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2018 NA LCS Spring Split

Riot·12/18/2017, 9:00:47 PM·1 votes·151,965 views

TL;DR:

  • NA LCS returns on January 20. Bo1 is back!
  • NA LCS has a new start time. Pre-game coverage begins at 1:30 PM PT with the picks and bans beginning for the first game starting at 2:00 PM PT.
  • NA LCS will no longer run on Fridays, only Saturday and Sundays.
  • NA LCS games are available on Lolesports, Twitch, and YouTube.
  • NA LCS will be broadcasted on the Riot Games Twitch channel.
  • Academy League information will be coming later this week.

With All-Star 2017 wrapped up, we’re heading full steam ahead to an exciting new year of North American esports. Here are some details about the upcoming 2018 NA LCS Spring Split: 

How to watch the NA LCS Spring Split

You can get all the action on Lolesports, Twitch, and YouTube. For Twitch fans, we’ll be moving the NA LCS broadcast to the Riot Games channel, so make sure you follow and get notifications.

NA LCS pre-game coverage will begin at 1:30 PM PT. The picks and bans phase of the first game of the day will begin at 2:00 PM PT on game days.

As seen in Summer Split, our post-show “NA LCS Tonight” will return on Sundays to recap the week.

Permanent Teams

Earlier this year, we started announced our plans to move into a permanent partnership structure for the NA LCS. Last month, we announced the 10 teams who will be a part of the NA LCS, including:

  • 100 Thieves (100)
  • Cloud9 (C9)
  • Clutch Gaming (CG)
  • Counter Logic Gaming (CLG)
  • Echo Fox (FOX)
  • FlyQuest (FLY)
  • Golden Guardians (GGS)
  • Optic Gaming (OPT)
  • Team Liquid (TL)
  • TSM (TSM)

We’ll share more information on Lolesports about rosters, when rosters will be listed on Lolesports, and how rosters will operate between NA LCS and Academy, closer to start of Spring Split in January.

Bo1 is back

As we previously announced, NA LCS will be switching back to Best of 1 (Bo1) for the upcoming season.

New start time

NA LCS will begin at 2:00 PM PT on Saturdays and Sundays to avoid overlap with the EU LCS.

Based on community feedback and the updated format, we moved our start time back 2 hours to allow for fans to be able to watch both NA and EU English broadcasts on the weekends.

Game days on weekends

We will no longer play NA LCS games on Fridays. Game days will be only on Saturdays and Sundays.

Spring Split dates

The regular season for the 2018 Spring Split will take place over 9 weeks, from January 20 to March 18. Since we no longer have a promotion tournament with our new permanent partnership structure, we’ll be removing the week between Week 9 and Playoffs, so Quarterfinals will start the weekend after Week 9.

Playoffs will continue to be Best of 5 and take place over 3 weeks:

  • Quarterfinals: March 24 to 25
  • Semifinals: March 31 to April 1
  • Finals: April 7 to 8

We’ll announce ticket information for Playoffs and the location of the NA LCS Spring Finals after the NA LCS Spring Split kicks off. We’ll confirm this information as an article and on the broadcast, so stay tuned to Lolesports for updates to see where the NA LCS Finals will travel to next.

Spring Split match schedule

The full match schedule for the regular season is available on Lolesports on the Schedule tab. Keep in mind that we’ll continue to use flex scheduling for Weeks 5 through 9, so there may be changes in the order of matches. All teams will play once per day.

Spring Split Tickets

All 9 weeks of the regular season tickets will be available on Tuesday, December 19 at 11:00 AM PT on EventBrite. Tickets are $15 USD plus applicable fees and taxes. Please note the individual game day ticket URLs will not go live until tickets are on sale on Tuesday.

Academy League

More information about the upcoming Academy League will be coming later this week on Lolesports.

Don’t forget to save the date for the return of the NA LCS on January 20 at 2:00 PM PT with the opening game of TSM vs. Team Liquid.
 

Chris “Grza” Greeley is one of our League Operations Leads. He leads a team focused on supporting the operations of NA LCS. He is not the former congressional representative from Maine, but he is an ex(ish)-lawyer from New York City. He channeled years of raiding on his Resto Druid into life in the bottom lane dropping wards and shooting glitterlances. You can find him on Twitter as @IAmGrza.

 

60 Comments

III BAKURYU III 12/18/2017, 11:36:51 PM8 votes

TSM wins NA G2 wins EU EDG wins LPL SKT wins LCK FW wins LMS ....................... SKT wins MSI

The next 4-5 months in a nutshell

Ravens696912/19/2017, 6:22:06 AM8 votes

You absolutely ignored the massive backlash to the best of 1 format. It weakens NA as a region and that should be fairly obvious. NA made massive strides when we switched to bo3 and in one colossal f*#@ up you decide to go back. on the original announcement there are over 500 complaints and out right rage. Your explanation for bo1....so casual fans can enjoy. CASUAL FANS do not enjoy the pro scene like the true fans do. which you have thrown under the bus to what...please a group that likely doesn't follow the pro scene anyways. So....you basically hurt the league. you kicked out immortals...the second place team and worlds contender....you hit the true fans. you hurt NA as a region by making bo1 the new format. This post was your chance to go....ok we were stupid. we didn't realize how strongly the fans felt about the bo1 vs bo3 issue. so we will continue with bo3 as we want NA to be strong. IF YOU WANT MORE FANS NA HAS TO FREAKING WIN! We need a win and we won't get it by doing bo1 crap. Bo1 does not prove who the best team is. it also takes away from pro matches. every match a player can get better. you have removed a 1/3 of a pro players experience now. fantastic. I hope after this season you see the error in your ways and return to bo3.

