Karmine Corp moved within one victory of reaching the League of Legends World Championship’s Swiss stage, routing MVK Esports 3-0 on Friday in the play-in event at Los Angeles.
MVK Esports get another chance on Saturday in the lower bracket, where they will oppose FURIA, a 3-1 victor over Cloud9 on Friday in the lower-bracket opener.
The FURIA-MVK Esports winner will oppose Karmine Corp on Sunday for the right to be the lone play-in team to make the Swiss stage.
Swiss stage action runs from Oct. 23-31 in Allen, Texas, with early-round matches consisting of a single map before advancement and elimination matches will be best-of-three.
Half of the 16 Swiss stage teams will qualify for the knockout stage, which gets underway on Nov. 3 and features a single-elimination bracket. The knockout stage, consisting of best-of-five matches, will also be played in Allen except for the grand final, which will be held at Barclays Center in New York on Nov. 14.
The championship team will receive $1 million from the event’s $5 million prize pool.
On Friday, Karmine Corp got past MVK Esports in 30 minutes on blue, 33 minutes on blue and 36 minutes on red. Sweden’s Martin “Yike” Sundelin produced an 11-3-17 kill-death-assist ratio for Karmine Corp. Nguyen “Harky” Van Huu wound up at 7-6-6 for all-Vietnamese MVK Esports.
After Cloud9 opened with a 40-minute victory on red, FURIA took the next three maps, in 35 minutes on red, 34 minutes on blue and 29 minutes on blue. Andrey “Ayu” Saraiva registered an 18-6-19 K-D-A ratio for all-Brazilian FURIA. The United States’ Robert “Blaber” Huang finished at 15-14-14 for Cloud9.
League of Legends World Championship prize pool
1. $1 million
2. $800,000
3-4. $400,000
5-8. $300,000
9-11. $175,000
12-14. $125,000
15-16. $90,000
17. $50,000
18. $40,000
19. $30,000 — Cloud9
–Field Level Media
