The 2019 League of Legends World Championship draw for the Knockout Stage took place immediately after the conclusion of the Group Stage. All three representatives from South Korea's LCK and Europe's LEC were joined by the first and third seed from China's LPL in escaping the Group Stage, and have been matched up in the Quarterfinals as follows:

The Roads Traveled

The pool 1 teams for the Knockout Stage draw were the first respective first seeds from each group. SK Telecom T1, Griffin, DAMWON Gaming, and FunPlus Phoenix were randomly thrown to the four corners of the bracket. Their respective opponents were randomly chosen from pool 2, which consisted of the four teams who escaped the Group Stage as 2nd seeds. Additionally, teams who were in the same group cannot be opponents in the Quarterfinals.

Griffin was the 1st seed from Group A with a record of 6-1. The LCK 2nd seed looked shaky in its first round robin, managing to beat Cloud9 and Hong Kong Attitude but ended up destroyed by G2. However, Griffin showed up big for its second round robin, going undefeated including a 4th victory in a tie-breaker rematch with G2 for the 1st seed. G2 would have to settle for the 2nd seed, its only two losses coming at the hands of Griffin in the last Group A game and subsequent tie-breaker.

FunPlus Phoenix topped Group B with a record of 5-2, but looked nothing like the dominant domestic champion from China's LPL, barely edging out the 1st seed in a tiebreaker with a surging Splyce.

The 3rd LEC seed made it out of groups as the 2nd seed, highlighted by a complete resrugence by Top Laner Tamás "Vizicsacsi" Kiss after an abysmal performance in the Worlds 2019 Play-In. Splyce would finish with a 4-3 record in Group B after losing the 1st seed tie-breaker to FPX.

SK Telecom T1 lived up to the expectations of a 1st LCK seed with a 5-1 record, looking every bit the favorite of Worlds 2019 thus far. Fnatic, who finished its first round robin with only one win against 3rd LCS seed Clutch Gaming, donned its week 2 plot armor and went undefeated in its second round robin. Fnatic finished 4-2, gave SKT its only loss in Group B, and punched its ticket to the Knockout Stage as the 2nd seed from Group C.

Group D concluded with DAMWON Gaming continuing to build upon its dominant display in the Play-In. The 3rd seed from South Korea took 1st place in Group D, only dropping one game to LCS champion Team Liquid. However, it would be a resurgent Invictus Gaming who would take the 2nd seed in the group. The defending World Champion is nowhere near its level of power from one year ago, but a 2-0 record against TL, including a dominant victory in the final game, inspires confidence.

Onward, to Madrid

The Worlds 2019 Quarterfinals takes place next weekend in Madrid, Spain. On Saturday at 1:00pm local time, the first Quarterfinals match between Griffin and Invictus Gaming will take the stage at Palacio Vistalegre. Each Quarterfinals match will be a best-of-five series in which the losers will go home, while the winners will remain in Madrid for the Semifinals in the first week of November.