The 2022 LCS season is the fifth year of North America's

League Championship Series The League Championship Series (LCS) is the semifinal round of postseason play in Major League Baseball which has been conducted since 1969. In 1981, and since 1995, the two annual series have matched up the winners of the Division Series, an ...

, a professional esports league for the

MOBA Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of players compete against each other on a predefined battlefield. Each player controls a single character with a set of distinctive abilities that i ...

PC game ''

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by '' Defense of the Ancients'', a custom map for ''Warcraft III'', ...

'', under partnership and the tenth overall. The Lock In tournament began on January 14 and concluded on January 30 with

Team Liquid Team Liquid is a multi-regional professional esports organization based in the Netherlands that was founded in 2000. With the release of '' StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty'', Team Liquid signed their first professional players. In 2012, Team Li ...

defeating

Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses (EG) is an American esports organization based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1999, the organization has fielded players in various fighting games, ''Call of Duty'', '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'', ''Dota 2'', '' Fortn ...

3–0. The spring regular season began on February 5 and will conclude with the Mid-Season Showdown, which will start on April 2 and finish on April 24 at

NRG Stadium NRG Stadium, formerly Reliant Stadium, is a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, Texas, United States. Construction was completed in 2002, at a cost of $352 million and has a seating capacity of 72,220. It was the first NFL facility to have a retrac ...

in Houston, Texas. The summer split began on June 18 and will finish with the Summer Playoffs, which will begin on August 20 and conclude with the Summer Finals.

League changes

On November 16, 2021, Riot announced the official format for the 2022 season, shortly after the conclusion of the

2021 League of Legends World Championship The 2021 ''League of Legends'' World Championship was an esports tournament for the multiplayer online battle arena video game '' League of Legends''. It was the eleventh iteration of the ''League of Legends'' World Championship, an annual i ...

. Returning for the second year was the Lock In, acting as a preseason tournament which does not affect the regular season standings. The winner and runners-up of the Summer Final from the previous season,

100 Thieves 100 Thieves, LLC is an American lifestyle brand and gaming organization based in Los Angeles, California, founded in 2017 by Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag and Dan Gilbert. The organization competes in several video games, including ''Apex Legen ...

and Team Liquid alternately chose from a pool of the remaining 8 teams in the league, as to who would be in their individual groups. Each group would play each opponent in their own group once, in a four-day single Round Robin. The top four teams from each group would then be seeded into an eight-team, single-elimination bracket. The winner of the bracket would receive a cash prize of US$150,000 and be named the 2nd ever Lock In Champion. Additionally, some changes introduced in 2021 were reverted, namely the combination of records from the Spring and Summer Splits to decide seeding for the Summer Playoffs. Once again each Split will consist of an 18-game double round robin, and Spring record will affect the Mid Season Showdown, while success in the Summer Split will be the only factor in seeding for the Summer Playoffs. As 2022 was the tenth anniversary of the League Championship Series, Riot announced a new LCS logo alongside "year-long celebrations planned" for the league.

Broadcasting

The English broadcast is available for live viewing on the LoL Esports website, as well as on

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle co ...

and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

. VOD's are also posted on LoL Esports and on YouTube. A Spanish broadcast was produced by the LCS team

FlyQuest FlyQuest is a professional esports organization based in the United States that was founded on January 6, 2017. It is owned by the Viola family, owners of the Florida Panthers. FlyQuest was originally founded after the acquisition of the ''Lea ...

Lock In

Group stage

; Group A ; Group B *Tiebreakers were based on the head-to-head record

Knockout stage

Spring

Teams and rosters

Regular season

Playoffs

Awards

Notes

References

{{2022 in League of Legends competition 2022 in esports 2022 multiplayer online battle arena tournaments League of Legends Championship Series seasons