LoL - LPL: 2025 Demacia Cup reveals new format and introduces Coach Comms

The Demacia Cup 2025 has just been officially announced. The annual tournament, organized by the streaming platform Huya, will take place from December 15 to January 3, featuring the 14 LPL teams and two streamer squads, ZSM and FRK.

With a prize pool of ¥1.2 million (€145,627), this event offers teams the opportunity to experiment and fine-tune their newly formed lineups before the LPL's 2026 first Split. Last year, Anyone's Legend won with their new lineup. A good omen before their best season to date in 2025.

This year's tournament will introduce a new feature, Coach Comms, allowing a coach to communicate with players three times per game for up to 45 seconds each, exclusively during the offline playoff stage. Additionally, the decisive games in all Bo3 and Bo5 series will use the Blind Pick format with no ban allowed, while previous games continue with the Fearless Draft setup introduced last season.

The group stage will be further divided into two stages. The first one will see the two streamer teams being assigned to two different groups, alongside the six teams from group Nirvana (Team WE, LGD, LNG, TT, UP, and OMG), to make two groups of four teams. Each group will be decided through a draw and will then have a single round-robin of Bo3 series. The top two teams from each group will then advance to the second phase.

The second phase will see Invictus Gaming and BiliBili Gaming, two of the four teams at Worlds that had the worst results, being assigned to two different groups of five teams. Each will be joined by the top two teams from Phase 1, as well as four teams from Group Ascend (JD Gaming, Weibo Gaming, EDward Gaming, and Ninjas in Pyjamas). Groups will be decided once again through a draw and will each have a single round-robin of Bo3 series. The top three teams in terms of points will advance to the Knockout stage.

In this stage, the eight teams will be split into two different brackets, with Top Esports and Anyone’s Legend, the best LPL teams at Worlds, being seeded into two different groups. The six remaining teams will then be assigned through the draw, with each four-team bracket competing in a single-elimination with Bo5 series. The top four teams will then move to the offline stage to determine the Demacia Cup champions.

Matches are scheduled from mid-December into early January: