How is League of Legends esports going to change in 2025?

Here is everything you need to know about the upcoming League of Legends esports changes heading into 2025.

A consolidation of regional LoL leagues

There have been long-running concerns and considerations about the future prospects and the health of the various LoL esports regions, especially where the smaller ones are concerned. Historically, we have had many regional leagues at the highest levels, with the 14 different leagues marking an all-time high back in 2018. Various smaller regions were split off and merged back over the years as the global situation and the available player base shifted over time. Preparations for the 2025 competitive League of Legends season also saw a significant adjustment for the new year, in line with previous examples of its kind.

American LoL esports will now operate as a single, pan-continental league, with Latin America North merging the LCS to form a Northern Conference and Latin America South joining forces with the CBLOL teams to create its Southern counterpart. Each conference will also feature one “guest team” with a promotion-relegation opportunity similar to what we have seen in VALORANT esports’ Ascension league.

In a similar vein, the APAC region’s many competitions will also be packaged into a more consolidated battleground, with teams from SEA, Oceania, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and Vietnam all put together under a new banner called the League of Legends Championship Pacific, or the LCP for short. The league will feature eight teams in total, with guest teams and a promotion/relegation element included in its format.

Fearless Draft is a key part of the competitive League of Legends experience now

Fearless Draft, a format where teams cannot draft the same roster of champs in a row (meaning once a champion is selected, it is no longer available as a viable option for either team over the course of the series) was a runaway success in the LPL, and it is now becoming a standard part of competitive play across all the big leagues. It is easy to see the appeal: players are forced to innovate and adapt to the continuously shrinking pool, offering them an opportunity to make better use of flex picks and niche strategies over the course of a series. It also promotes diversity and variance in competitive play – and serves as a soft solution for the presence of overpowered heroes, ensuring they don’t make repeat appearances throughout a match – making for an even more fun experience for fans.

There are two variations of Fearless Draft: Soft – where only your own teams’ picks become unavailable over the series, meaning you can still dip into the previous lineup of your opponents – and Hard, where a champion is permanently removed from both teams’ pool, no matter who picked it. Of course, this only comes into play in multi-game series, so not best-of-ones, but for all other longer LoL esports matches in 2025, a form of Fearless Draft, somewhat different across the various regions, will be in effect heading into the new year.

A whole new competitive international event (and an adjustment to the League esports calendar to accommodate it)

The changes above will all have a significant impact on the day-to-day competitive play in LoL esports, but the biggest adjustment of all comes in the form of a third international tournament and a global shift to a triple-shift format to accommodate it. Called First Stand, it is set to introduce intrigue in the early season with some spicy storylines to endure as early as March.

These two changes combine for a streamlined season-long experience, with each Split offering a spot at a dedicated international competition to follow, be it First Stand, MSI, or Worlds. Also, to tie the year-long battles together into one neat bow, each region’s third Split will be followed by a Regional Final, which is set to well and truly determine which team has been the best of the best across the domestic season. Then, of course, it’s all to play for at Worlds. As per Riot, all this is set to serve the goal of making the wider LoL esports experience “more cohesive and interconnected,” and on a high-level overview, it does seem to be more appealing than an endless stream of best-of-one rounds with little consequences offered across the regular season of domestic play.

For 2025, First Stand is scheduled for March, and MSI will move from May to July, set to take place in Canada. Worlds will still wrap up the competitive LoL esports year as usual.

LoL esports changes for 2025 – a summary

Here are the biggest changes made to competitive League of Legends by Riot for the year of 2025:

• Reduced number of Tier-1 teams and consolidation. LoL leagues in the Americas and APAC have been consolidated into one competition, with promotions and relegations offering a limited window of opportunity for teams that fall out of Tier-1 category to make it back to the big leagues, if only on a temporary basis.
• A third international event called First Stand has been added, and a three-Split season format has been introduced. LoL fans have long been clamoring for more interregional competitive play, and First Stand offers exactly that. With three global events and three domestic Splits, there is always something tangible to play for, even without a wider relegation element in the LoL leagues, making this a win-win-win scenario.
• Fearless Draft, where teams can’t re-pick champions, is now standard in competitive matches. While the specifics differ across regions, the new drafting system in LoL esports means that teams cannot repeatedly draft the same champion over multiple matches in a series, making for greater variety and wider competitive options.

What does this all mean for competitive LoL heading into 2025 and beyond?

Looking beyond the PR part, the headline element of these changes is that the number of Tier-1 teams across the various international competitions has been significantly reduced. It’s a financial consolidation as well as a competitive one, and it has been acknowledged by Riot that these adjustments will go a long way towards stabilizing the long-term prospects of the orgs involved with League esports, saying, “simply put, we have too many teams in Tier-1 to support sustainably,” and “By reducing the number of teams, we’ll be able to focus support from the GRP by ensuring revenues are distributed among fewer teams, thereby increasing revenue per team.” They also added that “this should also help concentrate player talent, making it easier for fans to follow a streamlined ecosystem, and ultimately create more high-quality matches worth your time.”

You could also see it as a worrying sign of downsizing. But the changes made to the wider calendar and the introduction of a promotion-relegation element to multiple leagues – and the competitive integrity boost it provides – is a great benefit, while Fearless Draft is simply just a net positive because of the reasons we have outlined above.

There you have it, that just about covers everything you need to know about the 2025 League of Legends esports changes and their possible effects. For more info and analysis about everything esports, be sure to check out the Bitsler blog for great articles on competitive gaming! For starters, take a look at how you can get better at League of Legends and then head over to figure out whether Valve’s Deadlock has esports potential to truly enhance your gaming experience heading into the new year.