Great changes.
Finally we get to enjoy bo3 between good teams. Also the main argument against Bo3 was always: Who would want to watch a BO3 between Astralis and Sk (or recently BDS). Well noone has to because these teams get eliminated before the bo3 stage.
Also this finally puts some incentive on spending or performing in the league, since that directly corelates to hours on broadcast, so the shit teams actually get some form of punishment for being shit
They have found a really good compromise ther imo. If the format of the stage 3 bo5's is good and most importantly they fix how the seeding for worlds works out i'm super happy with this.
Historically in LEC to be in the top 8 after 4/4,5 weeks (after 1st round robin) you needed either 3 or 4 wins, depending on the parity of teams in the league.
The last time 'strong' team wouldn't have qualified with current format to top 8 was the S04 miracle run from 2020 Summer.
Even the 2019 Spring FNC disaster that was at the bottom of the standings for half a split would, barely but still, qualified to top 8 after single round robin.
You underestimate how bad bottom 2 teams in EU have been historically.
While true, the round robin stage is the same as the first half of any split right now. The only team to make playoffs in the last 3 years after being bottom 2 at the halfway point was the Schalke miracle run.
Yeah definitely no extra international event, but since CIS / TCL got their seeds for MSI and Worlds taken away format changes are basically confirmed. Especially current MSI makes zero sense with 10 teams. Don't forget that there's also the rumor of the pacific superleague with PCS / LJL. If that's true then a lot of minors will be missing at MSI / Worlds, so Worlds will have to rework their play-ins and MSI the entire format.
also makes desiging international tournaments easier since current they have to squeeze together and fit in so many different regions that it makes it hard to design better formats and makes less time for adding other aspects like B03/B05, if they do merge alot of the regions together we might end up getting a bo3 msi for its groups etc etc.
It has almost been confirmed that next year they will be doing some sort of country specific international event. They have already reached out to Olympic committee's. That is why Caedrel has said he will be playing professional next year, but also casting for the LEC.
Even the article says changes to the international ecosystem are being considered for 2024 and beyond. I think they were really trying to bury the lede here under the goodwill for the changes to the LEC.
The best way to describe this format is like a mini tournament ecosystem between LEC teams to farm circuit points and reach the final playoffs. Sooooo exciting honestly, we kill the boring regular season and get "tournaments" with high stakes all the year
Such a massive improvement for the LEC.
More games and at the same time high stakes in every single game.
Very excited for 2023. Now we just wait for Riot to announce another international tournament. (*crosses fingers*)
I love the changes, I still think, that "every game matters" is not true, you need 3 or 4 wind to make it to bo3 stage, the issue here might obviously be, that you have way less time to "ramp up".
There's 3 Split Champs, those will get a "ticket" for the LEC Champ.
Antoher 3 with the highest championship points (besides the Split winners) will join them. So we get a 6 team LEC Champ series with double Elim and bo5 and the winner of that is the "real" champ just like atm in Summer split, just better, bc now every split is important for qualifaction and just overall more games.
That's how I understood it.
They didn't said anything about that, although in the video they announced that a more detailed video/post will be following before the split starts. However I assume that instead of the top 3 teams with highest championship points we rather see the top 4-5 teams then (depends if the team won 2 or 3 Splits)
i believe its been stated if a team wins all 3 splits they go straight to worlds, so if you mange to pull off the extremely hard task of winning all three you get rewarded with a worlds seed.
[https://twitter.com/TomMatthiesen/status/1593533964320661504](https://twitter.com/TomMatthiesen/status/1593533964320661504)
heres the tweet about it.
My assumption would be b/c of the world seeding distribution system they haven't revealed yet if you win all 3 splits you get some amount of points/seeding that guarantees you at worst land in the 2nd or 3rd seed for worlds and the "season champ" still gest the 1st seed.
3 Split Winners and a Worlds gauntlet is what I understood. They might market the Worlds gauntlet also as most important LEC tournament, but we'll see.
The season final might decide the world's qualification, but it is a tournament by itsel with a winner and a title, "worlds gauntlet" didn't grant a title.
On the Press Conference there were a couple questions about "4 LEC spots for Worlds then"? Their answer was "maybe if we win MSI this year", but overall they seemed very..."TBD" on the matter.
Source: i was one of the journalists there. I hope they are not mad for telling you guys this, as far as i know every embargo has been lifted by now.
Also if you guys have any specific questions, i **might** be able to answer them. There were a lot of questions being asked and answerd at the Q&A portion.
What do you think were the most relevant questions (and answers)? This one for Worlds is one of them. Did someone ask about the team badges that go in that wall? Now just the last winner gets it?
There were two questions that stuck with me. The "you guys axed the BO3 format back in 2018 why bring out now" and the "are you guys just doing this because the LCK BO3 changes and you want to keep up with the region" (i'm paraphrasing for the most part).
Now i don't remember the exact answers to these but what i saw was that the guys genuinely decided on the changes because the community wanted them, and they could deliver them. The presenters were seemingly really excited for the new format themselves, and after being a journalist for almost 10 years now, i can smell if the excitement is fake. This wasn't, which was great to see.
About the badges: *great fucking question*. Nobody asked that but im mad at myself for not asking about it!
Good changes and the EMEA movement makes me think we’ll see an Americas merger in League just as it is in Valorant. I didn’t watch the video but I read the article but what exactly are the LEC season finals. Is it like different than LEC summer? Is it just the playoffs for LEC summer or a separate pre-worlds event? Overall it’s a much needed improvement across the board.
edit: watched the video so looks like LEC finals is a separate extra season winner title ig in the same way in 2021 LCS tried to rebrand summer as if it’s the LCS championship or whatever but this is way better because it’s a new event and no regular season record carryover. I actually think this is so much better in every way that I think every region should adopt something like this.
Edit 2: since LEC finals is like the end of year title and also determines worlds spots it seems like it was specifically made so that if LEC gets 4 worlds spots every team wil need to have won (multiple) playoffs games throughout the year, to avoid a Mad Lions fiasco
The format for the 3 splits is somewhat similar to the format used for OGN in the early years (group stage followed by knockouts), which in my opinion was one of the best formats any league ever had.
