The North American professional League of Legends scene has been through a lot of changes over the past few years, and each year there seems to be more changes than the prior year. Some of these changes are good for the scene, others are not so good. However, before we get to all changes to the LCS, it’s important to talk about the huge change to Riot Games as of January 2024.

Riot Games started off the year by laying off 11% of its workforce in the US, as did many other gaming and tech companies. What this means for League of Legends and the LCS is yet to be seen, but it is likely not going to be good and could cause a reduction in quality for both the game and the professional scene. That being said, League of Legends and its affiliated professional scene are still massive overseas so it could just mean that more of the work on the game is being done outside of the US.

Without further delay, let’s talk about the changes that 2024 has brought to the LCS. First and foremost, the most popular change is that LCS is going live on the weekends now! In 2022 and 2023, the LCS was on weekdays exclusively and this made the viewership numbers dwindle. It is not back on weekends, right after the European professional scene (LEC), and the viewer count is beginning to recover, but is still not where it used to be. While this is a big win for the pro scene and viewers, the damage has already been done to where the LCS may never regain all of its former viewers and fans.

There is another reason why the LCS may never recover though. As of this year, the LCS only supports eight teams instead of 10. This is likely because many companies have decided to divest and distance themselves from the LCS as the past couple years have been mediocre at best in terms of viewership. With only eight teams in the LCS, there are less total games in a season; the scene overall is less competitive; and it means the LCS now has the same amount of teams as a minor region, which could result in major negative implications from MSI and the World Championship. The reduction of teams in the LCS is a huge loss for fans, players, and people who work on the LCS and there are no visible upsides to this change.

Unlike the first two changes, this final major change is not good or bad, it is just interesting – the LCS will always be played on the live patch of League of Legends. This means the pros will always be playing in the state of the game that you and I play on, whereas all the other regions (both major and minor regions) are playing one or two patches behind the live patch. What does this mean? Well, North American pros will now have less time to understand what is meta on any given patch because it will be changing every two weeks, instead of the normal four to five weeks on a given patch. This is great for viewers because they will be able to see the pros read on the meta through their games on state, but less great for the pros who have to figure out the meta in less time than in past years.

To summarize, the LCS is now on weekends again; there are only eight teams in the LCS instead of 10; and all LCS games will be play on the live patch. Overall, the changes are decent, but it is too soon to say how each of these changes have affected the professional scene of North American League of Legends.