Riot Games introduces major changes to League of Legends esports for 2025
League of Legends esports has continued to reach new viewership records year after year, setting the bar for traditional PC esports. While the international tournaments for League of Legends receive millions of viewers, some teams and leagues within the ecosystem have suffered with sustainability. The LCS has struggled with teams wanting to leave, and a general lack of finances has affected many teams. With this all in mind, Riot Games are planning to shake up the scene for 2025.
To ensure the future success of League of Legends esports, Riot Games is planning on bringing a new third international event to the calendar, a new draft system, and changes to both the schedule and format of regional leagues. Riot Games are planning to create multi-region leagues in both APAC and the Americas: completely changing how these leagues have previously functioned.
Multi-region circuits
The LCS and CBLOL will become the North and South conferences of the new Americas league, with the LLA effectively being phased out. Each conference will maintain six of their current partnered teams, bring in one LLA team each, and bring in a new guest team spot. This means two teams from the LCS will miss out in 2025, as well as 4 teams from CBLOL, and 4 teams from the LLA.
The guest spot is a dedicated slot for teams to be promoted and relegated from and to the second-tier of competition. The Americas will therefore be made up of the North and South conferences, with each conference hosting 8 teams.
The LLA has drawn the short straw here, with only two slots available. The Latin American league has enjoyed some significant growth in recent years, but the CBLOL and LCS leagues are simply more popular. Latin American League of Legends esports takes a step backwards with this new proposed pan-Americas region, but the best teams from the LLA will still have a chance to compete. Riot themselves noted this trade-off, claiming they “have too many teams in Tier-1 to support sustainably”.
In the Pacific region, Riot plans to expand on the cross-region competition they have previously experimented with in the APAC scene. In the past years, the Japanese and Oceanic regional circuits joined the general Pacific Championship Series, and now the Vietnamese circuit will also be integrated into the PCS.
The new APAC circuit will only have 8 spots for teams, meaning the VCS, PCS, LCO, and LJL, will all likely commit 2 teams each. Once again, this means many of the established teams in these regions will not compete in the tier-1 scene beginning in 2025.
Riot Games has cited the Valorant Champions Tour as an influence on the direction they’re taking League of Legends esports with. The VCT features four Major regions, Americas, EMEA, Pacific, and China; the League of Legends 2025 esports scene will feature five regions, which Riot believes will help the sustainability and profitability for all involved with the esports scene. Moving more in line with Valorant, all regional circuits for League of Legends in 2025 will follow the same schedule.
New international event and draft system
In combination with the new condensed regions, League of Legends will also enjoy a brand new third international event, which will take place after the first split of the year. The event will invite only five teams, one from each region, and will feature a round-robin format: meaning each team will play against every other team. The new event and Riot’s decision to unify the schedule of the circuits means all regional circuits are moving to a three-split system, as the LEC has previously employed.
Although a 5-team event is particularly small for a tier-1 esports system, the goal of the event is to generate excitement and cross-region rivalries. The top four teams of the round-robin bracket will advance to the playoffs stage, where teams will fight for some early glory in the season. Riot Games have also noted this tournament will likely be used for experimentation and innovation in the future, so expect to see some brand new competitive formats and systems in the future.
For 2024, the tournament will implement what Riot is calling “fearless draft”. Rather than the previous draft system, teams can now play whoever they want in the first game of the series. However, champions who have already been played in the series may not be picked again, leading to more experimentation with team compositions and tactics for teams. Riot noted the draft system had not been changed in years, and they are excited to bring something new to the scene.
While League of Legends has enjoyed success in recent years as an esports title, Riot Games is focusing far into the future. The game developer wants to ensure League of Legends stays as an esports icon for years to come, with profitability ensured for not only teams, but all involved. The new system will likely have a significant effect on viewership around the globe, with many smaller regional circuits being dissolved and many teams will no longer be competing at the tier-1 level. Esports Charts will track all the data for the upcoming 2025 League of Legends season, providing insights as to how these new changes will interplay with the viewership of the esports events.
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