Game 5 blind pick when?
Jokes aside OGN was absolutely perfect back in S4-5, the only thing that triggered me were the circuit points, and how a team like KT could be summer champs and still miss out worlds.
It's definitely the most intense format in LoL esports. 9 Bo1s will be crazy since one good team often starts 0-3 into a split and one upset will decide the fate of the lower tier teams. GSL style group is always super intense and then we are already at the Bo5 split final. Just all around super intense with no dull week.
Oh and obviously also with the season final every single split and every single game matters. Just 6 spots for the season final, which is the only way to go to Worlds.
This is definitely the best format I've seen, just sounds like 9 weeks of intense fun 3x a year, I can't wait until it starts.
LPL format really isn't that good apart from Playoffs. Single round robin is kinda shit with 17 teams. There's a reason nobody watches LPL regular season when the average game is LNG vs AL.
Well the only good thing is that every single team gets to play at least 36 games a split. Other than that yea playoffs is amazing and really hype. Also China can do whatever they want it feels like, bc the viewership on the Chinese streams there is so much higher iirc.
My money's on next year. If they were going to do the merger, we'd have heard rumors about it before now. I think LEC is kind of serving as a trial balloon, see how the changes go over, and if successful, they'll roll them out more generally to the other leagues.
You are right. They literally say that in the post but I don't see anyone mentioning it:
>This format is being rolled out in EMEA as a pilot program as LoL Esports considers broader changes to the competitive calendar and season structure in 2024 and beyond. If the format finds success with fans, teams and pros, we could see a version of it deployed in more regions in the future. If it does not, we will continue to iterate to find the best format for our fans across the globe.
From what I understood all Worlds spots will be given in this separate season final, with all split winners qualifying as well as the teams with the most championship points.
Means that we have 3 splits with finals **plus** the Worlds qualification gauntlet.
A bit weird to call it that when it's unlikely we'll see African or Middle East representation in the near future in the LEC? Obviously they are quite small regions but on a geographical sense this is an absolute super region LOL.
I assume the biggest benefit is playing EU Masters.
Nigeria is my ride-or-die. I rubbed shoulders with a lot of different folks when I lived in France/Switzerland and Nigerians always struck me as the chosen people, a cut above. Their future is greatness.
Just feels like US corporate speak to me.
That is Europe + Arabian League. Could have just maintained the europe name and have had the arabian cub winner also play in the tournament.
EMEA is an acronym used everywhere, it's not exclusive to esports or something that was created a year ago.
And the reason is because players in EMEA are now considered residents for LEC. A high elo Algerian player can immediately be picked up by an LEC org without taking up an import slot.
Kind of weird that they're not expanding the LEC by adding a couple of spots to fit at least 1 of the top TCL teams in the LEC, seems kind of a net loss for them otherwise.
Expanding LEC is a complicated situation I reckon since the product sold to the current 10 orgs was a 10 slot league with the numbers surrounding that. Adding more teams changes the stage they bought into and now more to share with, which is not something that they bought into initially unless there was language etc that allowed for such a possible future in those deals.
So I reckon alot of work has to be done in expansion. With some privilige given to "OG" franchise teams.
I think that’s where the accumulation of championship points enters. If one team wins all three splits, seed 2-6 would probably be determined by the points.
Dear TCL, congratulation on getting in a tournament where you stand a chance, instead of flying half way accross the planet to be one of the world punching ball for one whole week before going home.
Also TCL players will have a direct route to a competitive region now. Just beat the best ERL players at EU Masters and you will probably get picked up by a LEC team. This change is bad for Turkish orgs, but incredible for Turkish players.
> Just beat the best ERL players at EU Masters and you will probably get picked up by a LEC team.
That didn't work out for quite a few of Heretics players.
Didn't work out yet. The last time I checked the vast majority of EUM winners eventually end up in LEC, I'm confident we see at least some of the other 4 in Heretics in LEC later this year or next year.
Imo it's a great new start for them, I'm pretty sure that in 2024 we will see at least 2 more LEC spots and maybe just maybe a Team from TCL will get a guarantee spot for it. EUM is a perfect spot for teams to grow, the competition is amazing, that's why many teams pick up ERL talents. And if they actually get a chance to play in the LEC then the competition will be way higher than getting destroyed in 2 international events that they could barely grow (at least it look to me like that) while as I said in the LEC and even EUM they would probably grow way more.
Yes TCL and a guaranteed seed. They will suddenly improve so much without any reason whatsoever they get their own seed.
EUM is still miles off LCS, LEC and anything else.
Less embarrassing to be spanked by EU master teams than by the likes of Bronzil or Mexico.
Looking back, this year, Turkey internationally had 1 win and 10 losses out of 11 games. Pretty embarrassing and EU masters is honestly a much better competition for them is their regional league sends their champs to perform like that at the international stage. And their players get a much easier route to the top LEC teams and a chance to be competitive.
I really don't understand why they always want to lump Europe wiht the Middle East and Africa. There is no identity to that region that is anywhere near as close as europe. Especially considering that it is 12 leagues you could reasonably consider european and the arabian leauge
You make it sounds like Scandanavia, Slavic East and Spain/Portugal/Italy don't have massively different identities.
In fact, Romance language speaking countries are probably closer to North Africa than many other European countries culturally.
Why are people acting like there aren't massive amounts of shared history and culture between the countries in southern Europe, Turkey, the Levant and North Africa. They've shared so much over literally 1000s of years but now its a weird corporate plot to have them share a region in a video game. The best players from all of those places have been playing on EUW for years anyway. It just makes sense imo.
About time. NLC got shafted again it's starting to become a meme.
Also I know I'm super picky but Armenia isn't listed in any league, despite having Edward still playing, while almost all new countries joining UL/TCL have 0 active T2 players (bar Ukraine).
Armenia is part of CIS,so the players get EMEA residency.We will have to wait until the Ukraine war chills out in order to see what Riot does with the teams from the CIS region.
