© 2025 Riot Games. All Rights Reserved.
© 2025 Riot Games. All Rights Reserved.
TL;DR - The LCS and CBLOL are returning in 2026 as independent leagues, restoring their brands and regional identities. We’re bringing back what fans love while carrying forward the best lessons from 2025.
In 2026, the LCS and CBLOL will return as independent leagues, restoring their legacy brands. We want to honor the passion of fans by bringing back the leagues they’ve helped build, celebrating the unique identities of each community, and renewing our focus on regional competition. This will allow fans to once again connect more deeply with their regions, create clearer paths to international tournaments, and support performance development at the pace each league requires.
At the same time, we are carrying forward the positive lessons from the LTA around setting a higher bar for competition, innovation, and pathways to pro play. This isn’t just a return—it’s a step forward, built to make both leagues stronger for the future and more connected to the players, teams, and communities that define them.
In 2025, we introduced the League of the Americas (LTA) with the goal of raising competitiveness across the region, creating more high-stakes matchups, and looking for innovations that weren’t possible under the old structure. This was part of a broader revision of the global business model of LoL Esports, including the launch of the Global Revenue Pool (GRP), designed to give the ecosystem a stronger path to long-term sustainability.
The LTA delivered valuable learnings but it also became clear that fans feel the deepest pride and connection to their original leagues, and missed that element in LTA. Regional pride and history are core to the League of Legends esports experience, and our communities consistently told us they wanted their leagues back. Not just the LTA wearing the old brands, but a true restoration of the leagues.
With the LCS and CBLOL returning as independent leagues, cross-regional playoffs will be removed, allowing each region to run its own season and crown its own champion. While cross-regional play brought excitement and valuable opportunities for teams to face international opponents, we’ll continue to explore ways to deliver those moments without disrupting the regular season or regional progression.
With the removal of cross-conference play, each league will also regain more days in its calendar for regional competition. This creates room for longer splits and simpler formats, making schedules easier to follow, giving teams more time on stage to hone their skills, and providing stronger support for competitive play throughout the year.
Another key part of the return to independent leagues is the restoration of international qualification, which will return to the 2024 model and include First Stand as well.
First Stand: LCS and CBLOL will each qualify one team
MSI: LCS will qualify two teams; CBLOL will qualify one team
Worlds: LCS will qualify three teams; CBLOL will qualify one team
We’ve heard the feedback that the 2025 formats felt too compressed and overly complex. In 2026, the LCS and CBLOL will continue to operate on a three-split calendar, but with updated formats designed to bring clarity, consistency, and more high-stakes rivalries. Importantly, both leagues will also host their own Finals events at the end of the year, giving fans a chance to come together and celebrate the conclusion of their regional seasons. Final format details for all three splits will be shared before the end of the year.
The return of the LCS and CBLOL doesn’t mean completely reverting back to the 2024 model. Latin American teams will remain an important part of our competitive ecosystem and will compete within the LCS and CBLOL structures, with the LCS supporting all of North and Central America, and the CBLOL bringing together South America (Brazil and LATAM South). LYON will stay as a Partner Team in the LCS, and Leviatán will stay as a Partner Team in the CBLOL. The LLA itself will not return as a standalone league, but its teams and players will continue to have a home at the highest level of competition in the Americas.
Both leagues will continue to feature a Guest Team slot in 2026, with the LCS welcoming a team from the NACL or LRN and the CBLOL welcoming a team from the CD or LRS. We saw real value in testing new partnership models and using the Guest Slot to better connect Tier-1 and Tier-2, and we will continue to strengthen Tier-2 to improve the path to pro for aspiring players.
While the 2025 formats felt complex, they helped us solve key pain points from 2024 around calendar scheduling, gap weeks, and keeping most competition days on Saturday and Sunday. In 2026, we’ll maintain this consistency while introducing formats that are simpler and easier to follow. Finally, the behind-the-scenes collaboration between internal teams and regional offices sparked creative ideas, such as the LTA Fantasy experience, that we’ll continue to build on, even as the LCS and CBLOL return to operating independently.
Planning is still underway, and we’ll share more details as we prepare for the 2026 season in the coming months. Your passion and feedback made it clear that change was needed. By bringing back what fans know and love while carrying forward the innovations and lessons we’ve learned, we believe we’re setting the stage for something even stronger. What we can say now is that we’re incredibly excited about the changes ahead and committed to building a future for the Americas where the LCS and CBLOL feel both familiar and fresh.
