Photo: Riot Games
The LEC is dead, long live the LEC! The European League of Legends is going to take a new turn for the 2023 season and Riot Games has decided to completely disrupt the competitive ecosystem of our region. First, the name evolves, even if the acronym remains. We must no longer speak of the League of Legends European Championship, but of the League of Legends EMEA Championship. Words have meaning and new territories are now integrated.
But beyond this geographical expansion, we will especially remember the change of competitive format which should have a lot of consequences. We attended the presentation press conference and we will try to summarize everything for you in this article.
Significant geographic expansion
The LEC keeps 10 slots and there will be no change for 2023, despite recurring requests from the French community. On the other hand, there is a big geographical expansion of our region. EMEA means Europe, Middle East and Africa and many territories join our ecosystem. To be more precise :
- The Turkey (TCL)
- The CIS region (LCL)
- A new region MENA (Middle East and North Africa)
These three territories will form three new ERLs which will compete in the European Masters 2.0, the EMEA Masters. This also means that players from these regions will be able to participate in the LEC as residents. The league’s talent pool has therefore increased significantly. On the other hand, this means that the TCL and the LCL are not more of the main regions who qualify for Worlds… also note that the Russian league remains suspended for the time being due to the war in Ukraine.
The format of the LEC, the leaks were right
As usual, Alejandro Gomis knew everything before the others. The revamped LEC will adopt a new format and the outline had already leaked. There will now be 3 segments in the year: Winter, Spring, Summer. To these 3 segments we will also add the LEC Season Finals. At the calendar level, the MSI is kept with Winter and Spring before, Summer and Season Finals after.
The three segments will split up in this way with many more parts for the strong and fewer parts for the weak.
- A clash in Bo1 between the 10 teams which will define a top 8
- The top 8 will play a double elimination bracket in Bo3 to define a top 4
- The top 4 will play the playoffs in a double elimination bracket in Bo5.
For the LEC Season Finals, the 6 “best” teams of the year will meet in this ultimate test. The information had not leaked but the champions of Winter, Spring and Summer are automatically qualified. Then come the 3 most consistent teams that will have scored the most points during the 3 segments. Only the teams that take part in this final stage can hope for a place in the Worlds. The Regional Qualifier is therefore not making a comeback.
Details received during the Berlin press conference
Riot Games hosted a press conference with media on November 18 to explain the changes and answer questions. The most interesting points will be raised and transmitted here with a regular update.
The League of Legends competitive season is over and both players and teams may want to change. The G2 caPs midlaner has signed an XXL contract and is locked for several years. Level change, he is content to adjust his pseudonym, once again!