NA LCS is back on June 2

Riot·May 3, 2017·2 votes·5,497 views

TL;DR:

NA LCS Summer Split begins on June 2 at 3:00 PM PT.
Weeks 1-4 schedule and tickets will be available on Friday, May 5 at 10:00 AM PT. The full Summer Split schedule will be available after MSI 2017 on May 23 on the Schedule page, click here.
As with Spring Split, Weeks 5-9 could be affected by flex scheduling.

After an epic NA LCS Spring Finals weekend (with two days of Silver Scrapes), NA LCS will be back on Friday, June 2. During MSI 2017 and the NA LCS break, we wanted to share some clarification around what happens between splits and when you can expect the match schedules, tickets information, and Summer Finals.

Split Break

What’s the roster lock date? What does it mean?

Teams are required to submit their Week 1 Active Roster (starters and subs) on May 24 to give proper time for asset generation, eligibility checks, etc. Barring unforeseen emergencies, any player not on the submitted roster or who lacks appropriate paperwork will not be eligible to start for Week 1.

Rosters will be available on Lolesports on May 25. Additionally, any player who is signed to an NA LCS team will be updated on the official Global Contract Database.

Why doesn’t Lolesports report on roster swaps?

As the operators of the NA LCS, we've chosen not to report on roster speculation since we'll often get information about roster swaps before they're final. We want to give teams the opportunity to announce roster information in their own way such as partnering with sponsors, interviews with third-party media, or creating content for their own channels.

Are all the NA LCS teams coming back from Spring? When do we know about any sales?

May 8 is our brand lock date. This means all teams must confirm if they plan to rebrand for the Summer Split. As we have all 10 teams from Spring returning for Summer Split, we’re not anticipating any team re-branding at this time.

Opening Day and Scheduling

When does NA LCS begin? When does it air?

NA LCS begins on Friday, June 2 at 3:00 PM PT. The broadcast begins at 3:00 PM PT on Fridays, and 12:00 PM PT on Saturdays and Sundays. We’ll continue to feature dual streams for weekend matches during the regular season.

When is the full regular season schedule available?

The full NA LCS match schedule will be available after MSI 2017 on Tuesday, May 23. Same as Spring Split, we’ll be using flex scheduling for Weeks 5-9 so the weekly matchups will always stay the same but the days, times, location, or streams might shift.

Using an example from Spring, Phoenix1 will always play Team Envy and Cloud9 on Week 5 but the following information could be impacted by flex scheduling:

Days: P1 could move to Saturday and Sunday instead of Friday and Sunday
Times: The P1 games could shift to the first or second of the day
Locations: P1 could play in the Arena or Theater but always at the NA LCS Studio
Streams: They could be on NALCS1 or NALCS2

The final and locked schedule and tickets for Week 5 will be available on June 15. Weeks 6-9 will be released on June 29.

What’s flex scheduling?

As we introduced in the 2014 Season, flex scheduling allows us to adjust the schedule so that the most compelling matchups fall within the "primetime" viewing window. The weekly matchups will still be the same, but we may shift match order or days around as teams rise and fall in the standings. Regardless of any changes made, certain scheduling policies will still be upheld (e.g., no team plays back-to-back matches within a day, each team plays two matches per week, etc).

What about Summer Playoffs? Finals? Gauntlet? Promotion Tournament?

We’ll confirm the dates for all the post-regular season events happening in North America including Playoffs, Summer Finals weekend, Promotion Tournament, and NA Regional Qualifiers (aka “Gauntlet”) after MSI 2017 on May 23.

What patch will the start of Summer Split be played on?

Patch 7.10

Tickets

When can I get tickets for the NA LCS?

Tickets for Weeks 1-4 will be available on May 5 at 10:00 AM PT.

What about tickets for NA LCS Weeks 5-9? Playoffs?

Tickets for Week 5 will be available on June 15 at 10:00 AM PT.

Tickets for Weeks 6-9 and Playoffs will go on sale on June 29 at 10:00 AM PT.

NA LCS Summer Finals

What are the NA LCS Summer Finals?

The NA LCS Summer Finals weekend concludes our Summer Playoffs where the championship title and a spot at Worlds 2017 is on the line. We usually take Finals weekend on the road (not our NA LCS studio).

As with previous Finals weekends, the battle begins with 3rd place on Saturday then, we’ll transition to the championship battle on Sunday.

Where will NA LCS Summer Finals be? When will it be announced?

Stay tuned to Lolesports - we’ll confirm the NA LCS Summer Finals location before the start of the Summer Split.

Fantasy

What about Fantasy? When will it start?

