The LPL to Adopt the EU LCS Group Stage Format

League of Legends competitions in different regions feature different formats of competitions. It seems that the structure of the group stage applied in the EU LCS has become the most popular. These days, many competitions from all over the world are trying to implement that format of the competition.

Today, LPL and the organizers of the biggest League of Legends event in China have announced that they will be using the format of the competition already implemented in the EU LCS. Moreover, LCL has decided that starting from the 2017 Summer Split, LPL will have the new system for determining which teams will be in which group and what will be the games in the group stage.

The New LPL Format

Before adopting the new format of the competition, LPL featured group stage draw. Here, representatives of each team participating in the competition would get together to draw the names of the teams that would be placed in the groups. Those names were drawn from four pools that the organizers have determined earlier.

When it comes to the format of the EU LCS competition, two teams that have the highest ranking of all teams participating are placed in two groups respectively. After that, each team picks teams that will be joining the other group. It might not be a very popular format or a format used in many competitions, but over the years, it has proven to be very interesting.

Pools & Groups

LPL has announced that the teams placed in two groups will be divided into four pools for the 2017 Summer Split. In the first pool are Team WE and Royal Never Give Up. These two teams are the highest ranked teams in the region of China. Because of that, they will be placed in two groups. After that, each team will be picking out teams from other pools for the other group.

Pool number two will feature Edward Gaming, I May, Newbee Gaming, and Oh My God. Two of these teams will be in the group with Team WE. The other two will be in the group with Royal Never Give Up. Besides that, Pool number 3 will also feature four teams. Those teams will be JingDong, Invictus Gaming, LGD Gaming, and Snake eSports. They, too, will be divided into two groups respectively.

The last pool for this competition features only two teams: Suning Gaming and DAN Gaming. Team WE has been placed in group A of the competition. Hence, they will have the opportunity to choose the team for the opposite group first. After them, Royal Never Give Up will choose the first team to join Team WE in group A.

Final Thoughts

This format of the group stage works in EU LCS because of many reasons. It is primarily because fans and teams have already gotten used it. It will be interesting to see how this format will be accepted in China and whether or not it will produce some different results than before.