Format, Teams, Schedule and everything else

The 2025 League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) is about to kick off, promising new teams, rosters, and exciting changes on Summoner’s Rift.

Before the start of the 2025 LEC Winter Split, let’s delve into the major alterations that have taken place, both inside and outside the game, leading up to the season’s inauguration on January 18th.

The most significant in-game modification that will impact all competitive League of Legends leagues is the debut of a new monster named Atakhan. Introduced for the upcoming season, Atakhan comes in two forms, depending on the number of kills by the 14th minute.

Additionally, a new early-game reward system offers enhanced boots to the team securing two out of three objectives: first blood, first tower, or first monster. Furthermore, the jungle layout has been reworked for improved symmetry.

Regarding the format, the LEC will maintain three splits in 2025 (Winter, Spring, and Summer), each featuring a unique format.

The LEC Winter Split closely resembles the previous iteration from last year, consisting of a 10-team best-of-one (BO1) round-robin group stage leading to a double-elimination playoff bracket after three weeks.

A notable addition to the Winter Split is the introduction of Fearless Draft, a system that prohibits players from selecting champions previously used in their series. This means that in a best-of-five (BO5) series’ final game, no champion from the previous games can be picked, resulting in a total of 50 champions being banned (40 Fearless Bans and 10 traditional bans).

The initial three weeks of the LEC Winter Split will exclude Fearless Draft. During this period, all 10 LEC teams will compete in BO1s to determine playoff seeding, with the bottom two teams being eliminated.

Following this, the remaining eight teams will engage in a double-elimination bracket with BO3s and BO5s to determine the champion of the 2025 LEC Winter Split. The victor will move on to represent EMEA at Riot Games’ new international event, First Stand in South Korea, where Fearless Draft will also be in effect.

Being a franchised league, the LEC experiences minimal team changes, but this year has seen a name alteration with MAD Lions KOI becoming Movistar KOI due to the acquisition of KOI and Movistar Riders by MAD Lions’ parent company, OverActive Media.

Following the LEC’s performance at Worlds 2024, significant roster changes have been made across the board, with no team retaining the same roster from the previous Summer split.

Fnatic revamped its bot lane by replacing Oh ‘Noah’ Hyeon-taek with the returning Elias ‘Upset’ Lipp and introducing Mihael ‘Mikyx’ Mehle as the new Support. G2 Esports brought in Rudy ‘SkewMond’ Semaan as the Jungler and Labros ‘Labrov’ Papoutsakis as the Support.

GIANTX and Team Heretics made multiple changes, while Karmine Corp welcomed former G2 Jungler Yike and promoted Caliste ‘Caliste’ Henry-Hennebert. Movistar KOI added Joseph ‘Jojopyun’ Pyun as the first North American player in the LEC.

Rogue retained Emil ‘Larssen’ Larsson as Mid Laner but introduced an entirely new roster around him. SK Gaming, Team BDS, and Team Vitality also made strategic changes to their lineups.

The LEC Winter Split matches will begin at 6pm CET (5pm GMT) on competition days, preceded by a pre-show. The competition will pause for a week after the Group Stages to prepare for the Playoffs starting on February 15th. A Break Week will follow the Playoffs before the commencement of the First Stand event on March 10th.

Week 1: January 18th-20th (Patch 25.S1.1 / 15.1)

Week 2: January 25th-27th (Patch 25.S1.2 / 15.2)

Week 3: February 1st-3rd (Patch 25.S1.2 / 15.2)

Week 4: February 15th-17th (Patch 25.S1.3 / 15.3)

Week 5: February 22nd-24th (Patch 25.S1.3 / 15.3)

Week 6: February 28th-March 2nd (Patch 25.S1.3 / 15.3)