As we mentioned at the start of the year, FantasyLCS will return for Summer Split. You can expect drafts to go live soon after rosters lock on May 24. The Fantasy Team will share the specifics around the launch and details for the upcoming split after MSI 2017.

If you have a question that wasn’t answered here about the offseason or the upcoming split, comment below. We’ll also be hanging out on the Boards, Twitter, and reddit to answer questions.

Bear Schmiedicker, yes, Bear is his real name, is one of the NA LCS Leads. Besides leading the NA LCS team, he works with a group that is focused on pro player career/personal development. He previously led and grew the NA Player Support team at Riot and has had a long history and passion for Esports. When he isn’t on the Rift or the NA LCS studio, he’s chasing around two corgis (Appa and Korra). On Twitter, he’s just @bearfromspace.

19 Comments

Miror BMay 4, 20172 votes

Will definitely be interesting to see what happens with the rosters, as apparently NV dropped ninja and according to an article I read TL is apparently looking at two or three "potential" candidates for both mid and AD (with the idea that piglet would take the other spot). Also should be interesting to see how TSM fares, as MSI is probably going to raise everyone's expectations of what is essentially the 2nd-best team in NA right now.

PracticallyBronzMay 4, 20172 votes

I think you mean the best team in NA.

Miror BMay 4, 20172 votes

They barely won a 5-game series against C9, and only won against Gigabyte Marines because they threw massive leads in two games. Even though the history books say they're #1, much like TL's relegation-avoidance I'm under the impression it should have a giant asterisk beside it similar to what people want to happen with Barry Bonds' potential MLB HOF thing.

Luxana CrowngardMay 4, 20172 votes

So TSM's opponents were strong. They came out on top. C9 and TSM both make mistakes and quite frankly C9 is more known to make drastic mistakes. Saying TSM is the 2nd best is actually not far from the truth. However they consistently show up when it's time to shine. They are the number 1 team in NA for that reason. Also with that series against gigabyte Marines. TSM just adapted to them playing Aggressively. Forcing them to make bad calls. TSM ended up on top because GAM didn't want to adjust their play style.

Miror BMay 4, 20172 votes

Yeah, no. To suggest TSM "consistently shows up" is actually quite hilarious, as outside of NA their track record is quite poor and usually consists of "adc always out of position, mid goes even against the stiffer competition, team gets ridiculously lucky when it's time to actually win games". Even against C9 that was kinda the case, as let's not forget that they started Ray (a decent toplaner but by no means their absolute best) instead of Impact for not just game 1 (a TSM win) but for the majority of that series' games.

Also, TSM adapted their playstyle that series? Would really like to see some evidence on that, as not only did the marines have leads for the majority of that series (only losing games 3-4 in which TSM finally figured out that "hey, gragas might be s-tier in this meta), but it also looked as if the marines were just generally better skill-wise compared to them. TSM won the series not because of anything in their control, but because gigabyte marines chose to randomly not close out games 4 and 5 when they had the ability to. The fact this had to happen against a wild-card team (again, a region considered so weak that they have to do the two seperate stages just to qualify for MSI) and that it wasn't a 3-0 should make TSM fans afraid, as the competition isn't exactly going to get easier.

Luxana CrowngardMay 4, 20171 votes

Okay.

1). TSM does show up when it's time to shine. Explain all of their past victories in finals. TSM is a team to beat in NA yes. But every team in North America knows that to beat TSM you have to give it your all. You need to outplay TSM whom from what the split has told me, Is pretty difficult to do. You have to take control of the map from TSM whom have a good orientation for doing so.

2). TSM will punish your mistakes and turn them into objectives. As seen in Game 3 vs Gigabyte Marines. They say them overstaying to try to end the game, It costed them the entire game. In the recent Final of C9 vs TSM , C9 could have beaten TSM and taken that spot for the MSI tournament. However, Jensen made the poor decision to be out of position on his Ekko. Get nailed and railed with CC and then instantly popped turning it into a 3 for 0 team fight in the late game on top of a major objective that was turned into a game winning push.

3). TSM can adapt their playstyle. you can see this in the GAM vs TSM series. The first 2 games were GAM destroying TSM yes. Major upset. But GAM kept up their playstyle as they were, Causing them to be more predictable. Causing them to play into TSMs hands come Game 4 and 5. After TSM figured out their playstyle they've proceeded to force bad decisions out of them.

But hey you're probably just going to disregard this whole thing because hey its a TSM Fan. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe watch some VODs once in a while and you'll understand and learn why TSM is actually top.

