Riot Games announced the formation of a new League of Legends (LoL) Esports ecosystem, which is set to debut in 2025. With these changes, the American game developer aims to build a "brighter future" for its esports. Check out all the details below.
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According to Riot Games, here are the series of enhancements prepared for LoL Esports in 2025, making it "more exciting and competitive for fans and pros":
- New, third international event;
- Innovative "Fearless Draft" game mode in Tier-1 play;
- Unified split schedule for all leagues;
- Proposed multi-region leagues in Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Americas;
- Experiment with "Guest Team" slots/promotion-relegation;
- New international event league slots.
This development will enhance the League's new business model, ensuring that LoL Esports remains financially viable and worthy of the time of the community.
New International Event
Riot Games is thrilled to announce a third LoL Esports international event. It is set to add a tournament featuring the world's greatest LoL teams after players, teams, and fans have requested it. Riot Games is still naming and branding the event, but they can disclose some facts now.
Riot Games will launch a full-region split/global tournament in 2025. Regional competition will start the event, with each of the five regions (more on this proposed change below) qualifying one team for the international round in March 2025. Teams that proceed to the international round will compete in a round-robin format. Every region will compete with every other region in a best-of-series. The top four squads from the round-robin will advance to a bracket, and the tournament winner is determined after the six-day international round.
The new season-start tournament/split will show pros and fans everything the new in-game League of Legends competitive season has to offer. Rio Games plans to use this tournament annually to test new competitive formats and innovate its early-season competition.
New Fearless Draft Mode
Riot Games will adopt "Fearless Draft" for best-of-series in regional and international rounds of the new competition in 2025. Fearless Draft effectively bans champions from previous games in a best-of-series. This format changes matchups and diversifies pros' champion picks. LoL Esports hasn't changed the Tier 1 draft system in years, and Riot Games is excited to hear what fans think of Fearless.
Rio Games will seed the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) with results from this initial tournament to keep events connected. They will not auto-qualify the winning team for MSI because the competitive formats they pilot in this tournament may change annually and differ from the rest of the competitive calendar.
New Split Structure
Riot Games will tweak League of Legends' regional split with a new international event. All regions will start the new international tournament/first split next season. Another split will qualify teams for MSI, which will take place in early July 2025. The third and final split in each region will conclude with a Regional Championship to recognize a season-long champion.
Focusing on a single-season Regional Championship renders the splits more cohesive and interconnected, elevates the stakes for many League of Legends regular season matches, and creates an exciting season-long build-up to Worlds, the greatest event of the year.
New Multi-Regional Americas/APAC Leagues and Guest Team Slots
Riot Games not only worked to improve League of Legends' business model by adding professional teams, but they also looked for ways to make the regional leagues more competitive and raise the stakes overall. To do this, Riot Games will start talking to teams in seven of League of Legends' regions about its plans to make multi-regional leagues. LoL esports fans clearly enjoy battles between players from the same region, as well as the fandom and passion that come with that.
Americas
The LCS in North America has seen its first year-over-year viewing rise in four years and is up in sentiment. Brazil's CBLOL has record-high fandom and viewership. LLA in Latin America has witnessed increased engagement this year, with more people following worldwide leagues and the LCS and CBLOL. Fans are also joining LoL's multi-language broadcasts and co-streams and becoming excited about cross-regional competitions.
Riot Games is thrilled to see development in all three regions, but they feel they can combine forces in a new pan-America league that will benefit fans, teams, and pros. The LCS and CBLOL would now compete as North and South conferences under this new proposed model.
Each conference would keep six of its partnered teams, integrate one LLA team based on geographical alignment, and reserve one Tier 2 "Guest team" position for promotion and relegation. As seen in the illustration, the Americas league would include three divided seasons.
Here's how the Americas splits in LoL Esports would work in 2025:
- Split 1 - Teams would first compete within their respective conferences, with top performers qualifying for cross-conference play where a single team will qualify for the new global tournament;
- Split 2 - For MSI, the top team from each conference would secure one slot, a total of two Americas teams;
- Split 3 - An Americas Regional Championship would determine three teams advancing to Worlds, with at least one team from each conference.
