FIRST STAND LEAGUE OF LEGENDS EVENT
Hosted at LoL Park in Seoul, South Korea, First Stand marks the beginning of three international events scheduled for League of Legends in 2025.
As the game’s esports ecosystem takes off this month, more details about First Stand’s format have been unveiled.
First Stand will feature the top teams from League of Legends’ international leagues: LCK (South Korea), LPL (China), LTA (Americas), LEC (EMEA), and LCP (Pacific). These five teams will compete in a best-of-three (BO3) round-robin stage.
The side selection for game one in each series of this stage will be randomly pre-determined to ensure each team has an advantage in two series, according to Riot Games.
After all teams have played each other, the team at the bottom will be eliminated, leading the event into a best-of-five (BO5) knockout stage.
The knockout stage will involve a seeded single-elimination bracket, with the winning team being crowned as the inaugural First Stand champion.
Moreover, the victorious team will secure a second bye for their region at MSI 2025, allowing the region’s second representative to advance directly to the MSI 2025 Bracket Stage.
FEARLESS DRAFT
One of the significant changes to League of Legends’ esports scene is the implementation of Fearless Draft. This new champion pick system will be in use throughout League of Legends’ first split, culminating with First Stand.
Riot Games clarified that Fearless Draft is a system where champions used in previous games of a best-of-series become unavailable for both teams in subsequent games, alongside the standard pick and ban phase at the start of each match.
For instance, after the first game of a BO5 series, the ten champions selected by players in that game will no longer be available for the rest of the series, identified as ‘Fearless Bans’.
Under this new format, if a series goes to a fifth game, there will be a total of 50 champions banned (10 Standard Bans and 40 Fearless Bans).
Riot Games stated that the format is designed to challenge teams to adapt by introducing new strategies and champion picks.