The Pacific League LCP announced the 2025 schedule and competition system: three stages to determine the international competition teams; there are also promotions and relegations!

Live broadcast on January 6th, the Pacific Professional League (LCP) announced the relevant information of the 2025 season, including the start date, subsequent schedule and competition system. The specific announcement is as follows:

The first season of the League of Legends Pacific Professional League (LCP) will kick off in 2025. As the new top League of Legends e-sports event in the Asia-Pacific region, LCP will be the only way for teams in the region to advance to global events, and is committed to bringing the best players and teams to the world stage.

The LCP is more than just a league, it is an important commitment to improving the region's League of Legends esports ecosystem, with an emphasis on diversity and competitive development. In the upcoming 2025 LCP season, the following teams will join together to open a new chapter for Asia Pacific League of Legends esports:

CTBC Flying Oyster (Partner)

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks gaming (Partner)

GAM Esports (Partner)

Talon Esports (Partner)

DetonatioN FocusMe (Guest)

MGN Vikings Esports (Guest)

Team Secret Whales (Guest)

The Chiefs Esports Club (Guest)

In addition to competing for the qualification to participate in international competitions, now is the time for each team to show their strength, passion and competitive spirit, and challenge for the glory of the first LCP champion!

【Season Finals】

As promised in the previous format update, here are the details of the season finals format. This season will be divided into two stages: the regular season and the playoffs. The regular season is divided into two stages.

The first stage is the group stage. The seeding for the season finals will be determined based on the performance in the second season mid-term tournament, but the match records will be reset. Therefore, based on the ranking of the second season mid-term tournament, the eight teams will be divided into two groups: the Challenger Group and the Breakthrough Group. The top four teams will enter the Challenger Group, and the bottom four teams will enter the Breakthrough Group. Then, they will play a single round-robin three-game two-win (BO3) match to determine the preliminary ranking of the next stage of the regular season.

The second stage is the group qualifying. However, there will be a group reshuffle first to ensure the highest level of competition. In the reshuffle, the 4th place of the Challenger Group will play against the 1st place of the Breakthrough Group, and the 3rd place of the Challenger Group will play a single BO3 match with the 2nd place of the Breakthrough Group. The winner of the reshuffle will enter the Challenger Group, and the loser will fall into the Breakthrough Group.

The teams in each group will compete in a double-elimination system. Afterwards, all teams in the Challenger group will advance to the Season Finals Playoffs, and only teams in the Breakthrough group with two wins will advance.

Next, in the playoffs, the remaining 6 teams will play a series of best-of-three (BO3) and best-of-five (BO5) matches in a double-elimination system to compete for the qualification for the World Championship. In the end, the first-place team will become the first LCP champion!

【Promotion and relegation matches】

Now, we will further explain the promotion and relegation matches that will be held after the season finals playoffs. Based on the rankings of the season finals, the promotion and relegation matches will compete for two guest spots:

Free to Play (FFA)

The lowest ranked visiting team in the LCP, regardless of their region, must compete for a Free Athletic Federation (FFA) visiting spot.

They will compete against teams from wildcard regions, as well as teams that qualify from existing regional leagues.

Regional advantages

After the Free Attack (FFA), the second LCP guest team to participate in the promotion and relegation match will compete for the regional advantage quota according to the following priority order:

If there is more than one visiting team from the same region among the remaining visiting teams, the lower ranked visiting team from that region will participate in the promotion and relegation match.

If the remaining guest teams are all from different regions, the second lowest ranked guest team in the LCP, regardless of region, will participate in the promotion and relegation match.

Teams from regional leagues competing for regional advantage places will not participate in the competition for free-for-all (FFA) places.

Please note: visiting teams that successfully qualify for the World Series within the same year will not have to participate in the Promotion and Relegation Tournament (P&R).

The winning team in the LCP Promotion and Relegation Tournament (P&R) will receive a guest spot in the 2026 LCP. The losing team will return to their regional league or wait for the next wildcard match. The format of the promotion and relegation tournament will be announced closer to the tournament.

Live updates on events

We also wanted to share an important update that most future events will be played in the current update. The only exceptions are:

The new version update was released too close to the competition week;

Or a new version of the update is released after the qualifiers or playoffs start.

In these cases, we will continue to use the old version to ensure the competitive integrity of the league.

Season opener schedule

As the first season of the year-round event, the LCP season opening match will determine which teams are eligible to participate in the first international competition of the year, the "First Round Showdown".

The season opener will kick off on Friday, January 17 and will run until Sunday, February 23, with matches starting at the following times on match days: 17:00 GMT+7 // 18:00 GMT+8 // 19:00 GMT+9 // 21:00 GMT+11.