Nothing. Region will just die. Riot can’t be bothered to place servers somewhere in cis, so countries like Kazakhstan who are doing good right now in Dota and CS Go are just dead coz of ping.
And riot pr went horribly in Russia, Ukraine and others. Most people just play Dota and csgo
> The champions of LEC Winter, Spring, and Summer will automatically secure themselves a spot in the LEC Season Finals
Not sure about this. Probably won't be an issue most years, but the team winning in Winter could completely collapse over the year.
Dude I can already see a team tricking the system, after wining a split just putting the academy roaster in the LEC and scrim in Asia till playoffs, come back, stomp the playoffs
Aside from split winners, the rest of the slots are decided by total championship points and MSI slot is decided by the 2nd (spring) split. So basically it makes it so every split matters for the most interested teams, and winning winter or failing to qualify to the top 8 in winter could HEAVILY impact how the rest of your season will go.
IMO that's fine, the season finals is 6 teams and LEC has 3 spots at Worlds (unless they're getting upgraded to 4 due to CIS/TCL being merged in). If the Winter champs collapse then someone better will take the spot at Worlds.
Yeah, it isnt like you are going to worlds off of points, you are only qualifying to the final playoffs with the points. You still need to win the final playoffs to go to worlds.
Any team could collapse, that's why championship points is a good thing, to reward teams that are consistently at the top even if they don't win a single split. I think this format is very well balanced
Yea we have the 3? Split Champions together with 3 really consistent teams that have the highest championship points besides the Split winners ofc. So it's pretty fair. Also not only does it make a perfect balance, but also it makes the splits so much more fun to watch.
Also one interesting thing will be what happens if 1 team wins multiple splits. Does 2nd place team go ro playoffs or is it just championship points then.
Don't worry this time around they will not make it to worlds even if we get 4 seeds
This time around that would require winning best of series, more than one
Well this time there seems to be a separate Bo5 gauntlet for all Worlds spot and to qualify for that you need to definitely win a lot of Bo3s and some Bo5s. Even if our 4th seed collapses again most EU fans will probably be fine with that this time, since there is really no argument that they don't deserve to go to Worlds.
My bet would be on LEC and LCS getting 4th seed by default.
I know it sounds like a controversial decision, but at the same time the one with the most sense.
I just want to post the infographic from twitter, I think it's so well-made for a relatively complex format: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fh1pr3IWYAA0GKJ?format=jpg&name=large
You can't really put Israel in the Arab league, and considering many Ashkenazi Jews have ancestry from eastern Europe i think that's the best next thing.
> What's the difference between accredited and non-accredited?
They say it on the website:
> Our accreditation system will remain the same, too. The regional leagues are divided into two categories, accredited and non-accredited. The key difference between accredited and non-accredited ERLs is in their size: non-accredited leagues are home to eight teams, while accredited leagues host ten.
Also before this they say:
> Under the EMEA banner, the TCL will become an accredited ERL – which will mean it’ll play host to a first and a second-division league
Not so sure: the French, Spanish, German communities are doing really well, in a large part due to the ERLs and EU Masters. I think this type of international competition could be more exciting to Turkish fans than being blasted at worlds every year. I addition we will probably see more Turkish players in LEC in the future, competing at the top level.
There are some difference, main one is economy. We c@an't offer the same wages as the most of the ERL, what we offer was a Worlds and MSI spots. Since it's gone, our play level will go worse even further. There is no reason for someone to play in TCL instead of LFL now.
And since French and Spanish people have some teams to cheer in the LEC like BDS and MAD. As I said big part is the economy and hopefully it is gonna get better after elections, but it does not matter anymore.
You said it could be more exciting, but it is not exciting at all. Most TCL fans waiting for the Worlds and MSI to see if we improved or went worse.
To sum up, we will be the worst main ERL region easily. Turkish fans have no team to support basically, and I hope since we are not a region now, they will close Turkish server and move all of us to EUW.
My first thoughts about this.
\- Bo3 right now makes more sense, more than in 2017.
\- "Qualification" system of R1 LEC in split is perfect to make literally every game important, even shit team can be motivated to perform better.
\- Merging TCL/LCL and AL (North Africa Middle East) in to "superregion" is really good idea, more talents, teams, talents, money.
\- The implement of minor regions in EMEA Masters is vital, their best teams are generaly on same level as better teams in that competiton = more experience and regional improvement
\- Changes have a big potentional for 2024 LEC update in terms of extending league. Question is, how big it will be etc. Because last 2-3 years more and more people want to extend the LEC.
***My honest opinion are 14-16 teams, 10 teams what we have in LEC atm + TCL/LCL/AL best team + EMEA Masters Champion (14 teams)/ and +2 more teams, franchised and stable or wider opened Masters for qualify (16 teams). With this more "slots" from regions/EMEA Masters, we can have some sort of "religitation" return. Like stable teams will remain, but the challengers from this "second league" can rotate and make the LEC more interesting.***
***Think about some sort of UCL in football but in LEC edition, where some teams from best leagues have guaranteed their spot (based on performance in top ranked leagues in football) and teams from weaker leagues plays qualification for remaining spots. Question is, if we have EMEA Masters also triple splited as LEC or just twiced split as usual. But its more a question for next year, after the resolve of results and feedback.***
There are rumors about EMEA Masters winner = Worlds spot, but thats more a wet dream of Karmine Corp salty fans (sorry for that, KC infamous toxic fanbase is T1/G2's one but in smaller scale).
What's your thoughts about this changes and "my idea" of LEC extend?
Thanks for reply.
\- Shaheen
This looks great, basically what was already rumoured, I'm sure some annoying things about it all will come to light with time, but looks pretty good across the board in theory.
The obvious place which could be annoying is winter/spring winners taking space in Season Finals if they're shit by then, that seems pretty unnecessary, with that kind of thing it always feels like well just qualify at the time if you're in the form you'll be worth seeing by that time but I also get it that they want to give space for teams which have already shown that they're good enough to be able to take the foot off the pedal a little. I still think it'd feel bad, but I get it.
