Happy New Year, LEC fans! We’re back for a whole new season of LoL Esports in EMEA and ahead of the action we want to share additional details and information about our all-new LEC format.
It’s all changing for us over at the League of Legends EMEA Championship. Before we begin, we wanted to share some more details about what the LEC will look like in 2023. We’re here to answer some of the questions many of you have been asking since the news that we’ll be changing our format from 2023.
**What are the split dates for LEC 2023? **
As we announced at the end of 2022, the LEC’s game days will be changing for 2023. There will be three days of games every week on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays - with Split Finals always taking place on Sundays.
Each split will last six weeks, with the LEC Season Finals taking place in August and September. Our three splits will be played with a live audience from our LEC Studio in Berlin, and the 2023 season will culminate with our Season Finals Roadshow. Further information about the specific start dates for the Spring and Summer Splits and our Season Finals will be released later in the year.
**How will side selection be decided in this new LEC format?**
Side selection is a crucial part of the competitive integrity of our league, so we wanted to ensure we weren’t giving any unfair advantages to teams following the changes to our season. For all regular season games in 2023, side selection will be randomly assigned by the League prior to the start of each split – and each team will have a minimum of four games on each side.
**How will tiebreakers be decided in the new format?**
It wouldn’t be an LEC split without a few tiebreaker games – and with more playoff series than ever before, we wanted to be prepared for all eventualities.
If three or more teams are tied at the end of a phase, their order in the standings is decided by how they performed against all other teams in their tiebreaker. This means that, if one or more teams have won/lost more than 50% of their total matches against every team in the tiebreaker, they are automatically granted the higher/lower place(s) available in the tiebreaker, and a new tiebreaker is declared amongst the remaining teams.
If the teams have an identical amount of games won against each other, then the tiebreaker will rely on a statistic called Strength of Victory (SoV) score. A full explanation of how we calculate SoV can be found in the [LEC’s official rulebook][1]. Teams with a higher SoV score will be granted the higher seeds. Information about further tiebreaker protocols if all these options have been exhausted can also be found in the [rulebook][2].
**What is the Championship point breakdown across all three splits?**
Now that we’re running three regular splits in a year rather than two, we’re going to be making some changes to how Championship points are distributed. Winter and Spring placements will award the same amount of Championship points, while Summer will offer slightly more – the complete point breakdown is as follows.
- Winter/Spring Split
1st - 120
2nd - 100
3rd - 80
4th - 60
5th - 50
6th - 40
7th - 30
8th - 20
9th - 10
10th - 5
- Summer Split
1st - 180
2nd - 150
3rd - 120
4th - 90
5th - 75
6th - 60
7th - 45
8th - 30
9th - 15
10th - 7
Championship points will be what qualifies teams to those all-important Season Finals. The Champion from each split will automatically qualify for Finals, but the remaining 3-5 seeds will be entirely decided on Championship points.
**How will patch updates translate to LEC games?**
Competitive patches will update one calendar week after the patch is released onto the live server.
With the LEC now being split into two, three-week phases (the regular season and the group stage/playoffs), we won’t be changing patches mid-phase regardless of patch release date. This means all three weeks of the regular season will take place on the same patch. Patch changes will happen between the regular season and the group stage, and the patch will remain the same from the group stage all the way through to the end of the playoffs.
New champions will be automatically restricted from competitive play for their release patch – and champion reworks will be enabled at the sole discretion of the League.
**LEC age limit**
*This article initially referenced that the age limit to compete in the LEC would increase from 17-years-old to 18-years-old in 2023. That information was incorrect and the minimum age to compete will remain 17-years-old for 2023. We evaluated increasing the age to compete during the off-season, but after assessing it more closely, we concluded we wanted this rule to remain the same this year. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.*
**Worlds Qualification**
Following the news earlier this month that the LEC will receive three slots at Worlds and one slot at the World Qualifying Series (WQS), we can confirm that in 2023, the winner and runner-up at the 2023 LEC Season Finals will represent EMEA as our first and second seeds respectively.
As we’ve previously revealed, should a team win all three splits (Winter, Spring and Summer), they would automatically qualify for Worlds. In this scenario, the team would guarantee its place as the third LEC seed in Korea, with the opportunity to improve its seeding at our Season Finals. If the team were to secure first or second place at our crown jewel event, then the third place team in the competition would qualify for Worlds as the third seed, while the fourth placed team in the competition would enter WQS.
In the event that a team wins all three splits but finishes fourth or lower at the Season Finals, the WQS slot would go to the team that finishes third at the event.
**MSI Qualification**
With two teams from the LEC qualifying for the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), we can confirm that the winner of the 2023 Spring Split will head to London as our first seeds, while the winner of the 2023 Winter Split will represent our region on stage as the second seeds.
If a team wins both the Winter and Spring splits, the team with the highest number of Championship Points from the first two splits of the season will attend as the second seeds.
In the event that two or more teams have the same number of Championship Points, then the team with the highest place finish at the 2023 Spring Split will represent EMEA at MSI.
**That’s all the updates we have for you for now. We hope you’ll join us on January 21 for the opening weekend of our inaugural Winter Split. We can’t wait to welcome back fans, players, and teams for 2023, whether you’re tuning in from home or cheering your hearts out at the LEC arena. **
[1]: https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/eu-tournament-assets/files/LEC-Rulebook-13.12.2022-V2.0.pdf
[2]: https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/eu-tournament-assets/files/LEC-Rulebook-13.12.2022-V2.0.pdf#asset:20985:url
