Riot Games announced changes coming to League of Legends esports in the EMEA region on Tuesday, giving a preview of what the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) region will look like in 2025.
First, Riot announced that the 2025 season will feature a three-split format, with each split offering a unique format.
Riot will tweak the split structure for 2025, ending Season Finals, and replacing that format with three splits per year (Winter, Spring, and Summer). Each split will have a unique format, with Fearless Draft as the theme for Winter, and more best-of-threes introduced during Spring and Summer. Riot also revealed that it is eliminating Championship points, making it so that “every split will offer high stakes, with the LEC trophy and qualification for the proceeding international event on the line.”
For the Winter Split, Fearless Draft will be utilized for all matches during this stage of the competition. This will begin with a three-week, single round-robin group, featuring best-of-one series matches, with the top eight teams earning a spot in a double-elimination Playoff bracket, consisting of both best-of-three and best-of-five series. The LEC Winter Split Final will crown the first LEC Champion of 2025, with the winner earning the right to compete in an all-new international event. The Winter Split will begin Jan. 18, 2025.
For the Spring Split, Riot will introduce more best-of-threes to the regional league. The Spring Split will feature a seven-week regular season, with official LEC teams playing a minimum of nine best-of-threes against all other teams in the league as a single round-robin. Six teams will qualify for Playoffs, which will feature a double-elimination bracket. All matches will feature best-of-five series matches, and won’t feature Fearless Draft. Playoffs will crown the second champion of the year, as well as offer the two finalists a spot at the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI).
The Summer Split will also feature best-of-threes during the regular season, but the 10 LEC teams will be “drafting themselves into two groups, with each team playing best-of-three series matches against every team in their respective group,” according to Riot. The top eight teams will advance from groups, with the top two teams from each group advancing directly to Playoffs. The third and fourth-placed teams from each group will then cross-play in a best-of-three decider, to determine which two teams join the top four teams in Playoffs. The Playoff bracket will feature the top six teams competing against each other in another double-elimination, best-of-five bracket, to determine the winner of the final split of the year, as well as which teams will represent EMEA at Worlds 2025.
Riot added that the Summer Split would also serve as the host to the LEC roadshow, which will now take place at the end of the Summer Split (location, venue, and other details to be revealed early next year).
Riot also provided some brief details on how patches would impact competition in LEC (and we assume) other regions, and how it is working closely with teams to bring competitions to local fans.
Beginning next year Riot will work with its partnered teams to bring LEC action to fans locally. LEC will go “on the road” and host a “very limited number of Spring Split matches in local countries at a venue of the participating teams’ choice,” according to the announcement. The pilot program for this will see one to two local LEC events held next season. As this is a pilot program, Riot said that it will make adjustments and tweak the formula as it goes forward. More details on this will likely be announced at the end of this year or in early 2025.
Finally, Riot also noted that teams will play almost all matches on the live patch in 2025, unless a new patch is introduced “too close to a gameweek, or once Playoffs have started, in which case it will “opt to play on the older patch, to uphold the competitive integrity of the league.”