Ordinarily at this stage of the League of Legends World Championship, viewers from North America and Europe have begun to lose interest in the event. Most of their teams have been eliminated, usually in disappointing fashion, and the entire fanbase is gearing up for another Korea vs. Korea grand finals.

This year, things have changed. For the first time since 2013, the League of Legends World Championship will crown a victor from a region other than Korea. Of the four remaining teams still in contention, two represent Europe (G2 Esports and Fnatic ) with Cloud9 still standing to defend North America. Rounding out the final four is China’s Invictus Gaming . The path that lead to this result was paved with shocking upsets, and the viewership metrics on Riot Games’ main Twitch channel reflects the renewed interest of Western viewers.

The entirety of the 2017 World Championship earned 24.71M hours watched on that primary Twitch channel. With two weekends of competition remaining, the 2018 iteration has already reached 21.86M, on pace to easily overtake last year’s total.

Average CCV from the 2017 grand finals through the 2018 quarterfinals.

Not only has the overall event generated greater viewership, both days of the 2018 quarterfinals outperformed the 2017 grand finals in both average concurrent viewers (CCV) and hours watched. The match between SK Telecom T1 and Samsung Galaxy (now Gen.G) last year hit 99.20K average CCV, while the 2018 quarterfinals averaged 127.80K CCV on the first day and 178.63K on the second.

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[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The tournament is on pace to shatter last year’s peak viewership for the grand finals of 485.14K CCV.[/perfectpullquote]

The 2018 quarterfinals also saw a significant increase in peak viewership compared to the group stage the week before. The group stage matches reached 338.32K maximum CCV, while the quarterfinals last weekend hit 415.14K. The tournament is on pace to shatter last year’s peak viewership for the grand finals of 485.14K CCV.

While these numbers are impressive, and potentially record-breaking for the official Riot Games Twitch channel, they do not necessarily reflect an overall increase in viewership for the event across all platforms. Viewers in China and South Korea are most likely watching on regional streaming platforms. As was posited last week, the success of North America and Europe is potentially influencing Twitch viewership, but it is unknown if the disappointing results from China and Korea have affected viewership in those regions due to the lack of available data from Chinese and Korean streaming services.

Viewership has grown for each stage of the 2018 World Championship

Based on the last two weeks of data, it is difficult to predict just how high the Twitch viewership of the League of Legends World Championship will climb. That ceiling is potentially influenced by the result of this weekend’s match between G2 Esports and Invictus Gaming. If G2 emerges victorious, it will set up the first all-Western grand final since 2011—the very first World Championship in League of Legends history. Either way, the Riot Games Twitch channel may very well obliterate last year’s total viewership before the grand finals match has even been decided.