League of Legends being played on a giant screen. (LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/Getty)
Since SK Telecom T1 successfully defended its title in the 2016 Worlds by defeating Samsung Galaxy 3-2, fans have been waiting to see the first League of Legends action of the new year.
The good news is that the wait to see if SK Telecom T1 can make it three titles in a row and four in the last five years is nearly over. Leagues in China, Europe, Korea and North America all have set their fields of competitors and will begin regular season play in the next 10 days.
2017 LCK Information
Start Date: Tuesday, January 17, 5 a.m. ET
The 10-team field for the 2017 Korean season is filled, and the schedules have been set. The format remains unchanged, as the 10 teams will face every other team in the league twice over the course of the regular season in a best-of-three competition. In the spring split, teams will be competing for championship points that could go toward putting them in the Worlds. The 10 teams include:
Afreeca Freecs
ESC Ever
Jin Air Green Wings
Kongdoo Monster
KT Rolster
Longzhu Gaming
MVP
ROX Tigers
Samsung Galaxy
SK Telecom T1
Fans can stream the events live on LOL’s dedicated streaming service, Twitch or LOL Esports’ YouTube channel.
2017 LPL Information
Start Date: Thursday, January 19, 6 a.m. ET
Set to start just two days after LCK, the Chinese counterpart has also filled its contingent of squads and announced its schedule. LPL features two additional teams in comparison to LCK, and splits the 12 teams into two groups. Each team plays the other five teams in its group twice, and each team in the opposite group once during the regular season in best-of-three affairs. Like LCK, wins in the best-of-three competitions earn points that will decide which teams advance to the 2017 Worlds.
The teams for the 2017 season, by group, are as follows:
Group A
I May
Invictus Gaming
LGD Gaming
OMG
Royal Never Give Up
Snake Esports
Group B
Edward Gaming
Game Talents
NewBee
QG Reapers
Team WE
Vici Gaming
As with LCK, live streams of LPL games are available on LOL Esports’ streaming service, Twitch and YouTube channel.
2017 EU LCS Information
Start Date: Thursday, January 19, 1 p.m. ET
The 2017 Spring Split for the EU LCS will feature a new format, which is similar to that used in LPL and a result of the experimentation that the EU used in the 2016 Summer Split. The format this year will include two groups of five teams, with a double round robin schedule inside the groups and a single round robin slate between the groups. There will be 10 weeks of regular season best-of-three matches followed by a three-week playoff that the top six teams will qualify for. The winner will represent Europe in the Mid-Season Invitational.
Jacob Wolf of ESPN reported that the groups were drafted on January 7, and the groups break down as follows:
Group A
Fnatic
G2 Esports
GIANTS! Gaming
Misfits
ROCCAT
Group B
H2k-Gaming
Origen
Splyce
Unicorns of Love
Vitality
The venue for the league is the EU LCS Studio, held at the Battle Theater Berlin Am Studio 20D Studio K/L 12489 Berlin – Adlershof Germany. Tickets for the 2017 EU LCS can be purchased online.
Fans who can’t attend the competitions can stream the events live on LOL Esports, on LOL’s YouTube channel and as always on Twitch.
2017 NA LCS Information
Start Date: Friday, January 20, 6 p.m. ET
The format for the 2017 NA LCS is unchanged from 2016, and identical to that which is now used in the EU with two exceptions: the NA regular season is only nine weeks long and there are no groups, just a 10-team league. The league’s 10 teams include:
Cloud 9
Counter Logic Gaming
Echo Fox
FlyQuest
Immortals
Phoenix1
Team Dignitas
Team Envy
Team Liquid
TSM
The full schedule for the first four weeks of the regular season is posted. The league uses flex scheduling procedures for Weeks 5-9 based on the results of the first four weeks. The contests for Week 5 will be announced on February 1, while the games for the rest of the regular season will be announced on February 8.
The venue for the NA LCS is the NA LCS Studio, which is located at 12312 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Tickets for the first four weeks of competitions can be purchased online.
Just as with the EU LCS, live streams of the competitions can be found on LOL Esports, YouTube and Twitch.
