The LEC (League of Legends EMEA Championship) is one of LoL esports biggest competitive circuits. Popular with both fans of the game and betting fans, it draws a huge audience every year. It’s on par with other competitive circuits like the LCS, LCK and LPL, and makes up a significant part of the professional League of Legends scene.
European teams are considered contenders for the LoL Worlds trophy for four years straight.
LEC is short of League of Legends European Championship. As the name indicates, it’s the name of the pro esports LoL league quartered in Europe. Run by Riot, ten teams compete in each annual season. The league is fully franchised, with the ten teams holding permanent slots each season.
LEC teams travel from all over the European continent in order to take part and duel it out for LEC crown and a trip to Mid-Season Invitational and the League of Legends World Championship. The league is traditionally sponsored by some pretty big brands like Kia, KitKat, Acer, Coca-Cola, and even American Express.
The LEC is traditionally hosted at the Berlin Riot Games studio.
As of 2024, 10 teams are active in the League of Legends European Championship:
Since 2023, the League of Legends European Championship is made up of three yearly Splits (Winter, Spring, and Summer). Earlier, splits were divided into a Regular Season and a Playoffs stage. Traditionally, the regular season used to last for nine weeks, although adjustments have been made on occasion to accommodate unexpected events like the COVID-19 crisis.
Now, the Regular Season features 10 teams competing in a single round-robin best-of-1 format. The top eight will participate in the playoffs stage which features a double-elimination bracket.
To better understand the LEC format in 2024, see the video below:
The first two rounds of playoffs will have best-of-three matches while all others will have a best-of-five format. Just like in 2023, the winner of the Winter Split will get an invite to the Mid-Season Invitational as the second seed while Spring champions will represent EU as the first seed.
Changes, however, are being made for the Summer Split. According to the new format, the Summer Split champions are guaranteed at least the lowest seed at Worlds while the other spots will be taken based on standings at the Season Finals.
The LEC Season Finals participants are the three single split champions, as well as the three teams with the highest amount of championship points (CPs) earned over the year. CPs are granted to teams based on the standings in each split.
According to the new global competitive rules, a fourth slot can be assigned to the LEC if they are the best or second-best region at MSI. Otherwise, the region will just get three seeds.
The best place to watch the LEC is the official League of Legends channels on either Twitch or YouTube. Twitch is the more popular option, and viewership numbers regularly exceed the 200k mark there, with finals peaking much higher.
Riot Games’ introduced a new broadcast schedule in 2023 and the LEC will maintain that going into 2024. As a result, LEC will take place on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, with Friday being removed during the regular season. That said, for the Split playoffs, some games will also take place on Friday. LEC’s Summer Split will officially start on June 8, with the Playoffs beginning on July 12. The LEC Season Finals will culminate in the final on September 1.
We provide weekly predictions for various leagues including the LEC in our LoL News section. Individual matches as well as mock slips can be found there for your convenience. For the entire season, we can outline several picks that should guide your main betting practices.
- G2 Esports and Fnatic are the main favorite to win the Summer Split. They have been the best performing teams so far in 2024.
- There will be a tight mid-pack battle, with many teams having good potential of qualfiying for playoffs and the third spot at Worlds.
- Karmine Corp and Rogue are not expected to make it to Worlds due to the lack of championship points.
The LEC was first launched in Spring of 2013 and has had a Summer and Spring split every year since then. Up until 2019, the LEC was part of the dual League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) brand shared between North America and Europe. Start with 2019, the European series was re-branded into the LEC, while their North American colleagues retained the LCS brand.
Each year in the LEC has two champions one for the Spring Split and one for Summer Split. Most LEC trophies have been won by either Fnatic or G2 Esports. There was only one occasion when EU had a different champion. Team Alliance won the 2014 Summer Split, marking the only instance where G2 Esports or Fnatic were not champions in Europe.
Only Fnatic has been part of every Split since the beginning in 2013 – the other teams are more recent.
Since the beginning of the franchising era, more LEC teams have been on the rise to dethrone G2 and Fnatic. Teams like MAD Lions, Rogue and even Misfits Gaming were able to beat them and finish above them in the standings. In particular, Rogue was able to win first in the Summer regular split both in 2020 and 2021. Despite not winning the Splits in the playoffs, they became one of the more recognized teams in the LEC thanks to their consistency.
On the other hand, MAD Lions was regarded as the most successful team in 2021. Despite finishing 3rd in both regular splits, the Spanish organization really stepped it up when it mattered, as they won back-to-back LEC titles. They became the third team to achieve such a milestone, after Fnatic and G2.
The LEC is progressively increasing its competition, as more and more teams are becoming stronger. In 2022, Vitality created a very strong roster, with superstar players like Alphari and Perkz. From 6th in Summer of last year, Vitality is looking to become immediately a top-tier team that will fight for the top. As a result, the LEC will have a very top-heavy standings, with all these teams having the potential to win the title.
The new LEC format proved to be a lot more exciting than previous years, and the overall competitive level is a lot closer. We have seen teams like SK Gaming, Astralis, and Team BDS fighting in the top half of the standings for different periods of time, and no team looked dominant throughout the season so far. G2 and MAD Lions proved they were stronger when it mattered the most, but even they had some weird moments here and there. While that is good for the viewers, this level of volatility is not great for international performances: at MSI, G2 was the only one that could fight it off with some of the eastern teams, but even they quickly fell at the hands of BLG.
In Summer, G2 continued to be the front-runners of the league, qualifying for Worlds 2023 Main event as the first seed alongside MAD Lions, Fnatic, and Team BDS, who had to through the Worlds Qualifying Series and the play-in stage.
In 2024, G2 picked up where they left, winning both splits and finishing in the top four at the Mid-Season Invitational.
© LEC
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