Karmine Corp Blue vs Joblife most popular match of LFL Winter 2025 first day
On January 22, League of Legends fans were closely watching the start of LFL Winter 2025, the new season of the French regional league. The LFL has long been one of the most popular leagues in the EMEA Masters system, but this new season has shown a slight dip in viewership compared to last year. Even the addition of a new team with a strong community-casting hasn’t been enough to turn things around.
For 2025, Riot Games made some changes to the LFL format: instead of two seasons a year, there will now be three — Winter, Spring, and Summer. In previous years, all the teams played in one large group, and the top six advanced to the playoffs. This time, however, the teams are split into two groups of five, followed by multiple rounds of Swiss Stage for the top eight, and only then a short playoff bracket. There have also been changes to the draft rules. In the second and third stages, a system called Fearless Draft will be used, meaning a team is not allowed to pick the same champion twice in a series.
In other words, teams will be eliminated at each stage, which should bring more excitement to the league. Another major change is the introduction of Joblife, a team owned by popular French streamer Toma ‘’JLTomy’’ Abdellaoui (who has a personal online peak of 264,266 viewers). Joblife used to play in the LFL’s second division and local tournaments, but now they’ve made it to the main French league, with JLTomy helping to cover LFL on his channel.
The opening day of LFL Winter 2025 saw four exciting matches, including games featuring Karmine Corp Blue, Gentle Mates, and Joblife — some of the biggest teams in the league, all owned by well-known French community casters. The broadcasts racked up over 240,000 Hours Watched, with an average of 52,925 viewers tuning in.
The most-watched match of the first day was the showdown between Karmine Corp Blue and Joblife, drawing in 103,432 Peak Viewers (PV). The game was streamed by both Kamel ‘’kamet0’’ Kebir (the owner of Karmine Corp) and JLTomy (the owner of Joblife), who both landed in the top three for the most popular community casters that week. They were joined by Willy ‘’Skyyart’’ Dias, the official caster for Gentle Mates.
The top 3 most-popular matches also included Gentle Mates vs GameWard and Ici Japon Corp. Esport vs Galions. You can find the results on the tournament page on Esports Charts.
In 2025, LFL revamped its format, but one major element remains unchanged — community casting still plays a vital role in driving viewer numbers. Kamet0 continues to pull in the largest audiences, though his fans are clearly more engaged with his coverage of Karmine Corp in the LEC, Europe's premier league, than with Karmine Corp Blue in the French domestic league. To put it in perspective, kamet0’s peak viewership for his LEC Winter 2025 stream hit 154,835 PV, while his LFL Winter 2025 broadcast only attracted 50,669 PV — three times fewer viewers.
The viewer numbers for the first day of LFL Winter 2025 were lower compared to past seasons. While peak viewership dipped by 30-40%, the average viewer count saw a modest decline. The situation could improve with more exciting matchups down the road, but for now, the introduction of Joblife and JLTomy’s community casting hasn’t been enough to make up for kamet0’s drop in viewers.
Remember, the winner of LFL Winter 2025 will go on to compete in the international EMEA Masters tournament, where the best teams from other regional leagues will battle it out.
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