The group stage draw for the 2021 League of Legends Worlds Championship will be held on Sept. 22, 5 a.m. PT, Riot Games announced Thursday. 

The teams starting from the Play-ins will be divided into two pools and will be drawn into two groups. Each Play-in group wil consist of two Pool A and three Pool B teams each group consisting of two Pool A teams and three Pool B teams. The pools for the Play-in stage group draw are as follows:

Pool A

• Hanwha Life Esports (LCK)
• LNG Esports (LPL)
• Cloud9 (LCS)
• Mega Bank Beyond Gaming (PCS)

Pool B

• RED Canids Kalunga (RED)
• Unicorns of Love (LCL)
• Detonation FocusMe (LJL)
• Infinity (LLA)
• Peace (LCO)
• Galatasaray Esports (TCL)

The winners of each group will advance directly to the group stage while the 2nd to 4th place teams from each group will battle in a knockout stage to determine which will be the other two seeds joining them in the top 16.

Meanwhile, the teams that are already guaranteed a group stage spot will be divided into three pools, with Pool A made of the LCK, LPL, LEC, and PCS champions. Like previous years, no two teams from the same region can end up in the same group. The pools are as follows:

Pool A

• DWG KIA (LCK)
• EDward Gaming (LPL)
• MAD Lions (LEC)
• PSG Talon (PCS)

Pool B

• Gen.G (LCK)
• FunPlus Phoenix (LPL)
• Fnatic (LEC)
• 100 Thieves (LCS)

Pool C

• T1 (LCK)
• Royal Never Give Up (LPL)
• Rogue (LEC)
• Team Liquid (LCS)

As announced earlier, Worlds 2021 will be held in Reykjavik, Iceland, the same place that hosted the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational. From Oct. 5 through Nov. 6, the 22 teams will battle to determine the champion of the world for 2021. Like with Worlds 2020 and MSI 2021, Vietnam's VCS will be absent from the tournament due to COVID travel restrictions.