LCS 2023 Has Kickstarted: What to Expect
LCS, or League Championship Series, is a regional esports event where teams from the United States and Canada participate and battle against each other to win the professional-level tournament. The event has huge and is broadcasted worldwide. The games are played in the Riot Games studios in LA on a secure network that ensures that outside attacks do not sabotage the League of Legends event. Even though Riot themselves organizes LCS, many big companies sponsor the event because gamers are watching the pro players fight the legendary battles, especially since LCS gets over 300 thousand concurrent viewers regularly.
And if there was a need for Riot to increase the viewer count, they did it gracefully by offering in-game rewards for watching live streams of competitions such as LCS, MSI, or the Worlds championship.
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Regional Competitions
The competition started with the Spring Split on January 26th and will consist of a few weekly matches on Thursdays and Fridays until the finals on April 8 and 9. The Global Kickoff event was held on January 10 and January 11, and it represented the start of professional competitions worldwide. This means that the other regional competitions have also begun:
- LCK – Korea
- LPL – China
- LEC – EMEA
- CBLOL – Brazil
- LLA – LATAM
- VCS – Vietnam
- PCS – Southern Asia and Oceania
- LJL – Japan
On top of the regional competitions, there’s only MSI and Worlds, and Riot has decided to change the format of these global competitions this year.
LCS Teams for 2023
Ten teams are competing in LCS this year:
- 100 Thieves
- Team Liquid
- Cloud9
- Dignitas
- FlyQuest
- CLG
- TSM
- Evil Geniuses
- Immortals
- Golden Guardians
LCS Schedule
Riot decided to schedule the LCS competition each week on Thursdays and Fridays, except for week four and the last month of the Spring split. The broadcasts will start at 12 PM Pacific Time each day. The exception is the last three weeks of the Split, where the time of the matches is still to be determined.
- Thursday, January 26
- Friday, January 27
- Thursday, February 2
- Friday, February 3
- Thursday, February 9
- Friday, February 10
- Wednesday, February 15
- Thursday, February 16
- Friday, February 17
- Thursday, February 23
- Friday, February 24
- Thursday, March 2
- Thursday, March 9
- Friday, March 10
- Wednesday, March 15
- Thursday, March 16
- Friday, March 17
- Thursday, March 23
- Friday, March 24
- Saturday, March 25
- Sunday, March 26
- Thursday, March 30
- Friday, March 31
Finals:
- Saturday, April 8
- Sunday, April 9
One of the significant changes in the schedule is the time of the matches, and, as Riot admitted, they changed the time of the matches to adapt to the viewers’ preferences. Ten years ago, when the first esports event happened, many of the viewers had different life commitments than now, and they watch esports on weekdays and weekends.
This schedule also means that matches from different regional competitions do not overlap, so you can watch as many as you want live. On the other hand, this also helps Riot as they will get more view hours from potentially the same viewers.
On top of this, Riot stated that their decision to move LCS to Thursdays and Fridays has to do with their plan for the following ten years of LCS. Even more, they are trying to reach the sweet point where they have both the old fans watching and, simultaneously, create space for new fans to join in and watch.
LCS Format
The LCS format doesn’t change compared to the previous years, which means that you will see a Group stage with a best-of-1 elimination bracket and 18 matches. Six teams will move on to the playoffs, a double elimination bracket with the best of 5 matches. The winners and the second runners will qualify for the MSI competition.
What About MSI?
Everyone expects the summer split to be intense, not only for LCS but for all the regional professional tournaments of this level. But the competition will take the intensity to the next level with the mid-season invitational (MSI), which will take place in London this year with a new format. There will be two additional teams compared to the last year’s, but the whole format of the competition is changed. Eight teams will participate in a group stage, and 5 of the teams will go directly into the brackets stage. The group stage will be a double elimination where the teams will face each other in 3 matches. The bracket stage will also have eight teams competing in a double elimination best-of-5 bracket.
