The 2020 LCS season was the third year under partnership and eighth overall of the ''League of Legends'' Championship Series (LCS), 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 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 im ...

PC game A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-deter ...

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 ...

''. It was the first year that the league used a double elimination bracket for its

playoff format There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the ''single elimination'', the ''best-of-'' series, the ''total points series'' more commonly kn ...

. Championship points and the regional finals were also removed from 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, ...

qualification process. The spring split began on January 25 and was scheduled to conclude with the spring finals on April 19; however, due to the

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, the season was temporarily suspended on March 13. Four days later, it was announced that the LCS would resume on March 20, with all matches being played online. The summer split began on June 12 and concluded with the summer finals on September 6. The three teams that qualified for the World Championship in 2020 were

Team SoloMid Team SoloMid (TSM) is a professional esports organization based in the United States. It was founded in September 2009 by Andy "Reginald" Dinh. TSM currently fields players in ''League of Legends'', ''Dota 2'', ''Apex Legends'', ''Valorant'', ' ...

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 ...

, and

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 Liq ...

League changes

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 ...

announced several changes to the LCS on January 8.

Playoff format

The LCS changed its playoff format to a double elimination bracket, similar to that which was adopted by the LEC in 2019. The number of teams participating in the spring playoffs was unchanged, remaining at six, but the number of teams in the summer playoffs was increased from six to eight. Both splits' playoffs feature a winners' bracket and a losers' bracket, with the bottom two teams beginning in the losers' and the rest beginning in the winners'.

Schedule

The LCS regular season schedule was revised for 2020. Four LCS games were broadcast each Saturday and Sunday instead of five, and the remaining two games were aired during "Monday Night League", which would feature the two most anticipated match ups of the week. LCS commissioner Chris Greeley explained that this change was made to give less popular teams and players more exposure and opportunities to develop their brand, as many viewers, he argued, only tune in to watch their favorite teams. Following community feedback and "careful consideration", LCS officials announced that Monday Night League would be changed to Friday Night League for the summer split.

International qualifications

The previous system of Championship points and the regional finals were completely removed from the World Championship qualification process. As of 2020, the results of the spring split would only determine the LCS' representative 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, ...

, and did not have any part in determining a team's future qualification for the World Championship. The summer champions, runners-up and third place team would qualify for the World Championship as the LCS' first, second and third seeds, respectively.

Broadcasting

The English broadcast was available on the LoL Esports website, as well as on

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and

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. On January 20, Riot Games announced their official partnership with Chinese streaming service Huya, giving them exclusive rights to the Chinese broadcast. On April 8, it was announced that the spring playoffs would be aired on

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...

and the ESPN App.

Spring

Teams and rosters

Regular season

Playoffs

Awards

Ranking

Summer

Teams and rosters

Regular season

Playoffs

Winners' bracket

Losers' bracket

Finals

Awards

Ranking

References

External links

2020 Official Rules (v. 20.1) LCS and LACS
{{2020 in League of Legends competition

2020 multiplayer online battle arena tournaments League of Legends Championship Series seasons League of Legends Championship Series season, 2020