2026 Pick'Ems opened on October 10 at 4 PM PDT, and the first set of predictions closes before the opening match on October 15. Crystal Ball and Play-In picks are the only ones open now, at lolesports.com/pickems or in the League of Legends client. Swiss picks open on October 18 and Knockout picks on October 31. No Worlds 2026 match has been played yet. The Play-In Stage starts on October 15 in Los Angeles, and the tournament runs to the final in Brooklyn on November 14.

What is open now, and when it locks

Riot opened Crystal Ball and Play-In predictions together on October 10 at 4 PM PDT. Its Pick'Ems listing gives the Play-Ins lock as "before the first Play-Ins match", which the primer schedules for October 15 at 11 AM PDT. The launch post on the same site narrows the window to October 14, so finishing Crystal Ball and Play-In picks by October 14 avoids the gap between Riot's two pages.

The rest of the Pick'Ems calendar follows the stages. Swiss picks open on October 18 and lock on October 23 before the first Swiss match. Knockout picks open on October 31 and lock on November 3 before the first knockout match. Riot's Pick'Ems hub lists Worlds 2026 as an active event from 10/10/26 to 11/24/26.

How the three stages run

The Play-In Stage runs October 15 to 18 in Los Angeles. Four teams play a best-of-five double-elimination bracket and one of them qualifies for the Swiss Stage. The primer lists the field as Karmine Corp, Cloud9, MVK Esports and the second CBLOL seed, written as a placeholder rather than a team name. The tournament overview names CBLOL's two qualifiers as LOS and FURIA without saying which one drops into the Play-In, and the primer dates the Play-In draw to after the CBLOL final on October 10. The pairings from that draw do not appear on the Riot pages read for this article.

Swiss Stage play moves to Allen, Texas, from October 23 to 31. Sixteen teams play five rounds of best-of-one and best-of-three matches. Three wins advance a team to the Knockout Stage and three losses eliminate it, which leaves eight teams. The first-round draw happens on October 18 from four tiers: Tier 1 (Gen.G, Anyone's Legend, Team Liquid Alienware and G2 Esports) meets Tier 4 (CTBC Flying Oyster, Invictus Gaming, Dplus Kia and the Play-In winner), while Tier 2 (the first CBLOL seed, Team Secret Whales, Hanwha Life Esports and Bilibili Gaming) meets Tier 3 (LYON, Movistar KOI, T1 and TOP Esports). Teams from the same region cannot meet in round one, and same-region matches are allowed from round two onward. Rounds two to five are drawn on October 23, 24, 26 and 30, pairing teams that hold identical records and avoiding repeat opponents.

The Knockout Stage closes the event from November 3 to 14. Eight teams play single-elimination best-of-five series in Allen and in Brooklyn, where the final takes place on November 14 at 2 PM EST. Quarterfinals run November 3 to 6 and semifinals November 7 and 8. The quarterfinal draw on October 31 pairs the two 3-0 teams from the Swiss Stage with two of the 3-2 teams, then draws the remaining four against each other. Worlds Fan Fest runs November 12 to 14 at Pier 36 in Lower Manhattan alongside the final.

What Pick'Ems asks of players

The stage predictions ask for winners in the Play-In, Swiss and Knockout brackets, each with its own window. Crystal Ball asks tournament-wide questions that Riot describes as returning "with familiar ways to play", and the prompt list sits behind Riot's sign-in.

Picks can be made on the Pick'Ems page or in the client. An entry needs a Riot Account and a Summoner Name. Riot lists the promotion as available everywhere except Cuba, North Korea, Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk and Myanmar, anywhere League of Legends is published by a local publisher such as China, or any other region where the offer is void. Reward eligibility can differ by region under local rules. This year's Pick'Ems is powered by AWS.

The reward ladder Riot has listed

Riot does not publish one Worlds 2026 reward table. Its Pick'Ems data splits the rewards into participation and placement tiers. Making a pick unlocks Laying It Down. Finishing in the top 50% unlocks the Groovy Pup Icon, the top 25% unlocks Spicy Dog, and the top 5,000 unlocks True Damage Yasuo along with the Yasuo champion. A perfect set of picks unlocks all of the Ultimate skins: DJ Sona, Elementalist Lux, Gun Goddess Miss Fortune, K/DA All Out Seraphine, Pulsefire Ezreal, Soul Fighter Samira and Spirit Guard Udyr.

The same data holds a second, faction-based ladder with different items: Best Buds Icon for making a pick, ALL ABOARD Icon for the top 50%, Spa Day for the top 25%, and True Damage Yasuo with Yasuo for the top 5,000. Sponsor drops sit alongside them, including a Secretlab discount code and a Mastercard Hextech Chest and Key.

The two lists do not match. Hotspawn's October 11 guide listed the faction items, Best Buds Icon, ALL ABOARD Icon, Spa Day and True Damage Yasuo, as the Worlds 2026 Pick'Ems rewards. The primer publishes neither list, so the tier names above come from the event data that the Pick'Ems page serves for Worlds 2026.

Scoring, delivery and the open questions

The primer states that Crystal Ball scoring takes place after Worlds concludes, that final scores are calculated after the November 14 final, and that tier rewards are aimed to be delivered within 48 hours of it. A player who believes they qualified but has no credit by November 21 should contact Player Support.

Three details are still open. Which teams reach the Swiss and Knockout Stages depends on draws and results that have not happened. The Crystal Ball prompt list is visible only after signing in, and media guides describe 18 selections without Riot publishing that count. The points each pick is worth, and any cutline below the top 50%, are not on a public Riot page, so any community estimate of them is unverified.

For a player, the only action left before the tournament starts is Crystal Ball and Play-In picks, and the safest deadline is October 14. The remaining locks arrive with each stage, and the Swiss and Knockout prompts appear on Riot's Pick'Ems page once their windows open.