2015 LCS Season: NA and EU Expansion Tournament Details

TL;DR:

• The Expansion Tournament will take place from November 15 - December 21, featuring 13 teams drawn from the Promotion Tournament, Challenger Series playoffs, and Ranked 5s ladder. The top two teams to emerge from the tournament in NA and EU will secure an LCS spot in their region.
• The ladder lock date for Ranked 5s teams entering the Expansion Tournament will be at 11:59 AM PST on November 2nd, 2014 for NA and 23:59 CEST on November 9th, 2014 for EU.
• Both the NA and EU tournaments will feature two rounds of online competition, followed by an additional three rounds of competition which will be broadcast live from ESL’s studios in Burbank for the NA Expansion games and in Cologne for the EU Expansion games.
• To prioritize in-game competition over acquisition gamesmanship, owners with a stake in one or more teams already playing in the Expansion Tournament are restricted from obtaining a stake in another Expansion Tournament team without divesting their previous stakes.
• Players who played in the most recent split for a professional team that compete in the Expansion Team and gain entry into the LCS cannot be acquired by another LCS organization until the completion of the 4th regular season week in their respective regions.

Today we’d like to share some specifics about the upcoming Expansion Tournament, particularly the dates, format, and participants. Last month we announced that the NA and EU LCS would be expanding from 8 to 10 teams and that we would be holding a one-time Expansion Tournament to determine the final two teams to make it into the 2015 LCS Spring Split for each region. In addition to expanding the number of teams in the tournament, we have also decided to decrease the number of regular season games as well as extend the length of time over which the playoffs are played. We believe that these decisions will significantly level up the LCS in a number of ways. First and foremost, expansion will increase team matchup diversity during the regular season and decrease the number of regular season rematches. This creates more interesting matchup possibilities and increases the importance of individual games. Furthermore, increasing the number of teams in the league will give us the flexibility to grant all playoff teams immunity from relegation, increasing the importance of playoffs while also rewarding regular season consistency. Shortening the regular season will also allow us to extend playoffs from a mere 1-2 weeks to a full 3 weeks. We want to give fans plenty of time to enjoy the most high-stakes games of the LCS split. While there are many impressive teams which could bolster the strength of the LCS if they made it in, we believe that a spot into the LCS must be earned and not given. We are therefore holding the Expansion Tournament to offer each team the opportunity to seize one of the two spots currently up for grabs in the NA and EU LCS. We are confident that this LCS split will be the most exciting, action-packed one yet.

QUALIFYING TEAMS

The Expansion Tournament will feature 13 teams drawn from the Promotion Tournament, Challenger Series Playoffs, and Ranked 5s ladder. Teams will auto-qualify from the Promotion Tournament and Challenger Series tournaments into the Expansion Tournament because these teams have proven themselves to be the closest to being LCS-ready in their region. We want to reward teams who have previously made their way into the Challenger Series playoffs and Promotion Tournament. That said, up-and-coming teams will once again have the chance to secure a spot in the next split, as 7 of the 13 spots in the tournament will be drawn from the Ranked 5s ladder. The top 7 Ranked 5s teams in North America and top 4 Ranked 5s teams in EUW and EUNE will be invited to compete in the Expansion Tournament. The one difference between the qualification process for the NA and EU Expansion Tournaments will be that since there will be 8 total teams drawn from the two EU Ranked 5s ladders, there will be one more off-broadcast match in EU between the #4 teams from the EUW and EUNE Ranked 5s ladder for the final EU Ranked 5s slot. The 13 participants in the Expansion Tournament will be:

• Promotion Tournament (3 teams)
• 3 losing teams from the Promotion Tournament
• Challenger Series Playoffs (3 teams)
• Loser of 3rd place Challenger Series playoff match
• Loser of Challenger Series Quarterfinals (higher seed)
• Loser of Challenger Series Quarterfinals (lower seed)
• Ranked 5s Ladder (7 teams)
• NA: Top 7 Ranked 5s teams
• EU: Top 4 EUW Ranked 5s teams and Top 4 EUNE Ranked 5s teams
• The EUW #4 and EUNE #4 Ranked 5s teams will play an off-broadcast preliminary match to determine who gets the final seed into the EU Expansion Tournament
• The ladder lock date for consideration for entry into the Expansion Tournament will be November 2nd, 2014 for NA and November 9th, 2014 for EU.

Based on the qualifications above, the six teams that have pre-qualified for the Expansion Tournament in North America are: Team Coast, compLexity Gaming, Curse Academy, Denial eSports, Team LoLPro, and XDG Gaming. Europe’s six pre-qualifying teams are: Gamers 2, H2k-Gaming, Millenium, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Reason Gaming, and SK Gaming Prime. Any team which is ineligible to compete or declines its invitation to the tournament will be replaced by the highest-placed team on the Ranked 5s ladder that has not already been invited to the Expansion Tournament.

