Introducing LTA: New league, new rules

As previously reported by Sheep Esports, LCS, LLA, and CBLOL have merged into a two-conference league: the League of Legends Championship of the Americas (LTA). The LTA North (LTAN) will consist of six LCS partner teams, one LLA partner, and a guest team that will need to defend its place in the league at the end of 2025. The same applies to the LTA South (LTAS), which will feature six CBLOL partner teams, one LLA partner, and a guest team. While the LTAN season will be played in Los Angeles, the LTAS will take place in São Paulo.

When building their rosters, teams will also need to bear in mind the residency rules. The majority of the team's players must come from the conference's region, but as part of the merger, Riot is slightly tweaking the rule — one of a team's three resident players may be from elsewhere in the Americas. This means that an LTAS team, for example, will still need two players considered resident players in South America, but could then import a North American player to round out a roster with two Korean imports.

The first split will kick off on January 25, with each conference competing in a double-elimination best-of-three bracket, in Fearless Draft mode. After two or three BO3s, four teams will be eliminated in each conference, sent to an early vacation to wait for Split 2. The four teams from each conference that survive this stage will travel to Brazil for a single elimination BO3 bracket played with Fearless Draft. The semi-finals and Grand Final will be BO5s, with the winner qualifying for the new international event.

For Split 2, teams from each conference will clash in a double round-robin BO1 format against every other team in their own conference. Following the regular season, the top 6 teams from each conference will go through a double-elimination playoff bracket, still in their own conference to crown two champions: one from the LTAN and one from the LTAS. Both will represent the Americas at MSI.

Split 3 will introduce a new format called “Pick & Play”. At the end of each week, teams will choose their opponents for the following week live on stage. The focus will be on competition and teams asserting themselves against their rivals. Each week will feature best-of-three matches, with the first one based on the Split 2 rankings.

At the end of the week, the teams with the worst results in series and games will choose opponents with better results. It won’t be possible to challenge a team you’ve already played against, and Stage 2 will serve as a tiebreaker. After week three, we enter the elimination stage. The four teams in the lower half of the standings will fight to stay alive, while the top teams are temporarily safe.

Here, the selection process reverses; teams with the best records choose their opponents to continue their survival. By the end of week six, only three teams will remain standing in each conference. The top three teams from the LLAS will travel North to compete in the 2025 Americas Regional Championship (ARC). There, all six teams will compete for the first LTA trophy. The top seeds from each conference will enter the regional event guaranteed qualification for Worlds, while the other teams will fight for the last spot in the ARC.