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The Round 1 draw for the 2026 Demacia Cup Global Invitational will take place on Tuesday, September 29. The ceremony starts at 13:00 CEST. TJ Sports revealed the draw rules ahead of the show.
All twelve teams will go into a single draw pool. Six teams will be drawn first to fill the six matchups. The remaining six will then be drawn and paired with those opponents in order.
A same-region avoidance rule applies to this first round. If two teams from the same region are drawn together, the second one moves on to the next available matchup against a team from another region. This mostly matters for the LPL and the LCK, which each send three teams.
The rule will only apply to the first round. Matchups in the following rounds will also be decided by draw, but teams from the same region can face each other from then on. However, no rematches will be allowed.
The draw will be streamed live on Huya, Douyu, Bilibili, Douyin, SOOP and Naver.
The online group stage uses a Swiss format. It opens with a BO1 (best-of-one) round, and the rest of the stage is played in best-of-three series. Group stage games will be played online from October 3 to 8. These will run offline from October 12 to 17 at JDG's home arena, with every series played as a BO5.
