After an incredible 2022 season for League of Legends esports, there has been uncertainty leading into 2023 in both how international events will be run going forward and also how individual leagues will format their seasons.
In a report published by Alejandro Gomis at Blix.gg, it appears that Europe’s top league, the League EMEA Championship — or LEC for short — is not only changing its entire format but also the days it plays its matches. In 2023, the LEC will be moving to three days of matches a week and will be running on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. These changes are set to go live when the season kicks off in January.
2023 LEC format
In years past, the LEC has played their games only two days a week, primarily on Saturdays and Sundays with the occasional Friday when the league holds their “Superweeks.” With the change to this new schedule, it seems that the LEC will have these Superweeks every week but instead of starting on Friday and ending on Sunday, each week will extend past the weekend into Monday.
This new schedule is part of a bigger change to the European League of Legends ecosystem as the LEC is not only changing the days they play but also the way they qualify teams for higher competition. In 2023, the LEC will have three smaller splits instead of the two larger splits that are commonly seen throughout the world and historically in the LEC itself. This outside-the-box change is aimed at having more important games in the same time span as the regular season tends to not matter as much, especially in the Spring splits.
The 2023 LEC Winter Split will kick off these new changes with a best-of-one round-robin format meaning every team in the 10-team league will play each other once with the top teams eight teams moving onto a double-elimination group stage which will then funnel into a four-team single elimination bracket to decide who will be each splits champion. Winning a split championship grants an automatic spot at the LEC season finals which will determine which teams from the region will represent the LEC at Worlds 2023.