Restructuring Americas league allows Riot Games to try new things, such as adding a Tier-1 Guest team position from Tier-2. The best Tier-2 teams would play the Guest team from each conference in a Promotion/Relegation tournament at the end of each Americas season. The winning team would play in the conference the next season, bringing new skill and competitiveness to the league.
Riot Games will inform the LoL community later this year how this will operate in 2025 (since they don't have the system in 2024) and beyond. They hope this will inspire talented players to take advantage of the improved road to top-level professional play.
Riot Games' new strategy aims to leverage each region's strengths, build its fan communities, improve competitive play (and Americas' international tournament results), and improve the pathway to pro play. Riot Games hopes to create a lively competitive landscape that draws on its rich history and potential from North to South, as unique as its fan community.
Riot Games will reveal the North and South conference selection process, each split's competitive structure, how they want to improve cross-conference play, and Tier-2 system upgrades in the Americas in the fall.
Asia-Pacific
Since Taipei Assassins won Worlds 2012, Riot Games has seen various regions launch new leagues, like the Vietnam Championship Series (VCS). The Southeast Asia-wide Pacific Championship Series (PCS) is in APAC. From the playoffs, the League of Legends Japan League (LJL) and Circuit Oceania (LCO) entered the PCS ecosystem to compete in international events. The strong cross-regional rivalry produced some of the region's most-watched matches.
Based on that basis, Riot Games is excited to introduce a new league in 2025. It will feature top teams from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Japan, Oceania, and Southeast Asia in regular inter-regional competitions featuring top talent, unique matchups, and new rivalries. Riot Games is developing a hybrid partnership plus promotion/relegation league concept for eight teams and will provide more later.
The 2024 PCS and VCS Summer Split Playoffs will choose the league's first guest teams starting next year. This provides VCS, PCS, LJL, and LCO teams from the 2024 Summer Split a chance to join the new league. Guest teams can be promoted from their domestic leagues in future seasons under the promotion/relegation league model.
Competitive merit has always been the key to success for APAC teams, and Riot Games looks forward to using it as the recruitment foundation of the inaugural year, as well as to ensure dynamic competition, diverse representation, and wider access to the new League across the APAC ecosystem.
International Event Slots
Riot Games is reconsidering League of Legends' international tournament berths as it considers a transition to five regions (Americas, LEC, LCK, LPL, and APAC). Each region had one slot at its own tournament (5 teams), two at MSI (10 teams), and three at Worlds. The MSI Champion and the second-best-performing region would also receive Worlds slots for their leagues, increasing the total to 17.
Worlds 2025 would feature a single Best-of-5 match in the Play-Ins, with the victor joining the other 15 qualified teams in the Swiss stage.
Trade-Offs
Riot Games is confident that LoL Esports' future will benefit fans, pros, and teams. The sport will be easier to follow, have more attractive events, and be financially sustainable with improved Global Revenue Pool assistance. However, these adjustments required conscious trade-offs to attain this future.
Riot Games' proposal reduces Tier-1 League of Legends teams. Simply put, LoL has too many Tier-1 teams to sustain. Riot Games may focus on GRP support by distributing funds around fewer teams and raising income per team. This should also concentrate player talent, making it easier for viewers to follow a streamlined environment and creating more entertaining matches.
Bright Future
Several good trends are boosting LoL Esports. As seen by Worlds 2023 and MSI 2024 viewing increases, LoL players and fans have welcomed recent improvements to LoL's international event formats, which have raised stakes and improved cross-regional matchups.
Riot Games' unique initiatives that blend entertainment, partners, and League of Legends are giving fans new opportunities to engage in the community. Among these are co-streaming, Worlds Fan Fest, and Hall of Legends.
Riot Games believes these improvements will make LoL more competitive and enjoyable for fans and more sustainable for LoL's teams and the company. It expects to continue giving them big moments. Riot Games will monitor these changes and make adjustments as needed to verify they work.
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