Oh and another thing. Sure WildTurtle isn't the best player in the LCS, that's been proven on multiple occasions. But with Biofrost as well as Hauntser, Bjergsen can loosen the Reigns just a bit to not be the only carry TSM has. Biofrost is a good player and can carry a teamfight with his Karma and Lulu plays. Bjergsen is Bjergsen, Hauntser is widely considered to be up there with Korean Top laners. And as you may or may not know, They are the top of the food chain, the ones to beat, the ones to be playing every game to make it competition. Now everyone in the LCS is a damn good player at that. You have to do many things to get there. But for some the competition isn't enough. Hauntser is one of those players.

Sven is also a major team player as he can shine when it's needed. He Lee Sin plays are imacculate, His Ivern is freaking amazing.

But hey again, probably just going to disregard this whole thing.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Miror BMay 4, 20171 votes

Going to just ignore the majority of your post as it's looking at them regionally and not internationally (international events being the bigger focus, as noone really "cares" if you're good at defeating your own region's teams, cough g2 cough).

Look at their past international events, and it isn't exactly good. They went 3-3 at the 2016 worlds (in a group featuring the 3rd-seeded korean team, an RNG team that heavily underperformed with the talent they had, and splyce), lost to UOL at IEM oakland (in which they basically lost to what was statistically the 4th-best EU team at the time), and if you even want to go back to 2015 they had that 1-5 worlds group stage in which they couldn't even finish higher than LGD (a team that has gone on to basically become the LPL's origen). Looking at MSI, how can you try and defend what happened in that bo5? They lost the first two games to a wild-card team (again, a team coming from a region in which the average player salary is less than 1/10th of what they're paying bjerg/doublelift), had 4 games in which they were down massively to said wildcard team (again, salary), and only made it out because GAM decided to get a bit too "fancy" closing their games. I also did watch the entire series, and even the casters themselves were saying that the marines "lost the game more than TSM won it". If we want to take TSM (and more importantly, NA teams as a whole) more seriously, they can't be pulling out reverse sweeps against far inferior opponents. Much like what flash wolves did (and what other regions probably will do), they should be going 3-0 and dominating from start to finish, even if it's against a hyper-aggressive and again, what should be an inferior team to them.

PracticallyBronzMay 4, 20171 votes

Doesn't matter outside of NA. They are the best team in NA - proven they won this year's finals.

Miror BMay 5, 20171 votes

Actually it kinda does. If I were to declare myself the "smartest person in my own state", but have an IQ of 50, I'd still be considered an idiot compared to the rest of society. TSM finishing high in NA might seem good, but if the region itself has had all of 3 "high-quality" teams over the past 2+ years (C9, 2016 IMT, and "technically" TSM if you look at them regionally and not internationally) then it sorta makes you think that the region itself is pretty weak.

Luxana CrowngardMay 5, 20172 votes

I believe in you fam. TSM is the best team in NA that doesn't mean that they are the best world.

BigBellBruteMay 4, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=EzreaI x Lux,realm=NA,application-id=9hBQwnEU,discussion-id=IEE57av7,comment-id=000200000000000000000000,timestamp=2017-05-04T21:01:35.809+0000)

Okay.

1). TSM does show up when it's time to shine.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Pssssst. When you're at world championships, it's time to shine.

And they didn't exactly shine yesterday at MSI either. We'll see how it goes the rest of the way.

Luxana CrowngardMay 5, 20172 votes

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Meh can't all be perfect but we'll see.

nrj6490May 4, 20172 votes

I was rooting for NA, but in that series it wasn't just that GAM was unusually strong, TSM looked really bad.

sinZsoulMay 5, 20171 votes

Who would you say is the best team in NA then? Would you really say C9 after they threw 2 games away against TSM? And also threw away a baron lead in game 5 too? P1 after they go completely destroyed by both TSM and C9 in the last weeks of the split and then again in semis by C9? I don't think you could even begin to make an acceptable argument for the other teams in NA. Therefore I would like to hear your reasoning behind why another team is #1 right now.

o SLY oMay 5, 20171 votes

From what I read so far, TSM is not NA #1 team because they do not perform internationally ... I am so confuse!!! Or maybe it's not me that is confuse???

Miror BMay 5, 20171 votes

If we're looking at which team is more complete/which team "should" be going against the international competition, then I fail to see why C9 shouldn't be. World champion top-laner (assuming they don't start ray like they did for the majority of that series), a by far better jg (I implore you to try and make any sort of case of sven being better/having more upside than contractz), midlane that is basically even, and a botlane that has shown far more consistency than turtle/bio. Although TSM technically won the C9 series, much like the gigabyte marines series it was by no means "clean" and had them surrendering massive leads to what (assuming people are under the belief that C9 is worse than them) "weaker" opposition. C9 might be a bit weaker regionally, but internationally I'd take them any day over patchwork-TSM.