Over the past many years, Riot Games has often organized two international tournaments each season of League of Legends: MSI and Worlds. Riot has been very successful with this organization by pushing the attractiveness and drama of both MSI and Worlds to extremely high levels. In addition, this also helps increase the number of followers of these two tournaments to extremely high levels.
Riot over the years has organized MSI and Worlds extremely successfully
However, the downside of this organization is that the number of top matches of League of Legends is relatively limited. Although Riot Games has found a solution by changing MSI's format to a winner – loser bracket, that seems not enough to satisfy the audience. Therefore, in the upcoming 2025 season, Riot will likely make a “landmark” decision with the League of Legends community to meet this.
Specifically, as revealed by Sheep Esports, starting from the 2025 season, Riot will organize another international tournament besides MSI and Worlds. Not stopping there, this reputable news site from Europe also revealed that each major region (LCK, LPL, LEC, LCS) will have at least 1 representative attending this tournament. Riot's third international tournament is expected to be held between the winter and spring tournaments.
Sheep Esports page revealed: “Riot is planning to organize a third international tournament between the winter and spring tournaments next year (2025). The time, venue and format of the tournament have not been decided, but at least each major region (LCK, LPL, LEC, LCS) will have one team invited to this tournament.”
Not only organizing more tournaments, this decision by Riot will likely lead to major changes in the entire League of Legends tournament system. First, the LCS tournament will likely convert to a 3-season format (winter, spring, summer) like the current LEC to fit the new tournament system. For LPL and LCK, Sheep Esports does not have accurate information yet, but they are also considering switching to a 3-season format in the future.
Sheep Esports also shared: “We can only confirm that LCS is planning to switch to a 3-season format. For LPL and LCK, it cannot be confirmed yet, but they will have appropriate ways to select teams to participate in this tournament. There is no exception to the possibility that these two regions will also switch to a 3-season format.”
Remember that during the 2013 season (the year Faker first started as a player), the LCK region (then OGN) also applied a 3-season format. This region also kept the 3-season format until 2014 before reducing it to 2 seasons from the 2015 season. Even Faker's second regional title was OGN Winter 2014.
OGN Winter 2014 is the second regional title in Faker's career
And coincidentally, after about 10 years since the last time the LCK region applied the 3-season format, this format has a great chance to return. Changing that “turning point” will likely bring to the audience many top, exciting matches from the 2025 season. It can even bring positive changes to help the professional League of Legends industry. in general and LCK in particular will develop dramatically in the future.