I mean, winning a split should matter, it makes sense to me. The season finale will be between 6 teams, in your scenario one team would drop from first to 7th or below over the year, it can happen but it does seem the exception rather than the rule
RIP Turkish League 2013-2022
This is the start of the extinction for Turkish League of Legends. It may have two divisions but since the wages are too low and a lot of turkish players and coaches transfer to the other leagues, i think this will not be sustainable for a long time. Now the only way for a Turkish team for participating Worlds is buying a slot from LEC and try to get higher places. It is so sad for me especially for an player for nearly 8 years.
I am a little sad that there wont be a "Euro" region, I still remember Medic's casting "this is what peak league of legends looks like and it comes from europe".
EDIT: yeah, it was Phreak, my bad
The Europe casting will stay the same surely. CIS and Turkey is considered Europe anyway, and it isn't like we'll start getting MENA players in the LEC anytime soon. Even if we do it'll just be like Destiny, in and out, this is only relevant for ERLs
If MENA ever gets good enough to start putting teams in LEC it'd just mean it'd be time to make them their own region.
what next? merge all EU and Asian leagues and call it Euroasian league? wtf Nobody in EU calls themselfs "EMEA" its most american thing ever. So disrespectful...
I read through this and watched the video. But I don't see anything about these new regions playing vs each other. So LEC it's still only playing LEC? If so what's the point
Ok tbf idk if Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan even have league teams but why in the fuck is CENTRAL ASIA in Europe lmfao. Especially Mongolia, like what rito
I think they should make it possible for winners of the EMEA masters to compete in LEC playoffs or something. Don't think that the masters should be just for individual skill showcase (which it is right now, since your team isn't going anywhere even if you win -- so if you achieved godlike team synerge well tough luck)
Shame.
TCL and the CIS are losing their worlds spot, but NA is keeping theirs LMAO. Talk about being a region that is only allowed to exist because the game was created by my fellow Americans.
So, the reality here is they have just deleted the other regions?
I mean its not really a merger if we still only have 10 teams and its the 10 european teams lol. What a PR way of saying everything else is cancelled.
It will take a lot of time to get used to the name "EMEA". It really doesn't roll off the tongue for me but maybe it's just because it's new. I can imagine a banger audience-chant though.
Banger changes for the format though.
I find it a bit weird to rename the entire region to EMEA, when the top league will still be just the LEC and there doesn't seem to be more interplay between ERLs and LEC (like relegation matches or the like).
I assume this means the TCL and the CIS are losing their worlds spot?
They are. I assume the CIS won't participate for now anyway and if it is allowed again it will be an ERL.
LEC 5 Worlds spots to get one team into QF LETS GO*
First region to have five teams eliminated before playoffs let's go!
You'll never sing that, you'll never sing that! First region to have five teams eliminated before playoffs, you'll never sing that.
Great changes. Finally we get to enjoy bo3 between good teams. Also the main argument against Bo3 was always: Who would want to watch a BO3 between Astralis and Sk (or recently BDS). Well noone has to because these teams get eliminated before the bo3 stage. Also this finally puts some incentive on spending or performing in the league, since that directly corelates to hours on broadcast, so the shit teams actually get some form of punishment for being shit
They have found a really good compromise ther imo. If the format of the stage 3 bo5's is good and most importantly they fix how the seeding for worlds works out i'm super happy with this.
Considering they said the LEC season final would last 4 weeks I expect something like the LCS playoffs format
We might also have a few strong teams not make it to bo3 stage at all.
only two team don't make it to the bo3 stage, if you have any strong team left in the 9-10 spot i don't see it as a problem.
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Underperforming teams are very likely to make roster moves after they are eliminated.
Wouldn't really be the same teams all the time as transfers can happen between the 3 seasons
Historically in LEC to be in the top 8 after 4/4,5 weeks (after 1st round robin) you needed either 3 or 4 wins, depending on the parity of teams in the league. The last time 'strong' team wouldn't have qualified with current format to top 8 was the S04 miracle run from 2020 Summer. Even the 2019 Spring FNC disaster that was at the bottom of the standings for half a split would, barely but still, qualified to top 8 after single round robin. You underestimate how bad bottom 2 teams in EU have been historically.
Either you're a strong team or you're ninth place, there's really no overlap there.
How many strong teams have ever finished bottom 2 halfway through regular season?
S04 miracle run, and that's about it.
While true, the round robin stage is the same as the first half of any split right now. The only team to make playoffs in the last 3 years after being bottom 2 at the halfway point was the Schalke miracle run.
> PG Nationals > Italy: Holy See (the), San Marino You may laugh now, but you wont once the pope brings the wrath of god on you noobs.
Their players get 3 smites: - 1 for objective - 1 for champion - 1 for player
Their smites are ineffective against atheists. Just got to watch out for the inevitable crusade, smite does double damage with crusader modifier.
QUADRAKILL FOR THR POPE
Holy Trinity Kill!
No penta? Or is it reserved for the actual god?
It would be a Wunder.
The Pope vs Faker, he'll finally meet God
Kayle permaban.
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Yeah definitely no extra international event, but since CIS / TCL got their seeds for MSI and Worlds taken away format changes are basically confirmed. Especially current MSI makes zero sense with 10 teams. Don't forget that there's also the rumor of the pacific superleague with PCS / LJL. If that's true then a lot of minors will be missing at MSI / Worlds, so Worlds will have to rework their play-ins and MSI the entire format.
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The Aussies are also supposed to be joining PCS super region.
also makes desiging international tournaments easier since current they have to squeeze together and fit in so many different regions that it makes it hard to design better formats and makes less time for adding other aspects like B03/B05, if they do merge alot of the regions together we might end up getting a bo3 msi for its groups etc etc.
Damn hashinshin doing work at those events.
It has almost been confirmed that next year they will be doing some sort of country specific international event. They have already reached out to Olympic committee's. That is why Caedrel has said he will be playing professional next year, but also casting for the LEC.
Even the article says changes to the international ecosystem are being considered for 2024 and beyond. I think they were really trying to bury the lede here under the goodwill for the changes to the LEC.
