Clash Beta launches in North America

On April 9, team creation opens in-client (check the new Competitive tab!) to test Clash - League’s new competitive mode for premade teams. We’re going to run this technical beta in North America over the next few days, and we need your feedback.

Here’s the schedule:

* There are two “flights” for Friday’s games. Pick the start time that suits your team! You can only participate in one flight on Day 1.

You can find the most important stuff to know about the beta test in the video above, and a full FAQ about how a Clash tournament actually works below.

See you on the Rift!

Thanks for your interest in testing out Clash before a worldwide release! So far, we’ve run beta tests in Vietnam, EUW, EUNE and Turkey, and gotten a lot of great feedback from those communities. Now in North America, Clash is reaching a more final state (but we’re not quite there yet).

You can still expect some jankiness, some bugs, and unfinished UI elements, so please let us know what you like, and what feels bad. We’re still actively tracking a bug where players don’t make it to champ select, but the rest of their team does. If you experience this, we’d really like to hear from you in particular! We’ll send out a survey after the test too, so make sure you have a valid email attached to your account.

We’re setting up a Discord server for the duration of the week. You’ll be able to give us feedback, report bugs, and find potential teammates. We can’t promise we’ll respond to everything, but we’ll read it all for sure. Join the server now at http://discord.gg/league-clash-beta-na!

The Clash Beta is a weekend of tournament play for players of all skill levels, taking place between Friday, April 13 and Sunday, April 15.

When you enter, your team will start in a 4-team bracket with players of your skill level. If you win both matches, you will be promoted into an 8-team bracket with all the other winners, held the following day. Coming out on top here will put you into a 16-team bracket for a shot at taking home the top prizes on the last day.

You can start your Clash journey in a 4-team bracket on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, but only teams that enter on Friday and play each day can win the entire tournament. If your team is eliminated, you’ll receive your rewards and drop out, but you can re-enter the next day (with a new ticket) to play in a new bracket with its own rewards.

On each day, there’s also a consolation (lower) bracket so teams who lose the first match can continue playing. Those teams won’t progress to the next day’s play, but they’ll face off against other teams that lost in the first match to earn more/better prizes.

To participate, every member of your team will need to lock in, during a 30 minute window before the first match begins. If any members of your team do not lock in, your team won’t enter into the tournament.

You are guaranteed to play a minimum of two matches each time you enter.

If you’d like to read the ins-and-outs about the format of Clash, check out the support article.

To join or create a Clash team, you need to have:

• Reached level 30
• Completed placements in at least one Summoner’s Rift ranked queue
• Attained at least Honor level 2
• Verified your League account by SMS (this is a new Clash-specific feature)

Each team has a captain who is responsible for adding or removing members, and setting up their team for Clash. Captains can start inviting their squad from Monday April 9, and in the Team screen, they’ll pick a team logo, tag and name to represent their team for the weekend.

Clash has a unique Tier matchmaking system, meaning you’ll always face teams that are around your skill level. There aren’t any restrictions on rank within your team, but if you group up as four bronzies and one diamond, prepare for the big leagues. You can read about how it works here.

When you enter into a bracket, you will compete with your team for the whole weekend, win, lose or re-entry, so make your best squad!

There is a substitute system in Clash, but you can only substitute one player per day, and they are only with your team for that day’s play. You can read more about substitutes here.

When signing up for Clash, we need you to register your account to a cell phone number through the SMS Verification process. By tying your account to a cell phone number, there’s an extra layer of difficulty for players who might want to bring their smurfs to a Clash tournament. This is one of a few ways we’re trying to keep matchmaking fair for everyone. You’ll only need to go through this process one time, and after that point your account will be linked to that cell phone number.

The SMS verification process is basically:

1. You open the SMS Verification dialogue Clash in the Competitive tab of the client or through Settings.
2. You’ll be prompted to enter your account password, just so we can make sure it’s really you attaching this phone number.
3. We’ll ask you to enter your Country Code, followed by your ten digit phone number. The country code for the US and America’s BFF, Canada is “1,” and you can find codes for other countries HERE.
4. We’ll send a text message to your phone with a secret code - enter that, and your account is now SMS verified. If you try the Konami code, nothing happens. Womp-womp.

For more info on SMS verification and smurfing check out the support article.

Before the match begins, you’ll encounter several features that should help you figure out the best strategy to claim victory. First up is the scouting page, where you can check out stats and info about your opponents to help your pick/ban strategy.

Next up, in champ select, you’ll be using the draft format you may have seen from the LCS - two ban phases, and two pick phases. Don’t get caught off guard!

Oh, and all champions are unlocked in Clash, so don’t worry about figuring out that complicated three-person trade from solo queue.

Clash also features a “sudden death” mode to keep matches at a fixed length. Read more about it over here.

To keep Clash a high-stakes tournament, you’ll need a ticket to enter. You can get tickets a few ways: They’re available in the store for 990 BE or 215 RP, and you can also earn one from completing a mission this week (by winning four games of Ranked Flex).

You can choose 1 ticket or 5 tickets each time you enter. The overall Clash experience is the same, but with 5 tickets you’ll earn much better prizes. Ticket purchases with BE are limited to three this week (so you can still enter every day if you lose out). You can find more of a breakdown of tickets here.

In the future, we’ll likely be changing the way you can earn or purchase tickets based on your feedback, so stay tuned.

Rewards in Clash come in three main forms: Victory Points, capsules and icons.

Every time you win, you’ll earn Victory Points which are used to unlock Banners, a new item which shows up on Summoner’s Rift! Find out more about Banners and Victory Points here.

Win or lose, you’re always going to take home a Clash Capsule. In each capsule, you’ll find an XP boost and a new logo for your next Clash team, as well as rewards that scale based on your performance and however many tickets you entered with. If you’d like to know roughly what you can expect out of every capsule, check out our handy Capsule Guide.

Finally, winning a (winner’s) bracket will net you an exclusive Clash Beta summoner icon:

Give us feedback in the Discord channel and we’ll try to be available to answer your questions. Start getting your team together and we hope to see you in the NA beta from April 9 to 15!