Teams competing at this year’s League of Legends World Championship will have another tool at their disposal for practice outside of scrims on North American soil.
For the first time since its debut earlier this year, the NA-exclusive Champions Queue will be open to all teams participating in this year’s Worlds, as well as the existing player base that gained entry to the exclusive queue throughout the year. The server will be moved in accordance with the locations of the legs of Worlds to ensure that international players experience as little latency as possible.
Champions Queue began earlier this year as a way for amateur and professional NA League players who had been accepted into the queue to practice in scrim-like conditions. It initially received criticism from fans and players alike that it was being underused, with many players blaming this on the time slots of the queue availability and the lack of an MMR system, though it continued into a successful summer season.
This will be the first time that players from other regions will be welcomed into Champions Queue, opening up possibilities for dream matches that have never occurred on stage. NA players who have not qualified for Worlds but have access to Champions Queue will also be eligible to play, though the movement of the server around two countries may impact the latency they experience.
Riot is also giving streaming capabilities to a wider part of the League Partner Program around the world, allowing them to spectate these games for others to see if the players themselves are not streaming. These creators will not be able to stream Champions Queue spectated games during the live Worlds broadcast.
No official date for the start of the Worlds 2022 season of Champions Queue has been revealed, though it is expected to begin around the same time as the start of play-ins, which begins on Sept. 29 in Mexico City, Mexico.
