As the League of Legends World Championship for 2024 draws to a close, Riot has begun to lay out their plans for the upcoming season. As part of that, the developer has announced a new flagship tournament that draws in the best teams from around the world – First Stand.
The First Stand tournament is set to be markedly different from anything League players will have seen to date. Set to serve as the opening international clash, every region will take one team to the tournament as a representative, with five teams competing in total.
With the format change, these five regions are the LCK, LPL, LEC, LTA (best team between North and South conferences will go), and LCP (League of Legends Championship Pacific).
In announcing the new tournament, Riot’s Global Head of Strategy Chris Greeley had this to say.
“First Stand is designed to ignite regional rivalries and test innovations, and it’ll see the best team in Split One from each of our five regions face off in early season balance, setting the tone for the competition ahead for the rest of the year. This event will take place at the conclusion of Split One over the course of seven days.”
Our third global event in 2025.Say hello to First Stand. pic.twitter.com/lEV8hlH4c5
— LoL Esports (@lolesports) November 1, 2024
Every team will be guaranteed to play each other, with every match being a best of series rather than a one-and-done. The biggest change from traditional League of Legends tournaments is the introduction of the Fearless Draft.
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This new draft system only allows teams to select a champion once during each series. This elimination system applies to both teams so, once one team has selected a champion, that choice will be off the table for the rest of the match-up.
With another major tournament on the calendar, he confirmed that hosting consideration for the game’s minor regions is very much on the cards. Especially now that they aren’t really minor regions anymore.
The LTA South and most of the teams in the LCP wouldn’t have been considered for tournaments like this in the past but, if we’re going off of the now-defunct regions’ showings at Worlds 2024, these teams deserve a spot at the table.
Whether this tournament will have any connection to Worlds qualification, as the Mid-Season Invitational does currently, remains to be seen. The development team has confirmed that more info on the exact format is set to debut in the new year.
The tournament is set to run from March 10 – March 16 2025, in Seoul, South Korea.
