The Pacific Championship Series (PCS) is a professional

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

league for ''

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 Mod (video games), custom map for War ...

'' players competing in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

, and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

( excluding Vietnam). Its creation was officially announced by

Riot Games Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop ''League of Legends'' and went on t ...

on 19 December 2019, after

Garena Garena is a Singaporean game developer and publisher of free online games. It is the digital entertainment arm of parent company Sea Ltd, which was formerly named Garena. The company distributes game titles on Garena+ in various countries ac ...

, which ran the ''League of Legends'' Master Series (LMS) and ''League of Legends'' SEA Tour (LST), announced in September that it was planning to merge the two leagues. The PCS has ten teams: six from Taiwan, two from Hong Kong, one from Malaysia, and one from Singapore.

History

Prior to the PCS

The first professional esports league for ''League of Legends'' players in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia was the

Garena Premier League The Garena Premier League (GPL) was a professional ''League of Legends'' esports league with teams in Southeast Asia (included teams from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau before 2015 and Vietnam before 2018). It was founded in 2012. The opening event took ...

(GPL), which ran from 2012 to mid-2018. Teams from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau were given their own league, the ''League of Legends'' Master Series (LMS), in late 2014. Three years later, the

Vietnam Championship Series The Vietnam Championship Series (VCS) is a professional ''League of Legends'' esports league run by Riot Games and Garena. From 2013 to 2017, the VCS was a tier below Garena Premier League (GPL). In 2018, the VCS broke away from the GPL and b ...

(VCS) was upgraded to a Tier 1 tournament and Vietnam became its own competitive region, separate from the rest of Southeast Asia. The GPL was rebranded as the ''League of Legends'' SEA Tour (LST) in mid-2018.

Formation

Garena announced on 25 September 2019 that it intended to merge the LMS and LST into a single league, the details of which would be released near the end of the year. On 19 December, Riot Games announced the name of the new league, the Pacific Championship Series (PCS), and a list of nine of the ten teams that would compete in it. Berjaya Dragons was announced as the last team joining the PCS on 17 January 2020.

Inaugural season

The 2020 season was postponed until further notice on 29 January due to the COVID-19 outbreak. It was later announced on 18 February that the 2020 season would officially begin on 29 February. On 13 February it was announced that

G-Rex G-Rex, officially G-Rex Gaming and previously Raise Gaming, was a professional esports organisation based in Hong Kong. Its parent company was Emperor Esports Stars, a subsidiary of Emperor Entertainment Group. It had a ''League of Legends'' ...

had disbanded its ''League of Legends'' team and forfeited its spot in the PCS as a result of internal restructuring by their parent company Emperor Esports Stars. Five days later,

Machi Esports Machi Esports was a professional esports organization founded by Taiwanese hip hop group Machi. Machi previously had a ''League of Legends'' team competing in the ''League of Legends'' Master Series (LMS) and later the Pacific Championship S ...

was announced as G-Rex's replacement.

Format

Regular season

* Ten teams * Double round-robin, best-of-one * Top eight teams advance to playoffs

Playoffs

* Eight teams * Double elimination bracket ** Top two teams from the regular season receive a bye to the second round of the winners' bracket ** Third to sixth place begin in the first round of the winners' bracket ** Seventh and eighth place begin in the first round of the losers' bracket * Games in the first round are best-of-three; all other games are best-of-five

Qualifications

* The winner of the spring split qualifies for the

Mid-Season Invitational The Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) is an annual ''League of Legends'' tournament hosted by Riot Games since 2015. It is the second most important international ''League of Legends'' tournament aside from the World Championship. In 2015 and 2016, ...

* The winner and runner-up of the summer split qualify for the

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

as the PCS' first and second seeds respectively

Teams

Ten teams were initially selected by Riot Games as permanent franchise partners of the PCS. However, it was announced on 4 August 2020 that a promotion tournament would be introduced for the 2021 season to promote regional competitiveness.

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

are currently represented in the PCS;

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

and the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

were previously represented.

Current

Former

Results

Number of top three finishes

By team

Denotes a team that no longer participates in the PCS.

By country or territory

Denotes a country or territory that is officially a part of the PCS, but does not have a team competing in it.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Esports competitions League of Legends competitions Recurring sporting events established in 2019 Sports leagues in Asia