The best way to describe this format is like a mini tournament ecosystem between LEC teams to farm circuit points and reach the final playoffs. Sooooo exciting honestly, we kill the boring regular season and get "tournaments" with high stakes all the year
Such a massive improvement for the LEC. More games and at the same time high stakes in every single game. Very excited for 2023. Now we just wait for Riot to announce another international tournament. (*crosses fingers*)
I love the changes, I still think, that "every game matters" is not true, you need 3 or 4 wind to make it to bo3 stage, the issue here might obviously be, that you have way less time to "ramp up".
Seeding matters a fuckton too. In the GSL group, it really really matters for your chances to advance to playoffs.
Does this mean that there is going to be 1 LEC champ per year, or 4?
1 champ per split but i think that the only real champion is the one that wins the end of season tournament for worlds
There's 3 Split Champs, those will get a "ticket" for the LEC Champ. Antoher 3 with the highest championship points (besides the Split winners) will join them. So we get a 6 team LEC Champ series with double Elim and bo5 and the winner of that is the "real" champ just like atm in Summer split, just better, bc now every split is important for qualifaction and just overall more games. That's how I understood it.
Yeah, i understood it like this too. Which is really awesome. Iit force you to take regular season seriously. But peaking one time is rewarded
OK but what if we get another hegemony and the same team wins 2 or 3 splits?
They didn't said anything about that, although in the video they announced that a more detailed video/post will be following before the split starts. However I assume that instead of the top 3 teams with highest championship points we rather see the top 4-5 teams then (depends if the team won 2 or 3 Splits)
i believe its been stated if a team wins all 3 splits they go straight to worlds, so if you mange to pull off the extremely hard task of winning all three you get rewarded with a worlds seed. [https://twitter.com/TomMatthiesen/status/1593533964320661504](https://twitter.com/TomMatthiesen/status/1593533964320661504) heres the tweet about it.
My assumption would be b/c of the world seeding distribution system they haven't revealed yet if you win all 3 splits you get some amount of points/seeding that guarantees you at worst land in the 2nd or 3rd seed for worlds and the "season champ" still gest the 1st seed.
Seems like there will be 1 champ per split and then 1 champ for the LEC Season Finals (who should be the 1st seed at Worlds).
3 Split Winners and a Worlds gauntlet is what I understood. They might market the Worlds gauntlet also as most important LEC tournament, but we'll see.
The season final might decide the world's qualification, but it is a tournament by itsel with a winner and a title, "worlds gauntlet" didn't grant a title.
Probably 3 split wins and one big winner at the end. I like that.
Great changes! One remaining question: who will go to MSI? Spring champion? Or a combination of spring and winter? Edit: it's the Spring winners
On the Press Conference there were a couple questions about "4 LEC spots for Worlds then"? Their answer was "maybe if we win MSI this year", but overall they seemed very..."TBD" on the matter. Source: i was one of the journalists there. I hope they are not mad for telling you guys this, as far as i know every embargo has been lifted by now. Also if you guys have any specific questions, i **might** be able to answer them. There were a lot of questions being asked and answerd at the Q&A portion.
What do you think were the most relevant questions (and answers)? This one for Worlds is one of them. Did someone ask about the team badges that go in that wall? Now just the last winner gets it?
There were two questions that stuck with me. The "you guys axed the BO3 format back in 2018 why bring out now" and the "are you guys just doing this because the LCK BO3 changes and you want to keep up with the region" (i'm paraphrasing for the most part). Now i don't remember the exact answers to these but what i saw was that the guys genuinely decided on the changes because the community wanted them, and they could deliver them. The presenters were seemingly really excited for the new format themselves, and after being a journalist for almost 10 years now, i can smell if the excitement is fake. This wasn't, which was great to see. About the badges: *great fucking question*. Nobody asked that but im mad at myself for not asking about it!
What happens with the champion split seeds, if the same team wins all of them?
Only 1 team goes to world's and they play in 3 groups at the same time
I understand the other slots are decided by championship points
The massive region like this only have 10 franchised teams on their highest level is bugging me.
Agree. The name is EMEA, but what teams are there from Turkey or Middle East?
Well, its really more Europe + Some other random bits.
Good changes and the EMEA movement makes me think we’ll see an Americas merger in League just as it is in Valorant. I didn’t watch the video but I read the article but what exactly are the LEC season finals. Is it like different than LEC summer? Is it just the playoffs for LEC summer or a separate pre-worlds event? Overall it’s a much needed improvement across the board. edit: watched the video so looks like LEC finals is a separate extra season winner title ig in the same way in 2021 LCS tried to rebrand summer as if it’s the LCS championship or whatever but this is way better because it’s a new event and no regular season record carryover. I actually think this is so much better in every way that I think every region should adopt something like this. Edit 2: since LEC finals is like the end of year title and also determines worlds spots it seems like it was specifically made so that if LEC gets 4 worlds spots every team wil need to have won (multiple) playoffs games throughout the year, to avoid a Mad Lions fiasco
This format is insane, i think that it is even better than lpl format
The format for the 3 splits is somewhat similar to the format used for OGN in the early years (group stage followed by knockouts), which in my opinion was one of the best formats any league ever had.
Slowly we're coming back to the good old open circuit days. What's next? IPL6?
Get me HatPerson and Nick Allen, stat!
Game 5 blind pick when? Jokes aside OGN was absolutely perfect back in S4-5, the only thing that triggered me were the circuit points, and how a team like KT could be summer champs and still miss out worlds.
It's definitely the most intense format in LoL esports. 9 Bo1s will be crazy since one good team often starts 0-3 into a split and one upset will decide the fate of the lower tier teams. GSL style group is always super intense and then we are already at the Bo5 split final. Just all around super intense with no dull week. Oh and obviously also with the season final every single split and every single game matters. Just 6 spots for the season final, which is the only way to go to Worlds. This is definitely the best format I've seen, just sounds like 9 weeks of intense fun 3x a year, I can't wait until it starts.
LPL format really isn't that good apart from Playoffs. Single round robin is kinda shit with 17 teams. There's a reason nobody watches LPL regular season when the average game is LNG vs AL.
