The newest LoL champions, Briar and Naafiri, have recently hit the rift, but are they going to be playable at the 2023 League of Legends World Championship, or will players have to wait until late 2023 and early 2024 to finally see them picked during pro matches?
Naafiri was released earlier this summer, just in time for the big Soul Fighter event, while Briar is just going to hit Summoner's Rift with LoL Patch 13.18. Both are brand-new and unique champions, bringing a lot of new features to Summoner's Rift, but are they going to be at Worlds 2023?
Riot has some interesting rules regarding champions when it comes to the League of Legends World Championship, as well as other esports events, and one of those rules also pertains to brand-new League champions.
LoL Worlds 2023: Are Naafiri And Briar Going To Be Played In South Korea?
The League of Legends World Championship is going to be kicking off on October 10 with the Play-In stage determining the final two teams that will compete on the main stage of Worlds 2023. With the countdown kicking off, fans are getting ready to cheer on their favorite teams and representative regions.
But will the newest additions to the League of Legends roster be competing at the event? According to an older dev blog, new champions or reworked champions, "Must be enabled for playoffs in all four of the top regions in order to be playable at the next international tournament."
So going by these rules, it will be unlikely that we're going to see either Briar or Naafiri at the 2023 League of Legends World Championship. Earlier this year at the Mid-Season Invitational, Riot also disabled both Yuumi and Milio, since they hadn't been played during the playoffs of the major regions.
Though, there was a message from Riot Meddler on Reddit, in which he did state that Naafiri would be playable at Worlds 2023. Maybe because she was released 5 patches ahead of Worlds, the team feels they've been able to properly balance her even without the data from the professional playoffs.
So it seems that Riot might be changing their rules regarding champions, with Briar getting disabled, while Naafiri seems to be allowed to play at the tournament.