Small changes for the 2024 LEC season

Following the changes made to the EMEA ecosystem at the start of the 2023 season, looking ahead to next year there will be some minor changes in order to further improve the competition. To do this, they have taken into account the last 12 months, feedback from fans, teams and players.

One of the latest news announced for 2024, is that the broadcasts will take place from the new headquarters of esports in EMEA: the Riot Games Arena (formerly LEC Studio) in Berlin.

There’s not long to go before the action starts, as the LEC returns on Saturday, January 13, so it’s time to see what those changes will be for next year.

Group stage and playoffs

One of the most significant changes to next year’s format will be the merging of the group stage and playoffs for each division into a single group. The goal with this adjustment is to make the competition easier to understand and follow as it progresses.

These groups will have the same number of series as before, best of 3 and best of 5, with the added protection of replaying matchups in the lower group. This means that teams that have played each other in upper round 1 will not play each other again in lower round 2.

Updated schedules

Some changes will be introduced to the schedule for 2024. To improve the well-being of teams and players, the break between the Winter and Spring Splits, as well as the break between the Spring Split and the MSI, will be extended by one week each. In addition, to balance the overall season schedule, the break between the Summer Split and the LEC season finale will be reduced by one week. The start time will also be adjusted, the first match will be at 17:00 CET each day of the competition.

Championship points and tiebreakers

The Championship Points (CP) o championship points will also change in 2024. Although its operation is optimal to balance the value of each split throughout the year, it is intended to further optimize its importance in the 3 splits.

The same amount of points will now be allocated to the fifth and sixth, and seventh and eighth place finishers in each split, while stakes and points will be increased.

The new CP distribution will be as follows:

Qualification for the season finals

This year more emphasis will be placed on the performance of the Summer Splits, and the Summer Champion will automatically qualify for the Worlds as the top seed. The second and third place teams will also qualify for the LEC Season Finals, regardless of their CP or previous results.

In addition, if two teams finish the year with the same amount of CP towards qualifying for the LEC Season Finals, the team with the higher number of points earned in the summer will qualify. If they have the same amount of points in the summer, their head-to-head record in the regular season of the summer split will decide who qualifies.

Queue of preseason champions

The first patch of the season will arrive on January 9, just four days before the start of the LEC Winter Split, and to ensure that LEC and ERL players could better prepare for competitive games in the new patch, a pre-season champion queue will open on December 11 on a special tournament server that replicates the public beta environment (PBE) to give players a chance to practice the new patch in a controlled, solo environment.

The server will be open to top division LEC and ERL players who are in the Global Contract Database (GCD) or ERL Player Database (EPD) to give them the best possible start to the season and reduce the pressure of learning the competitive meta in a short amount of time.

Changes to the age limit for LEC players.

Finally, the minimum age of players competing in LEC will be increased from 17 to 18 years old. Following an assessment of the needs of partner teams, as well as recent player age history, the age limit has been increased to allow teams and the LEC to explore additional revenue opportunities that they hope will aid sustainability, especially in the current economic environment.

However, the ERL ecosystem continues to provide an avenue for young talent in the EMEA region, so with this in mind, the age restriction for competing in an ERL will remain at 16 years of age.

This is all that is known for now about LEC. The new start of the LEC Winter Split 2024 will be welcomed soon.