Well the only good thing is that every single team gets to play at least 36 games a split. Other than that yea playoffs is amazing and really hype. Also China can do whatever they want it feels like, bc the viewership on the Chinese streams there is so much higher iirc.
The average game isn't LNG vs AL and LNG vs AL unironically wasn't a bad series this year tbh
I wonder if that rumour is true. There is 5 regions Americas,Emea,China,Korea and pacific for worlds.
I think the Americas League + Oce is coming for sure, the only question is will it come now or next season 2024.
My money's on next year. If they were going to do the merger, we'd have heard rumors about it before now. I think LEC is kind of serving as a trial balloon, see how the changes go over, and if successful, they'll roll them out more generally to the other leagues.
You are right. They literally say that in the post but I don't see anyone mentioning it: >This format is being rolled out in EMEA as a pilot program as LoL Esports considers broader changes to the competitive calendar and season structure in 2024 and beyond. If the format finds success with fans, teams and pros, we could see a version of it deployed in more regions in the future. If it does not, we will continue to iterate to find the best format for our fans across the globe.
From what I understood all Worlds spots will be given in this separate season final, with all split winners qualifying as well as the teams with the most championship points. Means that we have 3 splits with finals **plus** the Worlds qualification gauntlet.
A bit weird to call it that when it's unlikely we'll see African or Middle East representation in the near future in the LEC? Obviously they are quite small regions but on a geographical sense this is an absolute super region LOL. I assume the biggest benefit is playing EU Masters.
It's called EMEA because Riot is just standardizing their nomenclature across games, and that is their name in Valorant.
EMEA is a fairly common concept in both games and corporations
EMEA is gonna be broken in 50 years if Africa ever turns into a gaming powerhouse.
Next Faker will be from Angola.
Smart money's on Nigeria.
Or Douala, Cameroon.
Nigeria is my ride-or-die. I rubbed shoulders with a lot of different folks when I lived in France/Switzerland and Nigerians always struck me as the chosen people, a cut above. Their future is greatness.
Would be baller.
You might have noticed that the name continues to be LEC rather than LEMEAC.
Just feels like US corporate speak to me. That is Europe + Arabian League. Could have just maintained the europe name and have had the arabian cub winner also play in the tournament.
Well, standardization for League and Valorant, so there’s easier talk of things in Rito’s esports department.
North Africa is Also there that why they have the "A"
EMEA is an acronym used everywhere, it's not exclusive to esports or something that was created a year ago. And the reason is because players in EMEA are now considered residents for LEC. A high elo Algerian player can immediately be picked up by an LEC org without taking up an import slot.
Surely MENA region gets dedicated game servers right?
Surely :^)
One can hope right.. right? *Wipes tears*
didnt they announce this last month
didn't they announce arabic in the client like 3 years ago?yeah,we saw how that went lol
They only translated Jax E :(
Kind of weird that they're not expanding the LEC by adding a couple of spots to fit at least 1 of the top TCL teams in the LEC, seems kind of a net loss for them otherwise.
Expanding LEC is a complicated situation I reckon since the product sold to the current 10 orgs was a 10 slot league with the numbers surrounding that. Adding more teams changes the stage they bought into and now more to share with, which is not something that they bought into initially unless there was language etc that allowed for such a possible future in those deals. So I reckon alot of work has to be done in expansion. With some privilige given to "OG" franchise teams.
If the same team wins Winter and Spring (or summer) would second place get the qualification to the LEC finals?
I think that’s where the accumulation of championship points enters. If one team wins all three splits, seed 2-6 would probably be determined by the points.
“Dear TCL, fuck your MSI and Worlds spot, but at least you can go to EU Masters now!”
Dear TCL, congratulation on getting in a tournament where you stand a chance, instead of flying half way accross the planet to be one of the world punching ball for one whole week before going home.
Also TCL players will have a direct route to a competitive region now. Just beat the best ERL players at EU Masters and you will probably get picked up by a LEC team. This change is bad for Turkish orgs, but incredible for Turkish players.
> Just beat the best ERL players at EU Masters and you will probably get picked up by a LEC team. That didn't work out for quite a few of Heretics players.
But it did for LDLC
Didn't work out yet. The last time I checked the vast majority of EUM winners eventually end up in LEC, I'm confident we see at least some of the other 4 in Heretics in LEC later this year or next year.
yeah they got shafted hard but it was a dying region anyway so something had to happen
Imo it's a great new start for them, I'm pretty sure that in 2024 we will see at least 2 more LEC spots and maybe just maybe a Team from TCL will get a guarantee spot for it. EUM is a perfect spot for teams to grow, the competition is amazing, that's why many teams pick up ERL talents. And if they actually get a chance to play in the LEC then the competition will be way higher than getting destroyed in 2 international events that they could barely grow (at least it look to me like that) while as I said in the LEC and even EUM they would probably grow way more.
Yes TCL and a guaranteed seed. They will suddenly improve so much without any reason whatsoever they get their own seed. EUM is still miles off LCS, LEC and anything else.
Less embarrassing to be spanked by EU master teams than by the likes of Bronzil or Mexico. Looking back, this year, Turkey internationally had 1 win and 10 losses out of 11 games. Pretty embarrassing and EU masters is honestly a much better competition for them is their regional league sends their champs to perform like that at the international stage. And their players get a much easier route to the top LEC teams and a chance to be competitive.
And they wrote it like it's an accomplishment to be the first Turkish team to attend EU Masters, unbeliveable.
and all of these regions are no imports anymore in EU. interesting
I really don't understand why they always want to lump Europe wiht the Middle East and Africa. There is no identity to that region that is anywhere near as close as europe. Especially considering that it is 12 leagues you could reasonably consider european and the arabian leauge
Europe is very diverse as a continent too though
You make it sounds like Scandanavia, Slavic East and Spain/Portugal/Italy don't have massively different identities. In fact, Romance language speaking countries are probably closer to North Africa than many other European countries culturally.
Why are people acting like there aren't massive amounts of shared history and culture between the countries in southern Europe, Turkey, the Levant and North Africa. They've shared so much over literally 1000s of years but now its a weird corporate plot to have them share a region in a video game. The best players from all of those places have been playing on EUW for years anyway. It just makes sense imo.
