How To Create Tournament Code League Of Legends

Riot Games' League of Legends World Championship Finals has become the most widely viewed esports event consistently for the past few years. Due to their sheer production quality, hype generation, tournament structure and popularity of the game itself, Riot has managed to achieve major success in the esports field in more ways than one. They have pioneered a lot of how we look at esports today, doing things that are out of the norm to ensure the continual success of the tournament series.

I mean just look at this! This was the 2019 League of Legends Worlds Championship final's opening ceremony. Riot Games is always setting the bar higher with each year.

As such, smaller tournament organizers internationally look at League of Legends as a highly demanded game to host tournaments for. League of Legends has been standardized and simplified in a way where it is one of the easiest games to host tournaments for. Not only are the rules almost the same between all tournaments due to the lack of content required, but the setup process is quick and simple.

Riot Games has also provided tools to further the simplicity of the tournament hosting process by including tournament codes. Whether if you are participating in a League of Legends tournament or looking to host your own, it's important to know what tournament codes are and how to use them in a situation if you are ever mandated as such.

What is a Tournament Code in League of Legends?

A tournament code is a generated code that can be inserted into the League of Legends client to create a custom lobby with the game mode and other custom settings decided by the host or code generator. The codes also automate the process of submitting match results after the conclusion of the game to the host.

Tournament codes may be set up for either Summoner's Rift or Howling Abyss. They may create a lobby with one of the desired game modes: blind pick, draft mode, all random or tournament draft mode. The team sizes can be adjusted between 1 player per team, all the way up to 5 (the standard amount). Furthermore, there are settings that can restrict others from spectating the game or joining the lobby as a spectator.

Tournament codes will not expire if all participants leave the game prior to the game being concluded. Instead, the players may rejoin the lobby (but not limited to the same players that played in that lobby prior) using the same code and start the game again from the very start of champ select as if the original game was never played.

Tournament codes expire over time, but the duration until they expire seems to vary. Codes are eligible to expiring three months after being generated, but Riot Games recommends generating your codes no earlier than 1 week prior to the use date to ensure no issues arise during your tournament.

How to Use Tournament Codes as a Player

As a player in a League of Legends 1v1 or 5v5 tournament (or any LoL tournament for that matter), you will likely be in a situation where you would need to use tournament codes. The process is quick and simple, when you understand it once, it will be very simple to repeat.

To get a quick understanding, scroll through and read the following 6 subtitles to learn what you need to do. If you are confused at any point, I included an additional body of text and images to walk you through how to proceed.

1. Receive and Copy Your Tournament Code

The tournament hosting party may provide a tournament code for each team to use instead of having to create your own lobby. They are usually provided on the tournament management platform that the tournament is being hosted on, such as Battlefy.com, Smash.gg, etc. They may also be found on any communications platform, such as on the tournament's official website, Discord server's announcements channel or through a direct message from an administrative member. Not all tournaments use tournament codes, so if you are unable to find a tournament code, it is possible that the tournament hosts don't intend for you to use one. Consult the tournament rulebook or an administration member for clarification.

Once obtained, make sure to copy the tournament code as you will need to paste it in the client in step 5. If the tournament code cannot be copied, you can instead type out the code when we get to step 5 instead.

This is an example of what the code looks like, and specifically where it would be shown on Battlefy.com (my preferred site for LoL tourneys). This page is shown after a tournament has been started by the host and a player click on their match on the match panel.

2. Open and Sign-in to the League of Legends Client

Once the code has been obtained, open the League of Legends client. This can be done by double clicking the League of Legends icon on your desktop or file explorer. You can also search for the application on your start menu.

You may also search it through Window's search function.

Once it opens up, if you have not saved your sign-in credentials prior, you will need to fill them in now. This includes your Username (not the same as your Summoner's name) and your Password. If you don't want to have to sign-in every time on that computer, you can check the box to the left of the text "Stay signed in".

If you attempt to sign-in and it displays the message " Your login credentials don't match an account in our system. ", this means the information you wrote in the fill-in fields aren't correct. Try again and make sure you are typing the correct information ( your summoner name is different than your username, although they can be the same ). Check to see if caps-lock or num-lock is on, as this may be the issue.