Swordngun212/19/2017, 12:40:33 AM5 votes

I see even after you were lambasted for your decision to go back to Bo1's you aren't backing down. I really hope you know what you're doing. Even though you deny it, I felt like Bo3's were making the pro scene more and more competitive across pretty much every region.

I honestly think that with Bo1 we're back in for more China Dominance, and Korea Godliness. We're going to be back to Season 3 and 4 status, which was pretty boring. And if the League gets less competitive overall, I foresee your viewership numbers taking a pretty significant hit this year.

Dark Matter12/18/2017, 10:36:39 PM4 votes

Hopefully the bo1 gets us back to our old 300k plus viewership on regular season matches. China carries LoL's net viewership, but it does carry it into first place. We should be head and shoulders above other games in all regions, not just a few.

Allyndus12/18/2017, 9:11:01 PM3 votes

Please bring LCS Finals to Chicago! 10 ping Solo queue + delicious food in a fun city.

Womp12312/31/2017, 7:30:06 AM3 votes

I don't mind Zven and Mithy as TSM's bot lane but I sure will miss Biofrost :[...felt like he was one of the most consistent players on TSM. He will be missed.

III BAKURYU III 12/19/2017, 7:56:02 PM2 votes

BO3 and BO1 both have their pros and cons but I too am leaning on Best of 1 more so than BO3 because it makes teams scout, practice and overall, prepare harder than before when it's just 1 and done instead of having 2 chances before losing, now it's 1. I look at it like a comparison between NFL(Best of 1) and the NBA(Best of 3) when it comes to teams/players having to study their opponents it's no secret that the NFL has that head and shoulders over the NBA where realistically it's close to impossible to scout and practice before facing 5-6 teams within a 7 day week, compared to 1(NFL) 2(LCS) teams per week to focus all your energy on.

In short, I think going back to best of 1 does things that fans aren't noticing and one of them is fatigue in which playing 36 - 54 games in the regular split same as the summer split, playoffs, MSI, Rift Rivals, Worlds it's too much and becoming a bit saturated in my opinion. Standing won't be confusing to understand( when people couldn't understand why RNG advanced at Worlds and not TSM when both were 3-3 but RNG 2-0'd TSM I doubt they will understand when teams are identical in record but not overall records.

2015 Spring Split Immortals vs Renegades......... best of 3 who's winning? It's predictable and what's something that we tell ourselves that always tends to happen especially at Worlds " The better teams will always win in Best of" so who would watch one of the better teams vs a garbage team that everyone expects to lose anyways? Don't give me "I watch them" cause the lower half teams in NA 2015-2017 had 0 views and attention. Now, imagine an 8-3 TSM vs 5-6 10th place team( on paper it's already sounding to be a decent game within best of 1)

Overall, I think going back to best of one's isn't a bad idea, is it 10/10 no but I think at this point it's better.

PsycloneJoker12/19/2017, 9:20:06 AM2 votes

So when are you guys gonna announce the loot drops we have a chance of getting for watching LCS streams? [slayer-jinx-wink]

Yoshtradomus12/20/2017, 2:29:31 AM2 votes

What I'd like to see is a 2 game series between each team every week and each game effects that standings. So say C9 and CLG play and they each take 1 game, they both would be 1-1. If C9 takes them both, they're 2-0 and CLG 0-2 or vice versa. I think this is the best compromise of content and quality.

AriCei12/20/2017, 4:04:56 PM2 votes

The schedule is pretty B.S.. if you want to be a serious sport, make it so real people can watch games, like NHL etc. Every single team playing matches like 2 days a week? It's like 7 hours of games a day. 1 match a day all week would probably be easier to get interested in. VoDs aren't always the same experience

III BAKURYU III 12/21/2017, 4:57:43 AM1 votes

1.TEAM SOLOMID 14-4 Hauntzer 49-45-120 MikeYeung 38-41-135 Bjergsen 93-44-101 Zven 72-34-115 Mithy 16-54-193

2.COUNTER LOGIC GAMING 12-6 Darshan 70-55-110 Reignover 45-51-131 Huhi 76-67-127 Stixxay 94-50-105 Biofrost 11-53-189

3.TEAM LIQUID 11-7 Impact 44-38-128 Xmithie 34-51-150 Pobelter 73-41-115 Doublelift 99-26-96 Olleh 8-49-185

4.CLUTCH GAMING 11-7 Solo 43-59-107 Lira 47-59-108 Febiven 71-37-97 Apollo 56-46-106 Hakuho 18-41-149

5.ECHO FOX 10-6 Huni 63-57-117 Dardoch 42-38-163 Fenix 75-39-106 Altec 82-35-98 Adrian 10-41-195

6.CLOUD 9 9-9 Licorice 25-59-131 Svenskeren 38-51-154 Jensen 94-44-82 Sneaky 90-37-109 Smoothie 23-54-170

7.100 THIEVES 7-11 Ssumday 46-45-116 Meteos 37-60-131 Ryu 64-38-96 Cody Sun 77-39-93 Aphromoo 13-52-153

8.GOLDEN GUARDIANS 5-13 Lourlo 43-71-76 Contractz 37-70-92 Hai 56-51-81 Deftly 54-46-73 Matt 9-81-121

9.OPTIC GAMING 5-13 Zig 48-63-140 Akaadian 46-49-141 PowerofEvil 67-51-116 Arrow 89-54-96 Lemonation 6-61-188

10.FLYQUEST 4-14 Flame 43-55-79 Anda 38-50-95 Fly 54-57-86 Wildturtle 67-41-68 Stunt 7-52-101

SuperNaCl5/14/2018, 1:38:51 AM1 votes

When you come back to this post during MSI and see that nothing but the FW winning the LMS was correct. Yikes.