League of Legends: what are LCS?

The League of Legends Championsip Series (LCS) is the North American part of Riot Games' LoL esport structure. It regroups eight teams who own a franchise spot, which means that there is no relegation nor promotion system. The eight teams currently are : 100 Thieves, Cloud9, Dignitas, Immortals, NRG, FlyQuest, Shopify Rebellion and Team Liquid.

North America was the first major region to adopt a franchised system, inspired by the success of american sports league such as NBA (Basktetball), NFL (American Football) or MLB (Baseball). Contraty to the LEC - the EMEA Championship -, the LCS didn't change their name with this process, keeping the old "LCS" which was already there in 2013, first year of LoL esport's structures league in NA.

After numerous change of format during their history, the LCS went back to a classic two-split system. Every team first faces off in single Round Robin of bo3 (every teams plays only one bo3 against every other team), leading then to a 6 teams playoffs, the bottom 2 of the regular season is eliminated.

Playoffs are however not set in stone since this year's LCS season has had two slightly different format. The current format sees six teams fighting in a double-elimination bracket, while the top 2 of the regular season gets a bye to the second round. Being named "Championship" instead of playoffs, the Summer Playoffs are a bit more important than the Spring ones as they qualify to Worlds and have overall stronger prestige.

With a lot of change of teams in the LCS, NA League of Legends also saw multiple names founding eras of dominances. Only one team has remained constant at the top : Cloud9 with six titles from 2013 to today and multiple podium appearances, but by no means have they ever cemented a supremacy over the league for more than a year.

LCS' history has been written by teams who are today no longer part of it, most notably TSM, who never missed LCS finals from 2013 to 2017, grabbing six titles along the way, in addition to a later title in 2020. CLG, double title winner in 2015 and 2016, is now also gone from the LCS, having been replaced by NRG who took on their legacy to win the 2023 Championship.

One of the last big names of LCS' history is Team Liquid, originally known as doomed to always finish 4th, TL doubled TSM's achievement by winning four consecutive titles in 2018 and 2019. Still very much relevant to this day, they won the last playoffs as of 2024 Spring Split. Evil Geniuses (now gone) and 100 Thieves complete the list of title-holding teams

North American LoL hasn't always been shrouded with success, despite being on the top of the game in its debut, LCS massively struggled to exist in the international scene. In the shadows of Europe (and then EMEA) - with the exception of 2014 World Championship - NA even ended up ranked as 5th region in the world when Taiwanes league LMS was granted a 1st seed in 2018.

One team shines far above the rest in terms of International performance: Cloud9. Reaching every World Championship since 2013 but one (in 2020), they also made it six times in top 8, with a peak in 2018 after a semi-final run. It is also important to note TL's MSI finals in 2019, technically the peak of LCS NA.

Since then, 2023 has seen NA finally closing the gap with LEC. Europe's LoL has always been considered as above NA's one, but with NRG's victory over G2 Esports during the group stage and the fact that LCS had better overall results than LEC, both regions are closer than they have ever been, even though MSI saw G2 taking the edge over NA once again.

The LEC usually starts in the end of January and finishes near late August. Riot Games offers an official stream which broadcasts the games in English, however, LCS is also casted by several national broadcasters, including for instance LS, IWilldominate or Doublelift.

Some non-english co-streams are also available in Portugueuse (Baiano), Spanish (Toad Amarillo) and French (Zerotick). As for the time zone, LCS matches usually start at 10 pm CET and take place near the weekend.