3. Press "Play" on the Client

Upon signing-in to the client, you will be presented with the client refreshed and displaying its home page. At the top left of the home page lies a button with the text "PLAY" inside an oddly shaped button. This is the left most button in its row, located beside a circle button with an exclamation point (which is usually blue, but sometimes orange or red). Other buttons on the row include a "HOME" text button, a "TFT" text button, a "CLASH" text button, small icon buttons to the right and a display of your currency (Riot Points and Blue Essence).

Once located, you need to hover your mouse over any part of the button and left click it once. Right clicking the button multiple times will not negatively harm the outcome.

You should see the game mode selection menu (image below). If you don't see this menu after clicking the button, attempt to click it again. If multiple attempts fail, close the client window and reopen it. If that fails, reboot your computer and start the process again.

Note: Some of the game mode options may change over time. This WON'T change the tournament code submission procedure in any way.

4. Click the Trophy Icon to the Top Right

While you see the game mode selection screen, there should display a small square button with a trophy icon located in the center of the button which is located to the right of the screen. This button will be located to the top right corner of the game mode options on the PVP tab and to the left bottom corner of your summoner logo selection button and summoner name display. This button is on the same row as all the tab buttons, including the "PVP" text button, the "CO-OP VS. AI" text button and the "TRAINING" text button.

Once located, you will need to left click the button once. The moment it is pressed, a popup (within the client) should display in the middle of your client with the text "ENTER TOURNAMENT CODE:" inside with a fill-in field and two square buttons directly below labelled "JOIN" (grayed out initially) and "CANCEL".

You should not be able to click the trophy icon button multiple times, but if this occurs it will do no harm. If the popup doesn't open, restart the client and try again. If it still fails to display the popup, attempt to reboot your computer. It should work without needing to even restart your client, so ensure that you are clicking the correct button. To confirm, simply hover your mouse over what you assume is the button. After about 1 second, the text box "Enter tournament code" should display itself directly below the button. Failing to see this either means your mouse is not hovering over the correct button (most likely), the client has a bug, or this feature has been changed or removed.

5. Paste the Code

In the fill-in field (the arrow in the image below points at it), paste or type in the tournament code you received from the tournament host and/or tournament management platform. The code submission is cap sensitive, meaning you must accurately use capital letters that were provided from the original generator. Failure to do so will result in the code being deemed invalid (or possibly, but unlikely, entering another room with that exact variant).

Once the code has been entered into the fill-in field, the "JOIN" button at the bottom left of the popup will light up (it will light up the moment at least 1 character is typed into the fill-in field). Click on that button to proceed to the custom game lobby. If you accidentally click the "CANCEL" button, you will have to repeat step 4 before redoing step 5.

If after clicking join you receive another popup with the text "ERROR JOINING GAME The tournament code you have entered is invalid", this means the code you entered into the client is invalid. This could be for the following reasons; You failed to copy/paste or type in the code correctly, you didn't include all the capital letters as intended, the code provided to you has an initial problem with it, the code was never generated from an actual code generated therefore not being in the system, or the lobby has expired deeming the code valueless.

You will need to determine the issue and resolve it accordingly. If you need further assistance, ask the tournament hosts to support or for a new tournament code.

If you open the lobby with the wrong settings (such as opening to a 5v5 on the Howling Abyss when it should have been on the Summoner's Rift map or only being able to add 3 players per team when it should be a 5v5), either the tournament hosts inputted the incorrect settings (most likely) or you pasted/typed the wrong, yet still functioning, code. Contact your tournament host for a solution if it is the former or the issue is unknown.

6. Repeat for All Teammates or Send Invites Through Your Friends List

When you are finally in the lobby, you will need to add all your fellow teammates. To do so, you can send everyone else the code to follow the same process or invite them to the room through your friends list.

To invite someone, simply click the box with the text "INVITE" in it located on the top right (arrow pointing at it in the image below), which is left to your friends list and in the same row as the title. After that, you should see a popup with your online friends from your friends list. There, select all you want to invite and click the "SEND INVITES" at the bottom of the popup. Or you can right-click anyone on your friends list to the right of the client. Once you do, you will see a drop-down menu. On the drop-down menu, click "Invite to Game". Once an invitation(s) is sent, the player(s)'s name should appear directly under the texts "INVITES", located in the lower half of the screen in the center. If it doesn't show there, either the invite wasn't sent (most likely) or the client is bugged, and it has been sent.

