- Riot Games has listed some of the major changes coming to the European Regional Leagues
- Starting 2022, leagues will be separated into accredited and non-accredited categories
- Other than that, various changes will affect tournaments, broadcasts and team
Riot Games has provided a peek at the changes coming to the League of Legends European Regional Leagues in 2022.
Accredited and Non-Accredited Leagues
Riot Games has revealed its plans about the next year’s editions of the League of Legends European Regional Leagues. As the game company is aiming to create a robust and highly organized professional ecosystem, there will be some major changes.
League of Legends Europe’s head of esports, Maximillian Peter Schmidt revealed more details about Riot’s plans for the regional leagues. As the company announced earlier this year, starting 2022, leagues will be separated into two classifications – accredited and non-accredited leagues. The accredited leagues will enjoy a plethora of benefits from Riot but will also have more responsibilities, while non-accredited leagues will have a higher degree of freedom but cannot hope to receive the same aid.
In the blog post, Schmidt listed all of the accredited and non-accredited leagues.
The accredited include the following:
- Superliga (LVP) – Spain
- La Ligue Française (Webedia) – France
- Prime League (Freaks 4U Gaming) – Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
- Ultraliga (Frenzy) – Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia
- Northern League of Legends Championship (Freaks 4U Gaming) – Northern Europe (UK, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland)
In turn, the non-accredited leagues are listed below:
- PG Nationals (PG Esports) – Italy
- Esports Balkan League (Fortuna Esports) – Balkans
- Greek Legends League (PVP Media) – Greece
- Elite Series: League of Legends (META) – Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg
- Hitpoint Masters (Hitpoint) – Czech Republic, Slovakia
- Liga Portuguesa de League of Legends (Inygon) – Portugal
The Future of Competitive League of Legends
One of the first changes Riot will do is to avoid the unwanted overlaps between various regional leagues. Because of that, the company will standardize the schedule starting in 2022.
Here are the formats for 2022’s accredited leagues:
1st Division
- 10 teams
- Regular season: Double round-robin with a best-of-one format
- Playoffs: six-team double-elimination format
2nd division
- 10 teams
- Regular Season: Double round-robin with a best-of-one format
- Playoffs: Four-team knockout stage
- First division promotion: Top two from the second division will face the bottom two teams from the first division
And here are the formats for the non-accredited leagues:
1st division
- Eight teams
- Regular Season: Double round-robin with a best-of-one format
- Playoffs: Four-team knockout stage
2nddivision or qualifier tournament
- Format details may vary per region
Riot also announced that all ERLs will host pro-amateur tournaments starting next year. They will take place in the autumn each year. The company will release more news for those events in the future.
Riot will take a look at academy teams and will work to prevent an academy team from facing the organization’s mainline team in a game.
Riot Games said it is working with ERL partners more closely than ever and will be reworking the flow of broadcasts a bit. The company is planning to “bring sponsors directly to Summoner’s Rift in the form of banners”, without sacrificing the game’s flair. The company will also provide more direct tech support to the Tournament Realm and will allow RLSs to use the API more in their tournaments. However, Riot will still encourage tournament organizers to “bring their own flavor and tone”.
The company continued by mentioning that it will set basic rights and obligations that are standardized for players, teams, and organizers. Riot said it has “overhauled many of its rules and regulations material with the goal of setting unified standards across the ecosystem”.