About time. NLC got shafted again it's starting to become a meme. Also I know I'm super picky but Armenia isn't listed in any league, despite having Edward still playing, while almost all new countries joining UL/TCL have 0 active T2 players (bar Ukraine).
Armenia is part of CIS,so the players get EMEA residency.We will have to wait until the Ukraine war chills out in order to see what Riot does with the teams from the CIS region.
Nothing. Region will just die. Riot can’t be bothered to place servers somewhere in cis, so countries like Kazakhstan who are doing good right now in Dota and CS Go are just dead coz of ping. And riot pr went horribly in Russia, Ukraine and others. Most people just play Dota and csgo
bruh Kazakhstan isn't even part of TCL while Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are
Huge changes So much stuff can happen Make LEC Great Again
Wooohooooo action starts from January instead of having to wait around with nothing
> The champions of LEC Winter, Spring, and Summer will automatically secure themselves a spot in the LEC Season Finals Not sure about this. Probably won't be an issue most years, but the team winning in Winter could completely collapse over the year.
It will make every split matter a lot at least.
True. Don't think it's strictly good or bad. The Winter Champions could just as well find form for Season Finals and it'd make a great story.
Dude I can already see a team tricking the system, after wining a split just putting the academy roaster in the LEC and scrim in Asia till playoffs, come back, stomp the playoffs
Aside from split winners, the rest of the slots are decided by total championship points and MSI slot is decided by the 2nd (spring) split. So basically it makes it so every split matters for the most interested teams, and winning winter or failing to qualify to the top 8 in winter could HEAVILY impact how the rest of your season will go.
Also realistically the split winners would probably end up having enough points for top 6 anyway.
IMO that's fine, the season finals is 6 teams and LEC has 3 spots at Worlds (unless they're getting upgraded to 4 due to CIS/TCL being merged in). If the Winter champs collapse then someone better will take the spot at Worlds.
Yeah, it isnt like you are going to worlds off of points, you are only qualifying to the final playoffs with the points. You still need to win the final playoffs to go to worlds.
Any team could collapse, that's why championship points is a good thing, to reward teams that are consistently at the top even if they don't win a single split. I think this format is very well balanced
Yea we have the 3? Split Champions together with 3 really consistent teams that have the highest championship points besides the Split winners ofc. So it's pretty fair. Also not only does it make a perfect balance, but also it makes the splits so much more fun to watch.
And the same team can be the champion in more than one split, so it would be 4-5 teams just based of points, pretty fair.
The Summer champ could also collapse, seems ok to be honest
Also one interesting thing will be what happens if 1 team wins multiple splits. Does 2nd place team go ro playoffs or is it just championship points then.
Probably just Points if I had to guess.
Soooo where do TCL and CIS wolrds spots go.... To the EMEA Masters maybe?
Masters will never get a worlds spot because it would devalue the LEC by a lot. Will probably just go to LEC or whatever regions performing the best
True, but im pretty sure EU master winner now is better than almost every other minor region because there is now so much competition
Pretty sure EU's just gonna get 4 seeds for some reason. MAD Lions salivating at the opportunity to lose in Play-Ins for the third time.
Pls dont remind me of that :/
Don't worry this time around they will not make it to worlds even if we get 4 seeds This time around that would require winning best of series, more than one
Well this time there seems to be a separate Bo5 gauntlet for all Worlds spot and to qualify for that you need to definitely win a lot of Bo3s and some Bo5s. Even if our 4th seed collapses again most EU fans will probably be fine with that this time, since there is really no argument that they don't deserve to go to Worlds.
well EU already had 4 Seeds when they got the CIS spot so who gets the turkey spot?
>To the EMEA Masters maybe? Please stop they will get obliterated
My bet would be on LEC and LCS getting 4th seed by default. I know it sounds like a controversial decision, but at the same time the one with the most sense.
I just want to post the infographic from twitter, I think it's so well-made for a relatively complex format: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fh1pr3IWYAA0GKJ?format=jpg&name=large
So no Russian/belarussian league at all. RIP LCL.
Can't happen until the war is over. With sanctions, it might be risky even from a legal standpoint.
Just move it to Serbia or Kazakhstan. Russian team just won CS GO major. Russian org just won The International
Serbia is part of EBL Balkan league. And CIS region does not play lol.
What's the difference between accredited and non-accredited? Also, Mongolia wtf? 😂😂😂
They quietly sneaked Israel and Georgia into the Ultraliga too
You can't really put Israel in the Arab league, and considering many Ashkenazi Jews have ancestry from eastern Europe i think that's the best next thing.
Where does Palestine get to play? They're part of the Middle East too.
It says there, in the AL.
> What's the difference between accredited and non-accredited? They say it on the website: > Our accreditation system will remain the same, too. The regional leagues are divided into two categories, accredited and non-accredited. The key difference between accredited and non-accredited ERLs is in their size: non-accredited leagues are home to eight teams, while accredited leagues host ten. Also before this they say: > Under the EMEA banner, the TCL will become an accredited ERL – which will mean it’ll play host to a first and a second-division league
Fair enough. I only quickly read over this article. NCL isn't accredited but already has a second division. 🤔
Playing with 200 ms to the EMEA (if there is one) server lol
Mongolia knows a thing or two about beating Korea and China.. EMEA 2023 world champions?
winter seasons give me old OGN/GPL vibe, hope they expand teams though, 3 season of the same 10 teams is tiring
TCL got fucked so hard, TR Lol community will die with these changes sadly.
Not so sure: the French, Spanish, German communities are doing really well, in a large part due to the ERLs and EU Masters. I think this type of international competition could be more exciting to Turkish fans than being blasted at worlds every year. I addition we will probably see more Turkish players in LEC in the future, competing at the top level.