How to Setup Tournament Codes as a Tournament Organizer

As a tournament organizer, you may wonder how you can use tournament codes yourself (if you are wondering why you would use tournament codes over traditional methods,I outlined the pros and cons in the next section). Setting up tournament codes could be pretty simple depending on what path you opt into. Below I list a few possible methods of generating your own tournament codes

Through a Tournament Management Platform

This is the simplest method and the most commonly used by smaller tournament organizers who don't need to or want to rely on setting up the tournament API on their own site (scroll below to the next subheading on more information about the tournament API).

To accomplish this, you will need to determine what tournament management platform you would be interested in using. Make sure that the tournament management platform has tournament code generation functionality. Sites like battlefy.com (my go-to site) and Smash.gg are examples that have this functionality.

Once you determined what site you want to use, you will need to setup your tournament on their platform. Through their platform, participants will need to signup for your specific tournament. Once tournament day comes, you as the host will need to start the brackets. Then players will be able to directly access their tournament code and have the results automatically submitted (if enabled) without you having to worry.

Some sites don't take and record the outcome of games, so make sure to inform players to take screenshots for proof and match dispute purposes if your site doesn't. Look into the service's FAQ section to determine whether they save that data or not.

This is an excerpt from a blog post from battlefy.com, where they mention that they do automated score reporting and stats tracking. Read the full post here!

Adding the Riot Games Tournament API to Your Server

When I say server, don't get confused with a Discord server. This route requires you to have a hosting server that can be leveraged to host the Riot Games API. From there, you can access the tournament API which allows you to generate tournament codes.

To learn more about the Riot Games API and how to set it up, check out this comprehensive documentation on the official Riot Games website.

You can do a lot with the tournament API, such as the following (excerpt taken from the document hyperlinked above):

Register tournament providers and tournaments in a specific region/shard and its callback URL.
Generate tournament codes for a given tournament.
Receive game results in the form of an automatic callback (HTTP POST) from League of Legends servers whenever a game created using tournament code has been completed.
Use match identifier (matchID) received in the callback to pull full stats data for the given match.
Pull end of game data based on given tournament code in case the callback is never received.
Query pre-game lobby player activity events for a given tournament code.

Recycling Old Codes or Composing a List of Codes

I was surprised to learn how many casual tournament hosts end up recycling a handful of codes they generated months ago. Some people create their own database of codes that they can manually distribute to players when the game time comes or by setting up a Discord bot to DM participants when prompted.

To do this, you can either find some old tournament codes or generate them through a tournament management tool (without actually using that tool for your event) by creating a random event and taking the codes from it.

For example, this is a tournament I named "ee" on battlefy which I made private. There I added fake teams "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8", hosted a double elimination and seeded it. Now you can just copy the codes and use it for your tournament without using their platform.

Afterwards, you can save them onto an excel doc, a Google Sheet or even an SQL server (if you had a good reason to). Just make sure everyone who needs assess to that database has it, including bots. I would recommend not allowing participants to see your database directly as that may result in operational issues.

Keep in mind, once a code has been used and the game had a victor, that code cannot be used again.

Although this was used for ProDraft codes, the same organization method can be used for tournament codes (if you were distributing the codes manually. If you were connecting this to a Discord bot, you wouldn't want to set it up like this). For this, two individuals were responsible for distributing the codes, so one person was handing the codes on white (odd row number) rows for bracket 1 and the other person was distributing the codes on blue (even row number) rows for bracket 2.

After the code was distributed for use, we would mark it off as 'Y' in column A. With the conditional format rule we incorporated (image to the left), it would automatically turn that corresponding row red. This makes it visually evident which codes were already distributed to avoid confusion.

Pros and Cons of Using Tournament Codes

As a tournament organizer, you will have to decide if you want to use tournament codes or not. Generally speaking, gaining access to tournament codes is fairly simple and you usually would like to opt into using them when it's convenient, but if you are in a situation where you aren't sure if it's worth the effort, here are the pros and cons to using them to help you be better informed.

