Last week marked the start of season 12 for League of Legends, and this week is the 12th year of League of Legends Esports. Hundreds of thousands of viewers and fans toon in every weekend to watch LOL Esports to see what the best players in their region are doing with the most recent changes.
All four major regions began their professional scenes have begun as of today. The two larger eastern regions began earlier this week because they play by a slightly different rule set and games are held and broadcasted 5 to 7 days a week. These two major eastern regions are China(LPL) and South Korea(LCK). The League of Legends professional scene is much more popular in these two regions and therefore, their professionals play more on the big screen.
The other two major regions are Europe and the US , the western regions, are only held 2 to 3 days a week. The US professional scene is called the LCS and the European is the LEC. Due to the partnership between the regions, their broadcast lasts around 12 hours combine on Fridays and Saturdays during the regular season. On Sundays, only the LCS broadcasts. Hundreds of thousands of European and American fans have a lot of content to look forward to during the weekends.
The LOL Esports season lasts until the end of November for some teams, but the regular season goes from January to the end of July with a break in the middle. The first half of the regular season is known as the spring split and the second half is the summer split. With ten teams in both the LCS and LEC, the teams play two round robins, 9 games per round robin playing every other team 2 times each split. After these two round robins in the spring, a 6 team playoff is held and the team that comes out on top from each region goes to the Mid-Season Invitational(MSI), an international tournament that hosts the number one team from each region including 4 major regions and 8 non-major regions. All the other teams that did not make it to the invitational have a break for during April and May while MSI plays out.
Summer split starts up around the end of May and all the teams have much more on the line. While their spring record follows the team into summer, the round robin is conducted the same way, but the summer playoffs have 8 spots. With 10 teams in each region for the LCS and LEC, that means the bottom two teams are the only one who will not make it to playoffs. With a better chance at making it into the post-season, the summer season’s performance is more important. The top 3 teams in each of the regions after these playoffs will advance to Worlds, an international League of Legends tournament hosting the 36 best teams in the world based on their records from the past year.
Worlds is the post-season that every team wants to make it to; millions of viewers from around the world to watch their region’s best team compete against other teams of similar caliber. It is often seen as a clash between the eastern and western regions, both in styles and talent. This is the post-season where players and teams alike get to test their whole years’ worth of work and see if it will pay off. However, only one team can take it all in the end and claim the title of League of Legends World Champions. Finding your favorite team and watching their journey trying to achieve this is the fun part though. The broadcasts are free on twitch.tv and lolesports.com.
