The start date of Worlds 2026 was Thursday, October 15, when the Play-In opened in Los Angeles at 11 AM PDT (18:00 UTC). In Seoul that moment was 3 AM on Friday, October 16, so calendars kept in Korean or Chinese time show the tournament starting a day later. The main event, the Swiss stage in Allen, Texas, began on October 23. The knockout stage starts in Allen on November 3, and the final is on Saturday, November 14 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn at 2 PM EST (19:00 UTC). Two clock changes fall inside the event, so the tables below give every match day in UTC, London, Central Europe and Seoul as well as host-city time.
After Allen’s October 29 session, the two remaining Swiss days are Friday, October 30 from 3 PM CDT (8 PM GMT and 9 PM CET that evening, or 5 AM KST on October 31) and Saturday, October 31 from 12 PM CDT. The quarterfinal draw follows the last Swiss matches.
Every match day, in host-city time and four other clocks
Riot Games published its Worlds 2026 Primer on October 5. It gives one start time per match day, not a separate time for each series, and writes every session in the host city’s clock: Pacific time in Los Angeles, Central time in Allen and Eastern time in Brooklyn. The Central Europe and Seoul times below follow the primer; the UTC and London columns are converted from the host-city time for each date. For the broadcast, the primer’s list of LoL Esports channels on Twitch starts with twitch.tv/riotgames.
| Host-city dates | Stage, city | Host-city start | UTC | London | Central Europe | Seoul (next day) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 15–18 (Thu–Sun) | Play-In, Los Angeles | 11 AM PDT | 18:00 | 7 PM BST | 8 PM CEST | 3 AM KST |
| Oct 23–24 (Fri–Sat) | Swiss, Allen | 12 PM CDT | 17:00 | 6 PM BST | 7 PM CEST | 2 AM KST |
| Oct 25–26 (Sun–Mon) | Swiss, Allen | 12 PM CDT | 17:00 | 5 PM GMT | 6 PM CET | 2 AM KST |
| Oct 28–30 (Wed–Fri) | Swiss, Allen | 3 PM CDT | 20:00 | 8 PM GMT | 9 PM CET | 5 AM KST |
| Oct 31 (Sat) | Swiss, Allen | 12 PM CDT | 17:00 | 5 PM GMT | 6 PM CET | 2 AM KST |
| Nov 3–6 (Tue–Fri) | Quarterfinals, Allen | 4 PM CST | 22:00 | 10 PM GMT | 11 PM CET | 7 AM KST |
| Nov 7–8 (Sat–Sun) | Semifinals, Allen | 4 PM CST | 22:00 | 10 PM GMT | 11 PM CET | 7 AM KST |
| Nov 14 (Sat) | Final, Brooklyn | 2 PM EST | 19:00 | 7 PM GMT | 8 PM CET | 4 AM KST |
In the host city, October 27 is a rest day, and so are November 1 and 2. The Seoul column always lands on the following date: the opener was 3 AM on October 16 there, and the final is 4 AM on Sunday, November 15. In the primer, a “(+1)” after the China and Korea times marks that next day. The October 28 line also puts a “(+1)” after 9 PM CET, which is a slip: 3 PM CDT is 9 PM CET on the same evening.
Why the same noon in Texas moved for Europe, and the two meanings of CST
The UK put its clocks back on Sunday, October 25, the date the UK government lists for 2026, and Riot’s primer switches from CEST to CET on the same day. That is why a 12 PM CDT session was 7 PM CEST on Saturday, October 24 and 6 PM CET on Sunday, October 25. The US change comes a week later: daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time on November 1, according to NIST, so Allen moves from CDT to CST between the last Swiss day and the first quarterfinal.
From October 25 to 31, then, London and Central Europe are an hour closer to Allen than before or after. Seoul’s clock does not change, so its gap to Allen moves once, from 14 to 15 hours, when Allen changes on November 1.
| Worlds sessions | Allen | London | Central Europe | Seoul |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Through Oct 24 | CDT, UTC−5 | 6 hours | 7 hours | 14 hours |
| Swiss, Oct 25–31 | CDT, UTC−5 | 5 hours | 6 hours | 14 hours |
| Allen knockouts from Nov 3 | CST, UTC−6 | 6 hours | 7 hours | 15 hours |
Use the middle row for the remaining Swiss sessions on October 30 and 31, and the last row for the quarterfinals and semifinals from November 3. Every quarterfinal and semifinal is listed at 4 PM CST, which is 10 PM GMT, 11 PM CET and 7 AM KST the next day, so a reminder worked out with the late-October gap would go off an hour early. Brooklyn, on Eastern time, is an hour ahead of Allen, so the final follows its own row in the first table.