FORMAT

Both the NA and EU tournaments will feature two rounds of online competition, followed by an additional three rounds of competition which will be broadcast live from ESL’s studios in Burbank for the NA Expansion games and in Cologne for the EU Expansion games. We believe that a 13-team bracket with first-round byes for the Promotion Tournament pre-qualifying teams offers a strong but manageable competitive field, particularly since only two LCS spots are up for grabs in each region. Inviting significantly more teams would begin to dilute the field, while inviting fewer would make it too difficult for up-and-coming teams to get their shot at a spot in the LCS by qualifying through the Ranked 5s ladder. We want to ensure that the live portion of the Expansion Tournament offers great games for spectators, so we’re waiting until the talent pool in the Expansion Tournament has distilled to a point where only the top four teams remain. Since there is no group stage, the four teams which emerge from the first two online rounds can’t be seeded. Trying to put them into a single elimination bracket anyway would be unfair, as some teams may have lucked into a relatively easy path through the online rounds. A modified double-elimination tournament (the modification being that there is no Grand Finals since the two LCS spots can simply be given to the victors of the Semifinals and Loser’s Finals) offers a more fair way of identifying the best two teams left in the field. The first round will consist of a single-elimination bracket pitting the ten seeded qualifying teams against one another in best-of-three series. The pre-qualifying teams of the Promotion Tournament will all receive a first round bye. The second round will consist of four single-elimination best-of-threes between the five teams who advanced from Round 1 and the pre-qualifying teams from the Promotion Tournament. The four teams that advance through the second round will travel to the ESL studios to play live in a modified double elimination bracket spanning three more rounds. The final three rounds will consist of a modified four team double-elimination bracket. The prevailing teams in the Semifinals and Loser’s Finals will each directly earn a spot in the new 10-team LCS.

SCHEDULE

The Expansion Tournament will span from November 15 to December 21. All of the Live Expansion games will be broadcasted live from the ESL studios in Burbank for the NA Expansion games, and in Cologne for the EU Expansion games. November 15-16: NA Expansion (Round 1) November 22-23: NA Expansion (Round 2), EU Expansion (Round 1) November 29-30: EU Expansion (Round 2) December 12-14: NA Live Expansion December 18-21: EU Live Expansion

ACQUISITION RESTRICTIONS

The Expansion Tournament is in many ways a unique tournament, distinct from the Promotion Tournament and Challenger Series. Differences include the fact that amateur teams from the Ranked 5s ladder have a direct shot at a spot in the LCS without having to go through the Challenger Series, and that Challenger Series teams can conceivably win a spot into the LCS only by playing other Challenger Series teams or amateur Ranked 5s teams. Neither of these scenarios was possible this past split. In consideration of these unique circumstances, we’re putting some specific acquisition restrictions into place for this tournament: No individual, organization, or legal entity with a stake in one or more teams playing in the Expansion Tournament may obtain an ownership stake in another Expansion Tournament team without divesting their previous stake(s). While owners currently have the option to own up to two Challenger Series teams and unlimited amateur Ranked 5s teams, we feel that the Expansion Tournament is distinguishable from the Challenger Series and Promotion Tournament. In this case, owners can buy teams that might play each other further up in a bracket that directly ends in an LCS spot, which creates a structural advantage within the bracket. That is a scenario that we specifically disallow in the Promotion Tournament (an owner may not have a stake in an LCS team and the Challenger team facing it in the Promotion Tournament). In contrast, buying a stake in two Challenger teams that have qualified for the Promotion Tournament is different from doing so in the Expansion Tournament. Challenger Teams don't play one another in the Promotion Tournament, only other LCS teams. Similarly, buying two teams in the Challenger Series playoffs would not guarantee a spot in the LCS because those two teams would still have to face non-Challenger Series teams in the Promotion Tournament. As a result, buying a stake in two Challenger teams wouldn’t necessarily guarantee an advantage in progressing through the Promotion Tournament bracket, whereas buying a stake in two Challenger or Ranked 5s Teams who are slated to face each other in the Expansion Tournament bracket very much could. Individuals and organizations who currently own a stake in more than one team competing in the Expansion Tournament will not be required to divest their stakes ahead of the tournament - it’s important to us that this restriction doesn’t penalize owners who acquired stakes in teams before the Expansion Tournament was even announced. That said, even those owners will be precluded from acquiring a team in the Expansion Tournament without divesting all of their other stakes in teams competing in the Expansion Tournament. We are aiming to promote great games with the Expansion Tournament, not gamesmanship with acquisitions.

OWNERSHIP AND PLAYER MOVEMENT

For the purposes of the Expansion Tournament, the ownership status of a pre-qualifying spot in the tournament depends on the team in question. For teams relegated from the most recent LCS split, their spot in the Expansion Tournament belongs to the organization. For all other teams, their spot belongs to the players. Regardless of whether the spot in the tournament is owned by the team or the players, any pre-qualifying team will still need to field at least 3 of the 5 players that they used to pre-qualify into the tournament in order to accept their invitation to the tournament. If a pre-qualifying team cannot meet that requirement, they are deemed ineligible to accept the pre-qualifying spot but can still qualify for the tournament through the Ranked 5s ladder. Our intent is to remain consistent with our current policies. We don’t want to force Challenger teams into team agreements before they have played their first game in the LCS, nor do we want want to force former LCS teams to forfeit their spot. Also, in the interest of discouraging professional players from acting as “ringers” by joining a team competing in the Expansion Tournament simply to help them win a spot into the LCS in the Expansion Tournament before leaving for a different professional team after their run is complete, the following rule is in effect for the Expansion Tournament:

"If a player that played in the most recent split for a professional team (where 'Professional' is defined as a team competing in the highest division or tier of the NA LCS, EU LCS, Garena Premier League, OGN Champions, or Tencent League of Legends Pro League) then plays in the Expansion Tournament and successfully gains entry into the LCS, that player cannot be acquired by another LCS organization until after the completion of the 4th regular season week in their respective regions. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes if the player leaves the organization under his own volition, if the organization terminates the relationship between the player and the organization, or if the organization attempts to trade the player."

TUNE IN

Broadcast coverage of the Expansion Tournament begins November 15, tune into lolesports.com to not miss out any of the action!