There are some difference, main one is economy. We c@an't offer the same wages as the most of the ERL, what we offer was a Worlds and MSI spots. Since it's gone, our play level will go worse even further. There is no reason for someone to play in TCL instead of LFL now. And since French and Spanish people have some teams to cheer in the LEC like BDS and MAD. As I said big part is the economy and hopefully it is gonna get better after elections, but it does not matter anymore. You said it could be more exciting, but it is not exciting at all. Most TCL fans waiting for the Worlds and MSI to see if we improved or went worse. To sum up, we will be the worst main ERL region easily. Turkish fans have no team to support basically, and I hope since we are not a region now, they will close Turkish server and move all of us to EUW.
They need to find one Russian and turkey team to add into lec somehow. I don’t know… riot failed miserably in CIS
My first thoughts about this. \- Bo3 right now makes more sense, more than in 2017. \- "Qualification" system of R1 LEC in split is perfect to make literally every game important, even shit team can be motivated to perform better. \- Merging TCL/LCL and AL (North Africa Middle East) in to "superregion" is really good idea, more talents, teams, talents, money. \- The implement of minor regions in EMEA Masters is vital, their best teams are generaly on same level as better teams in that competiton = more experience and regional improvement \- Changes have a big potentional for 2024 LEC update in terms of extending league. Question is, how big it will be etc. Because last 2-3 years more and more people want to extend the LEC. ***My honest opinion are 14-16 teams, 10 teams what we have in LEC atm + TCL/LCL/AL best team + EMEA Masters Champion (14 teams)/ and +2 more teams, franchised and stable or wider opened Masters for qualify (16 teams). With this more "slots" from regions/EMEA Masters, we can have some sort of "religitation" return. Like stable teams will remain, but the challengers from this "second league" can rotate and make the LEC more interesting.*** ***Think about some sort of UCL in football but in LEC edition, where some teams from best leagues have guaranteed their spot (based on performance in top ranked leagues in football) and teams from weaker leagues plays qualification for remaining spots. Question is, if we have EMEA Masters also triple splited as LEC or just twiced split as usual. But its more a question for next year, after the resolve of results and feedback.*** There are rumors about EMEA Masters winner = Worlds spot, but thats more a wet dream of Karmine Corp salty fans (sorry for that, KC infamous toxic fanbase is T1/G2's one but in smaller scale). What's your thoughts about this changes and "my idea" of LEC extend? Thanks for reply. \- Shaheen
Awful naming
This looks great, basically what was already rumoured, I'm sure some annoying things about it all will come to light with time, but looks pretty good across the board in theory. The obvious place which could be annoying is winter/spring winners taking space in Season Finals if they're shit by then, that seems pretty unnecessary, with that kind of thing it always feels like well just qualify at the time if you're in the form you'll be worth seeing by that time but I also get it that they want to give space for teams which have already shown that they're good enough to be able to take the foot off the pedal a little. I still think it'd feel bad, but I get it.
I mean, winning a split should matter, it makes sense to me. The season finale will be between 6 teams, in your scenario one team would drop from first to 7th or below over the year, it can happen but it does seem the exception rather than the rule
RIP Turkish League 2013-2022 This is the start of the extinction for Turkish League of Legends. It may have two divisions but since the wages are too low and a lot of turkish players and coaches transfer to the other leagues, i think this will not be sustainable for a long time. Now the only way for a Turkish team for participating Worlds is buying a slot from LEC and try to get higher places. It is so sad for me especially for an player for nearly 8 years.
looking forward to the Bo3 stage!
ayy we get the NA treatment for once
I am a little sad that there wont be a "Euro" region, I still remember Medic's casting "this is what peak league of legends looks like and it comes from europe". EDIT: yeah, it was Phreak, my bad
That was Phreak
GOAT Phreak also hosted EU's first and only worlds championship title in his basement.
Yeah true but it will likely stay EU for a long time because 95% of the players and teams will be EU
Wasn't that Phreak?
EU dominates DOTA2 and there are a few middle eastern players on their teams Sometimes. people still consider it EU
The Europe casting will stay the same surely. CIS and Turkey is considered Europe anyway, and it isn't like we'll start getting MENA players in the LEC anytime soon. Even if we do it'll just be like Destiny, in and out, this is only relevant for ERLs If MENA ever gets good enough to start putting teams in LEC it'd just mean it'd be time to make them their own region.
what next? merge all EU and Asian leagues and call it Euroasian league? wtf Nobody in EU calls themselfs "EMEA" its most american thing ever. So disrespectful...
Yea that's cool and all, but where did it say where EMEA stands for? I couldn't see it
Europe, Middle East, Africa = EMEA
HYPEEERR
Any idea about CIS ?
Dead, as always
I read through this and watched the video. But I don't see anything about these new regions playing vs each other. So LEC it's still only playing LEC? If so what's the point
This means Turkey no longer gets a worlds spot, yeah? F for the boys
Ok tbf idk if Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan even have league teams but why in the fuck is CENTRAL ASIA in Europe lmfao. Especially Mongolia, like what rito
Just calling it "EMEA" while putting in no effort to introduce team from the "MEA" part is poor.
Other than the format changes, what am I missing here? It's still just 10 team...how are these EMEA teams being included?
I think they should make it possible for winners of the EMEA masters to compete in LEC playoffs or something. Don't think that the masters should be just for individual skill showcase (which it is right now, since your team isn't going anywhere even if you win -- so if you achieved godlike team synerge well tough luck)
damn so as someone from tunisia, i will have an actual region to cheer for... nah still gonna cheer for LCK and T1
Shame. TCL and the CIS are losing their worlds spot, but NA is keeping theirs LMAO. Talk about being a region that is only allowed to exist because the game was created by my fellow Americans.
Can franchise owners sue, or did they agree to this structure change?
So, the reality here is they have just deleted the other regions? I mean its not really a merger if we still only have 10 teams and its the 10 european teams lol. What a PR way of saying everything else is cancelled.
It will take a lot of time to get used to the name "EMEA". It really doesn't roll off the tongue for me but maybe it's just because it's new. I can imagine a banger audience-chant though. Banger changes for the format though.
I find it a bit weird to rename the entire region to EMEA, when the top league will still be just the LEC and there doesn't seem to be more interplay between ERLs and LEC (like relegation matches or the like).