League of Legends’ biggest tournament has begun. Worlds 2018 kicked off today with the first matches of this year’s Play-In Stage, and will run throughout the month, coming to an end at the beginning of November.

The Play-In Stage was first introduced to the tournament in 2017. The idea behind the preliminary stage of the tournament, which takes place ahead of more traditional group stages, is to allow smaller regions their spot on the Worlds stage. Major regions like China, Europe, and North America feature their third seeds, but smaller regions like Brazil, Turkey, Japan, and Oceania all have teams involved in this year’s tournament.

At time of writing, Japan’s Detonation FocusMe are taking on Brazil’s KaBuM! e-Sports. Other matches have seen North American fan favourites Cloud9, as well as the LMS’ (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau) G-Rex and CIS’ (Russia and Baltic States) Gambit Esports in action. Four teams will progress through the Play-In Stages into the Group Stage. The safe bet is that the major regions will all be represented, with Worlds veterans EDward Gaming, G2 Esports, and Cloud9 all likely to progress, but it’s far from a foregone conclusion.

Group stages will take place in a double round robin format, with each of the four teams playing the other teams in their groups twice. The top two entrants from each group will progress into the Knockout Stage, with quarter finals, semi finals, over the weekends towards the end of October. The Grand Final will take place on November 3.

You can watch the Play-In Stages, live right now, on Twitch. If you want to keep an eye on the tournament meta, take a look at our League of Legends patch 8.19 notes. That patch is the version of the game that the entire tournament is going to take place on, so it’s worth making sure you’re up-to-date.