Riot Games has revealed the teams in each of the Masters Tokyo groups, as well as the two venues that will host the event.
The 12-team event will kick off with four days of GSL groups action. Riot has determined that each group will contain one team from each participating region (Americas, EMEA, Pacific, China), to avoid repeat matchups in any one group. Every group match will be a BO3.
The two Masters Tokyo groups are:
Group A
- NRG Esports NRG Esports North America Rank #4 FiNESSE Pujan Mehta s0m Sam Oh Verno Andrew Maust mada Adam Pampuch Ethan Ethan Arnold (Americas #2)
- Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #20 ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat koalanoob Gianfranco Potestio (EMEA #4)
- EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 S1Mon Hsien Meng-Hsun (谢孟勋) ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) (CN #2)
- T1 T1 Korea Rank #2 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae Oh (김태오) Sylvan Go Young Sup (고영섭) BuZz Yu Byung Cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) (Pacific #3)
Group B
- DRX DRX Korea Rank #4 Flashback Cho Min-hyuk (조민혁) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) Athan Na Ha-jun (나하준) freeing No Ha-jun (노하준) HYUNMIN Song Hyun-min (송현민) (Pacific #2)
- Attacking Soul Esports Attacking Soul Esports Inactive monk Wang Haoyu (王浩宇) Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) YHchen Chen Yuhan (陳昱瀚) Zero1 Meng Zhen Ren (任梦真) (CN #1)
- FUT Esports FUT Esports Europe Rank #7 xeus Doğan Gözgen MrFaliN Furkan Yeğen yetujey Eray Budak AtaKaptan Ata Tan cNed Mehmet Yağız İpek qRaxs Doğukan Balaban (EMEA #3)
- Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Rank #20 Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le (Americas #3)
The two best teams from each group will then be placed into the playoffs, where the draw will be mostly random. There will be just two contingencies at play: group stage teams must face top-seeded teams (the top team from Americas, Pacific, and the two best from EMEA), and teams from the same group will be placed on opposing sides of the bracket.
The playoffs will take place in an eight-team double-elimination bracket with nearly all of its matches BO3. The lower bracket final and grand final will be BO5 matches.
Nearly all of the tournament, from the group stage to the final stages of the elimination bracket, will be held at the 3600-seat Tipstar Dome Chiba. The lower and grand finals will take place in the Makuhari Messe, which holds up to 9000 people.
The full schedule can be found below.
Images by Riot Games