Arena of Valor Will Be Integrated Into the KWC 2026 Structure

More updates for the Honor of Kings World Cup 2026 at the Esports World Cup 2026 were announced, with Arena of Valor tournaments finally integrated into the tournament structure.

For those who didn’t know, Arena of Valor is the international version of Honor of Kings managed by Garena. They generally have the same set of heroes as HOK, but with more globalized names and lores.

Some of AoV’s heroes are also reskinned as part of collaborations with various IPs. That is why you could see heroes like Joker and Batman roaming around the battlefield.

The integration of Arena of Valor tournaments into Honor of Kings will bridge the gap between two games. These two games are running parallelly and also share some collaboration events (Sanrio being the recent example).

How Arena of Valor teams will take part in KWC 2026

Currently, Arena of Valor teams will participate in the KWC 2026 as an invitational team. 3 AoV teams will compete against 17 other Honor of Kings teams, bringing the total participants to 20 teams.

The 3 AoV teams will come from RoV Pro League 2026 Summer (Thailand), Arena of Glory Spring 2026 (Vietnam), and Garena Challenger Series Spring 2026 (Taiwan).

The complete team allocations for the KWC 2026 are as follows.

• King Pro League Spring 2026 (KPL): 1 team + 1 title holder (AG.AL)
• Indonesia Kings Laga Spring 2026 (IKL): 3 teams
• Philippines Kings League Spring 2026 (PKL): 3 teams
• MY Honor of Kings League Spring 2026 (MKL): 3 teams
• Honor of Kings Brazil Championship Fall 2026 (CHOKBR): 2 teams
• Honor of Kings Major League Spring 2026 (KML): 2 teams
• King’s Arise India Qualifier: 2 teams
• RoV Pro League 2026 Summer (RPL): 1 invited
• Arena of Glory Spring 2026 (AOG): 1 invited
• Garena Challenger Series Spring 2026 (GCS): 1 invited

KWC 2026 details

Besides the participating teams, there are some things that you should know about the KWC 2026 tournament at the Esports World Cup 2026.

The tournament will start on July 30 until August 8, consisting of three tournament phases. The first one is the play-ins stage, where 8 teams will play a double-elimination, best-of-3 format in two groups. The top two teams from each group will proceed to the group stage.

In the group stage, 16 teams will be divided into four groups, where they will play in a double-elimination, best of 3 format. The top two teams from each group will proceed to the playoffs.

8 teams in the playoffs will play in a single elimination, best of 7 format (except for the 3rd place match). This stage will utilize the global ban rule and ultimate battle mode on the 7th game.

With a total prize pool of USD 3 million, the KWC 2026 will encourage teams to fight tooth and nail to secure the best result possible.