Then there is the abbreviation itself. Riot’s knockout line reads “4 PM CST / 11 PM CET / 6 AM CST (+1) / 7 AM KST (+1)”. The first CST is US Central Standard Time in Allen, UTC−6. The second is China Standard Time, UTC+8, fourteen hours ahead of the first. In the primer, the CST that carries a “(+1)” is always the China clock, and only the quarterfinal and semifinal line uses the letters twice, because the Swiss sessions were written CDT and the final is written EST.
What is left, and the dates that settle it
The Swiss stage ends on Saturday, October 31, with the quarterfinal draw scheduled after the last Swiss matches: the two teams that finish 3–0 are drawn against two of the teams that finish 3–2, and the remaining four are paired at random. Knockout Pick’Ems open the same day and lock before the first quarterfinal on November 3. From the quarterfinals on, every series is a best-of-five, and this site’s note on which defeat actually eliminates a team explains how a series score differs from a bracket loss.
After the semifinals on November 7 and 8 there are five days without a match. Riot fills part of that gap in New York with the Worlds Fan Fest at Pier 36 in Lower Manhattan: 3 to 9 PM EST on Thursday, November 12 and Friday, November 13, then 11 AM to 8 PM EST on Saturday, November 14. The final starts at 2 PM that Saturday at Barclays Center. The arena’s event page lists doors 90 minutes before the scheduled start, which works out to 12:30 PM EST.
Which of the remaining sessions suit your clock
I would choose by where a session lands for you rather than by stage, and treat each listed time as a start, not an end. Every knockout series is a best-of-five, and even Karmine Corp’s 3–0 Play-In qualifier held 86 minutes and 54 seconds of game clock (32:30, 27:28 and 26:56 in Strafe’s recap) before champion select and the gaps between games are counted.
In the UK or Central Europe, I would pick the last Swiss day, Saturday, October 31. It starts at 5 PM GMT and 6 PM CET, the earliest of any remaining session there, and it ends with the quarterfinal draw. The quarterfinals start at 10 PM GMT and 11 PM CET from Tuesday to Friday, late for a series that can run several hours, and the semifinals keep that time on Saturday and Sunday. The final, at 7 PM GMT or 8 PM CET on Saturday, November 14, starts earlier in the evening than any other knockout session there, though its finishing time is not fixed.
In Korea, the quarterfinals and semifinals start at 7 AM KST from Wednesday, November 4 to Monday, November 9, which may suit breakfast or a commute better than a late night. The final is the hard one there, at 4 AM on Sunday, November 15. In China every time is an hour earlier than in Seoul.
In the contiguous US, no remaining match day starts later than 5 PM local time: the quarterfinals and semifinals begin at 2 PM PST, 4 PM CST and 5 PM EST, and the final at 11 AM PST, 1 PM CST and 2 PM EST. If you watch only one series before the final, make it a semifinal. Both fall on a weekend in the host city, and each sends its winner to Brooklyn.
What happened when Worlds started
Only four of the 19 qualified teams played before October 23. The primer named Karmine Corp, Cloud9 Kia and MVK Esports for the Play-In, with a placeholder for Brazil’s second team, which turned out to be FURIA. One place in the 16-team Swiss stage was on offer, so the other 15 teams, including all four from Korea’s LCK and all four from China’s LPL, did not play until October 23 in Allen, which was October 24 in Korea and China.
The opening series went the distance. Cloud9 Kia won game 1 against Karmine Corp with a 20–1 kill score and led the series 2–1, then KC won games 4 and 5. Karmine Corp beat MVK 3–0 in the upper-bracket final on October 16 and 3–0 again in the qualification final on Sunday, October 18, finishing the Play-In with a 9–2 game record. Inven Global’s English version of a Korean report dates that final series to the early morning of October 19 KST, the same one-day shift as the table. KC’s reward was a Swiss opener against Anyone’s Legend on October 23. The stage-by-stage guide to Play-In, Swiss and Knockout explains what each round decides if the format is new to you.
Is a mid-October start normal? The last three openers
Not as a rule. Riot’s primers for the last three editions show three different opening days, and each primer appeared 10 to 16 days before the first match.
| Edition | Opening day | Opened in | Final | Days from opener to final | Primer published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Wed, Sept 25 | Riot Games Arena, Berlin | Sat, Nov 2, The O2, London | 38 | Sept 9 (16 days before) |
| 2025 | Tue, Oct 14 | Beijing | Sun, Nov 9, Chengdu | 26 | Sept 30 (14 days before) |
| 2026 | Thu, Oct 15 | Riot Games Arena, Los Angeles | Sat, Nov 14, Barclays Center, Brooklyn | 30 | Oct 5 (10 days before) |
My takeaway for anyone already planning next year: treat “Worlds starts in October” as a habit rather than a fixed date, and wait for the primer. In 2026 it listed each match day’s start in the host city’s own clock, and converting from that original time keeps the dates straight, including the genuine next-day dates in Asia.