Pro: Game Results Will be Forwarded to Host

With the use of tournament codes, by far the most valuable aspect is the fact that game results will automatically be sent to the host. No more having to worry about incorrect game result submissions or having hosts verify the post-game results. Mix that with an automated tournament management tool and your tournament can almost run itself (not really, but you get the point).

Pro: Automatic Stats Tracking

In addition to receiving the game end results, the hosts receive the full end-game stats. This provides three key benefits. 1) If a tie occurs in a group stage, these stats can help determine which team will move forward to the next bracket. This can be based on predetermined stats that you desire (e.g. the team with the best collective K/D/A from the pool will move forward in the case of a draw). 2) It gives the opportunity for shoutcasters to reference and talk about the previous game, especially when it's a best of 3 or 5 match. This data will provide a professional flair and additional talking points for shoutcasters during downtime or in case of technical issues. 3) It allows the organization to develop a database of information for future reference including data on their website (enhancing the experience of all players and viewers), providing extensive information to casters and allowing for display information during streams. This brings a new world of professionalism for smaller organizations with just a small addition of work thanks to this feature.

Pro: Games Start Quicker

When you use tournament codes, players don't have to coordinate creating a lobby with the opposing party. This makes the process of joining the premade lobby and starting the game quicker than its alternative.

Players may also make a mistake while forming the custom lobby, failing to abide by official tournament settings. This will also result in more time-wasting as the lobby will need to be remade or a lack of professionalism if the game is played out with the error.

Pro: More Professional and Ease of Use for Players

By having tournament codes and pre-made lobby, it allows players to focus on playing and getting ready for the game instead of having to worry about coordinating the lobby creation. This shows professionalism from the side of the tournament organizers and creates a better overall experience for players.

Con: Requires Codes from a Code Generator

Obviously to have a tournament code, it has to be generated from somewhere. This can be easily done through a third-party site, but if you don't want to use third party services nor do you have the resources to host your own generator, you will be out of luck. You could use a third party site to compose a list and manually distribute it or have a bot distribute codes (as mentioned previously), but you will need to go through the process of finding a third party site that would allow that, then compose a database yourself. If you have many matches and multiple games per match, that could end up being a whole lot of codes. Add that to the possibility of some codes expiring or not working, and it could seem like a huge mess.

Con: Codes May Expire

Codes expire, you won't know when, but they eventually will. Although Riot Games mentions "Tournament codes are eligible for expiration three months after they're generated", they soon after say "Create a tournament [code] no more than a week before the start of the first match". This could get any tournament organizer concerned, especially a new one.

I have never had the issue of a lobby expiring on me during an event itself, but it doesn't seem impossible.

Here is the full excerpt on what Riot Games mentions about tournament codes expiration:

Tournaments will expire if there are no active codes associated with the tournament. Tournament codes are eligible for expiration three months after they're generated. Because tournaments and their codes can expire, creating them as close to the event as possible ensures no disruptions. For the best results we suggest the following:

Create a tournament no more than a week before the start of the first match.
Upon creation of the tournament, generate a code to ensure the tournament has an active tournament code associated with it (thereby making ineligible for cleanup).
Tournament codes should be generated as needed, not all at once at the start of the event.

Con: Codes May Possess Incorrect Settings

Let's pretend its tournament day, you setup all the codes, players are all coming on and everything seems to be going well. Then you hear one team yell "This is the wrong map!", you panic. All the codes you had in place are no longer usable and you don't have your tech guy to tweak the generator for you. This has actually happened to me during a tournament I hosted where we messed up and selected the wrong map.

Luckily you can also opt into players making their own lobby, but you didn't setup the infrastructure to make that process easy as you would have had if you intended to do that at the start (such as providing each team captain with the opposing team captain's summoner name). Additionally, it looks bad on your end on having to scrap that during the day of the event.

An easy fix to this problem is to double check everything and have contingency plans in place for the worst to happen. Something I continuously advocate; Murphy is not your friend!*

*Referencing Murphy's Law: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong".

Conclusion

Riot Games has done a great job making tournament hosting easier and more effective with the incorporation of tournament codes. Although they aren't needed, they can help a great deal in hosting an event without hiccups and allowing both players and tournament hosts to focus on what is more important to them at the time.