The ''League of Legends'' Master Series (LMS) was a professional ''

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'', ...

'' league with teams from

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 no ...

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 List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

, and

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 ...

from 2015 to 2019. Eight teams competed over two seasons to qualify for the

League of Legends World Championship The ''League of Legends'' World Championship (commonly abbreviated as Worlds) is the annual professional '' League of Legends'' world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games and is the culmination of each season. Teams compete for the cham ...

. In September 2019, Riot announced that the LMS would merge with the ''League of Legends'' SEA Tour (LST) to create a new professional league for all

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 ...

-affiliated regions except Vietnam, the Pacific Championship Series (PCS).

History

An announcement was made by Garena in October 2014 about plans of creating a new league to separate Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau from the rest of 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) of

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 south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

. The league would have two seasons per year, spring and summer. The regional quota of two slots in the GPL and a single seed in the World Championship every year temporarily offset the dominance of the Taiwanese teams, but these conditions were not enough as the slots of the Southeast Asia in the World Championship 2014 were both filled by Taiwanese teams. As part of the changes to the 2015 GPL, the region consisting of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau left the GPL and began to compete instead in the League of LMS, which replaced the Nova League in Taiwan. This action was done to allow Southeast Asian teams a better chance at winning the GPL, as Taiwanese teams had won every GPL season. In September 2019, it was announced that the LMS would be merged with the ''League of Legends'' SEA Tour (LST) to create a new professional league for all Garena-affiliated regions (excluded Vietnam), the Pacific Championship Series (PCS).

Logistics

Each LMS team was supported by Garena with NT$200,000, which did not include prize money. Teams from Hong Kong and Macau were provided with flights and accommodations, and received an additional NT$60,000. The beginning of the LMS coincided with the construction of the Garena e-Sports Stadium, located on the first floor of an office building in

Neihu Neihu District is a district of Taipei City, Taiwan. Neihu means "inner lake." The older name originates from the Ketagalan word ''Tayour'' (transliterated by the Dutch as ''Cattajo''), meaning woman's head ornament. Many mountainous roads an ...

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

Format

Group stage

* Offline tournament * Double round robin, matches are best-of-three * Top four teams receives a spot in playoffs * Bottom team will play in the promotion tournament for a spot in the next season

Playoffs

* Offline tournament * Single elimination tournament, seeding is based on regular season ranks * All matches are best-of-five * Total prize pool is NT$5,800,000 (≈$182,740 USD)

Past seasons

References

{{CCBYSASource, sourcepath=http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/LMS/2015_Season, sourcearticle=2015 season 2014 establishments in Taiwan League of Legends competitions Sports leagues in Asia