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Riot Announces Major Schedule and Format Changes to LCS 2020 Playoffs
Butcher79
Riot Games and the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) have announced the schedule for the upcoming Spring 2020 season.
The schedule includes changes to both the spring and summer playoffs, changes to how teams go to the world, and the introduction of marquee matches on Monday nights.
Northern fans have just over two weeks left until the LCS is up and running again, ending the long drought in League of Legends competitive life that begins when Worlds ends.
This year's premier event of the LoL esports scene ended disappointingly for the NA region, with all three teams representing it making it into the group stages of the event.
After that, Cloud9 owner Jack Etienne called for massive changes to the LCS format, especially with regards to the Academy sector.
On December 8, Riot and the LCS responded to the call for a new format with some sweeping changes to numerous aspects of the LCS format ahead of the 2020 season. These changes include changing how teams play qualifiers, how playoffs work, how they play in the Academy, and even the introduction of the League on Mondays.
Monday Night League
Beginning in the spring of 2020, the LCS will play two "main matches" on Monday nights.
These two matches will be preceded by three Academy matches. Riot and LCS have not given any guidance on how the Monday meetings were decided or if there are any special programs in MNL.
In the first league night on Monday, Bae 'Bang' Jun-sik takes on his former team as he and the Evil Geniuses face 100 Thieves. After that, the rivalry between Team Liquid and Team SoloMid resumes to close the first LCS weekend.
Changes to World Qualifiers for NA Teams
Say goodbye to regional qualification and championship points. All that matters now is the Summer Playoffs. The Spring Playoffs only determine who wins this sparring and who advances to MSI 2020.
New LCS playoff format
How do you make the playoffs more exciting? Take a single elimination and double it! The Spring and Summer Playoffs will now use a double-elimination bar, with the top six teams competing in the spring and the top eight in the summer.
For both sets of playoffs, one team gets the choice advantage between opponents. In the spring, they can choose between the 3rd and 4th seed in the first round, while in the summer they choose between the winners of the first round.
All playoff matches will be counted and selected from the top 5, while the regular season will continue to use the best of them.
More Academy Matches and Premiere of Academy Rush
Riot said in a statement that "For Academy players, gaining stage experience is a key step towards starting point on the LCS roster," so they are expanding their current Academy format to host an Academy match at the end of the day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
They also play three academy matches on Monday before Night League on Monday and add a new show called Academy Rush.
Full programming schedule for LCS and Academy for Friday-Monday.
"Academic Rush will have critics and analysts moving between all of the Academy's activities to show you the biggest games and highlight highlights from all 4 games, followed by the final and fifth games shown in full."
Now that you're engrossed in all the format changes, if you're still behind on the mid-season changes made to the roster for the LCS, we'll update this post with more details later.
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