Riot is moving LoL Worlds 2022 Semifinals from Toronto to Atlanta due to anticipated visa issues.
Worlds events are the main competition Riot hosts for League of Legends. Due to the pandemic, the last two events were played with no or minimal crowd. After the restrictions were scaled down, Riot announced in late 2021 that Worlds was coming back to North America first time since 2016. It was planned to host the tournament across four cities: New York, San Francisco, Toronto, and Mexico City.
Unfortunately, it looks like not everything is going according to plan. Yesterday, esports journalist Jacob Wolf put out a tweet that reported Riot would soon announce the cancelation of the Toronto portion of Worlds 2022, and it would be moved to State Farm Arena, in Atlanta.
Sources: Riot will be announcing today that #Worlds2022 will no longer be going to Toronto for the Semifinals leg.
Instead, the Semifinals portion of the event will be relocating to Atlanta and will take place at @StateFarmArena, home of the Atlanta Hawks.
— Jacob Wolf (@JacobWolf) June 30, 2022
A couple of hours later, Riot did put out a statement confirming the report. The change was due to anticipated visa problems players would have leaving the US for Canada and then having to come back for the Finals. Mexico City is still happening as it will host play-ins and players won’t have to travel back and forth to the US from there.
According to Riot’s Global Head of LoL Esports, Naz Aletaha, “[Riot] are committed to upholding our tradition of a multi-city Worlds tour despite the challenges presented by the pandemic…” So, Riot is going to host that portion of the Worlds in State Farm Arena, the home of the Atlanta Hawks.
The new city schedule for Worlds 2022:
- Play-Ins: Mexico City, Mexico
- Groups & Quarterfinals: New York, New York
- Semifinals: Atlanta, Georgia
- Finals: San Francisco, California
Currently, there is no information about the exact dates, seeding, or ticket sales for the Worlds 2022. If you’d like to stay informed about the tournament, keep following us on ESTNN.
