With the introduction of the League of Legends Championship Series by Riot in both Europe and North America the 8 strongest teams from both regions now battle it out on a weekly basis in their own leagues. At the end of the Second Split of the LCS the top 6 teams move on to the Summer Playoffs with 1st, 2nd and 3rd all taking a spot at the Season 3 World Championship in September alongside the best teams from Korea, China, Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
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| The LCS Standings for Europe and North America at the end of Week 8 of the Summer Split. |
The introduction of these week by week games and the 8 team ladder brings numerous advantages to players and spectators alike. On one hand, you have a fan like myself who is given the opportunity to watch dozens of top tier games from two of the world's most renowned regions with popular and well-established teams such as Team SoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming, Fnatic and Evil Geniuses. Not only are these matches plentiful but they're consistent with little to no stoppages or errors and it's all brought together by the talented behind the scenes crew and the wonderful team of casters Phreak, Jatt, Rivington and Kobe from NA and Jason Kaplan, Joe Miller, Deman and Qu1ksh0t from Europe.
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| North American Casters (Left to Right) Jatt, Rivington and Phreak at MLG Anaheim. |
On the other hand you have the teams which include the staff (coaches, managers) and of course; the players themselves who all have mixed feelings on Riot's design of the LCS. Back in June I had the pleasure of sitting down to talk with former Team MRN top-laner; Patrick "MegaZero" Glinsman, about the time he spent in the NA LCS during the Spring Split with MRN. After the end of the 10 week Spring Split, Team MRN had found themselves in an unfortunate 7th place placing them in the Summer Promotion Tournament. It was at this time that MRN faced-off against current NA LCS team; Velocity e-Sports resulting in a close and grueling 5 game series which saw VES secure their spot in the Summer Split with a 3:2 victory over MRN.
The defeat saw MRN's departure from the NA LCS and soon afterwards, came their anticipated disbanding. MegaZero and his team-mates were left without a team, a gaming house or paychecks, as is the cut-throat nature of LCS relegation. MRN's members were left to find new work with many of them going back to streaming until an opportunity arose. Former MRN ADC Nientonsoh was acquired by Counter Logic Gaming as their new Top Lane player after the retirement of HotshotGG and appeared in Riot's spotlight video "Nien's path to pro". Mid Lane player Ecco was brought into the roster of Velocity e-Sports. MegaZero found a new home with another Spring Split LCS competitor Complexity Gaming who after their relegation began training hard and competing in numerous "amateur" tournaments in order to qualify for the Season 4 LCS. Jungler ClakeyD found work with Riot behind the scenes in the LCS as an in-game "camera-man" and recently featured in Riot's "Spectating the Spectators" video.
The second interview I conducted featured Vulcun Command coach; Kenneth "Kenma" Buechter who I again spoke with about the topic of the LCS as an overall concept and design. Kenma referenced the banality of the Spring Split as teams who worked so hard to acquire a spot in the LCS could be knocked out before it even came time for the World Championship. A prime example being both Team MRN and Complexity Gaming. A major flaw in the system's design pointed out by Kenma is that a team that finishes 1st on the table has the same chance of making it to the World Championship as a team that finishes in 6th. Vulcun's coach then suggested that the LCS follow a similar system to a football (soccer) league like the EPL in England where the top teams play games each week with the team at the top of the table come the end of the season being crowned the winner and the bottom teams being relegated to a lower league. This lower league could be filled with rising amateur teams such as TBD (Formerly FX Open e-Sports), Complexity Gaming and Curse Academy. Riot could run this lower League in a similar fashion to the LCS now, though these teams would obviously not receive the same benefit as the higher tier teams. The best of this "amateur" league would move up to the LCS at the end of each season, replacing the bottom teams from the LCS.
1st and 2nd place on the ladder at the end of the Summer Split are guaranteed a spot in Season 4 regardless of their performance in the play-offs. Cloud 9 have already locked in a 1st place position still with a week of games to go courtesy of their phenomenal score. Vulcun follow in 2nd place and are guaranteed a top 6 finish with their 15-8 score. Vulcun are closing in on securing that 2nd place and unless they were to drop all 5 games in the final week of the Summer Split and Team SoloMid, Counter Logic Gaming or Team Dignitas who are all tied at 3rd with a score of 11-12 were to win all 5 of their games, that spot is Vulcun's for the taking. At the bottom end of the table you have Team Curse and Team Coast tied at 6th on 9-14 who could both still potentially secure a 3rd and 4th place finish. In 8th place we have the unfortunate Velocity e-Sports who, at 5-18, cannot secure a position higher than 7th and will be forced to fight for their spot in Season 4 of the LCS against rising amateur teams.
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| An example of the play-offs from the Spring Split. Curse placed 2nd on the ladder but ended up finishing 4th behind TSM, GGU and Vulcun. If that was the Summer Split, Curse would've lost their spot at the World Championship. |
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| An example of the promotion series after the Spring Split to enter the LCS Summer Split. The top 8 amateur teams face each other in a Bo3 series with the winners going on to face the 5-8th placed teams (5-6th from the play-offs and 7th-8th on the ladder) from that LCS split in a Bo5, in this case, CLG, Dignitas, MRN and Complexity. Dig and CLG retained their spots though MRN and Complexity lost their places to VES and Quanitc (Now Cloud 9). |
The LCS is still in early days and Riot are just getting started. A week by week series across 10 weeks in 2 splits with a total of 16 teams in 2 continents is no easy task, especially when the company has never attempted such a massive feat. Season 3 is rapidly drawing to a close with only 1 week left of the LCS before moving onto qualifying tournaments and then of course, the World Championship in September. Whilst the current design of the LCS isn't perfect it has numerous advantages and it is what fans like myself have been waiting for, for years. Free HD streams every week of the best teams in North America and Europe with interviews, replays and analysis from 8 of the most renowned casters in League of Legends. As time goes on, season after season, the set-up will improve. The LCS brings the advantages to the teams of no longer having to wait weeks or months between an IPL or MLG tournament where they can face against each other in a non-scrim environment. Teams now regularly battle it out, keeping them trained and ready practice these regions need in order to overcome the dominant Asian scene. For now, sit back, enjoy Cloud 9's rampage of North America and Europe's nail-biting final moments.
