League of Legends Championship Series

League of Legends Championship Series

Current season, competition or edition: 2016 Summer EU LCS 2016 Summer NA LCS
Sport	League of Legends
Founded	2013
Owner(s)	Riot Games
Director	Dustin "RedBeard" Beck ("chairman")
No. of teams	8 in Europe and 8 in North America(2013–2014) 10 in Europe and 10 in North America (2015–)
Continent	Europe, North America
Most recent champion(s)	EU: G2 Esports (2nd title) NA: Team SoloMid (4th title)
Most titles	EU: Fnatic (5 titles) NA: Team SoloMid (4 titles)
Relegation to	League of Legends Challenger Series
Related competitions	Champions Korea Garena Premier League Master Series Pro League
Official website	www.lolesports.com

The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) is the name of two professional League of Legends eSports leagues run by Riot Games. Twenty teams compete in two separate competitions in North America and Europe, with ten teams per continent. Each annual season of play is divided into two splits, spring and summer, both consisting of nine weeks of round-robin tournament play, which then conclude with play-off tournaments between the top six teams from each region. At the end of the season, the highest placing three teams in each league qualify for the annual League of Legends World Championship.

The LCS represents the highest level of League of Legends play in Europe and North America. The LCS has a promotion and relegation system; the bottom teams in the LCS from each split compete with the top teams from the Challenger Series (CS) to compete for spots in the next split of the LCS. The Challenger Series in each continent is composed of six teams: three teams which failed to advance in the previous promotion tournament, one team from the previous CS split, and the top two teams from ranked ladder play in the respective public League of Legends online game server.

With the exception of some touring events, all games of the LCS are played live at Riot Games' studios in Los Angeles, California, United States and Adlershof, Berlin, Germany. In addition to a small studio audience, all games are streamed live in several languages on Twitch.tv, YouTube and Azubu, with broadcasts regularly attracting over 300,000 viewers.^[1]

The popularity and success of the LCS has attracted significant media attention. The US government has begun to grant athlete visas for LCS competitors.^[2] The LCS has also attracted sponsorships from Coca-Cola^[3] and American Express.^[4] "League of Legends Championship Series" is a Delaware limited liability company.^[5]

In the NA LCS, Team SoloMid and Counter Logic Gaming are the only teams from the very first NA LCS split to still be remaining in the league. In the EU LCS, fnatic is the only team, although GIANTS! Gaming was out of the LCS for several splits after the first.

History

Riot Games launched League of Legends in October 2009 and rapidly attracted^[6] attention from the competitive gaming community. The first two seasons of competitive play consisted of a series of tournaments mostly organized by third parties, such as Major League Gaming in North America, and Intel Extreme Masters in Europe, capped by a world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games.^[7]

Riot Games announced the formation of the LCS on 6 August 2012,^[8] creating a fully professional league run by the company with a regular schedule and guaranteed salaries for players, featuring eight teams in both North America and Europe. Since the LCS was only launched in the third year of professional play, it was immediately dubbed "Season 3". The top three finishers in both the Riot Games North American and European regional championships held in August 2012 automatically qualified, with the remaining five teams being decided in qualifier tournaments held in January 2013. Each LCS season is divided into two splits for spring and summer; the first games of the first spring split took place on 7 February 2013 in North America and on 9 February 2013 in Europe.

Season 3 of the LCS finished with the summer split playoffs, held on 30 August to 1 September 2013 at PAX Prime 2013 in Seattle, Washington in North America^[9] and 23 to 25 August in Europe.^[10] In North America, Cloud9 finished first, with Team SoloMid placing second and Team Vulcun placing third. In Europe, the top three finishers were Fnatic, Lemondogs and Gambit Gaming. The top three teams from each continent advanced to the Season 3 World Championships.

Riot Games changed naming conventions in 2014, calling the season the "2014 Season" instead of "Season 4". The League of Legends Challenger Series was created as a second tier of competition for promotion and relegation.^[11]

At the end of the 2014 season, an expansion tournament was held in both North America and Europe that added two teams in region, giving the LCS a total of 10 teams per region for the start of the 2015 Season.^[12] Additionally, Riot introduced the concept of "Championship points", which teams would earn based on performance across both splits and playoffs in order to qualify for the World Championship.^[13]

A new sale of sponsorship rule was instated for the 2015 season. As a result, several teams were forced to rebrand and leave their respective parent organizations. North America's Evil Geniuses and Europe's Alliance are both owned by GoodGame Inc. CEO Alex Garfield, and thus their League of Legends teams left and became Winterfox and Elements, respectively. Curse Inc. could no longer sponsor LCS team Team Curse, thus the entire esports organization merged into Team Liquid.^[14]

The 2015 Summer NA LCS finals were played at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The 2016 Summer NA LCS finals were played at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which was the first time an official LCS match was played outside of the US. The victors were Team SoloMid, and Cloud9 Placing second.

The 2016 All Star Event will happen in Barcelona on December 8-11.^[15]

Format

As of 2016, 10 teams from North America and 10 teams from Europe compete separately in the North American and European LCS. Each season is divided into two splits, with opportunities for promotion and relegation preceding each split. Regular play in each split consists of 9 weeks of play consisting of 10 games per week. Each team on each continent plays each other team in the league twice for a total of 18 games played per team. Teams are ranked by win percentage, with ties allowed in regular season. For the purpose of seeding playoff positions, a tiebreaker is played to split a tie.^[16]

At the conclusion of each split, a playoff is played to determine the final standings. The top 6 teams determined via regular season standings are eligible for the playoffs, with the top 2 teams receiving a bye into the semi-finals. Teams placing 3–6 play each other in quarter-finals to determine who among them play the teams ranked 1 and 2 in the semi-finals. Each split's playoffs award cash prizes and Championship Points, which are used to determine qualification into the annual League of Legends World Championship. In each continent, the winner of the summer split and the next team with the highest amount of Championship Points automatically qualify. The next five teams ranked by Championship Point total then play the Regional Qualifier tournament to determine the final qualifying team.^[17]

The top seven teams of the regular season automatically qualify for the next split. The bottom three teams of the regular season must compete in a promotion tournament with the top two teams of the Challenger Series to determine the remaining three teams for the following split.^[18]

Media Coverage

The LCS primarily reaches its viewers through online streaming using its own channels on Twitch and YouTube. On Twitch alone, viewership numbers regularly exceed 200,000 for regular season play,^[1] and the games have drawn over 1.7 million unique visitors.^[2] However, Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck stated in 2012 that there were no immediate plans to try to bring the LCS to traditional TV, and news coverage of the regular season is generally limited to dedicated electronic sports news sites, such as CBS Interactive's onGamers.^[19]

The scale and popularity of the LCS itself, however, has attracted considerable media attention,^[20] particularly around some events that legitimized the LCS as a serious competition. In 2013, the United States Department of State began awarding P1 athletic visas to LCS players. The first LCS player to be awarded a P visa was Danny "Shiphtur" Le.^[2][21][22]

Teams

North America

Europe

Team notes

Past seasons

North America

Europe

References