LPL format changes for 2025: “Hard” fearless draft and 1v1

Another year, another Riot Games turnover in the regional season models. The 2025 LPL new format is officially out. There are some interesting new things like a "hard" fearless draft and 1v1 between players. Let's dive into what's new and the schedule for the splits.

The regular season won't have many changes except the fact that, with the new international event, the splits will have some schedule differences. Between January and March, 16 teams will be seeded based on their performance during the 2024 season and randomly drawn into four groups. We'll have a single round-robin best-of-five (Bo5) where every team faces every other participant once. The top teams of each group will advance to the elimination stage.

In the elimination stage, we'll have the normal double elimination Bo5 bracket where teams who finished first will that in the winner's bracket and the remaining in the loser's bracket. The champion will be qualified for the new League of Legends international event: the First Stand.

The new fearless draft mode will have the champions played before by the teams banned, unlike the old "soft" fearless draft in 2024. This means that players will have to adapt to new champions since we'll be seeing fewer drafts with the same champions. Once a champion has been selected, it will be banned for both teams for the rest of the Bo5.

The side selection for game one will be decided by a solo match (the 1v1) between one player from each team. For the rest of the series, the losers of the previous game will have the side selection. If it goes to a fight game, a 1v1 will decide the side.

After the First Stand, between March and June, we'll have the second stage. Based on the results from the previous stage, the teams will be drawn into four groups. However, contrary to the first stage, we'll have a single round-robin best-of-three (Bo3). The top two teams in the group will go to the upper group —named Group Ascend — and the bottom two to the lower group — named Group Nirvana.

Group Ascend and Group Nirvana will be playing single round-robin Bo3. The top four teams of Group Ascend advance to the elimination stage while the bottom two of Group Nirvana end their 2025 season.

The bottom four teams of Group Ascend and the top four teams of Group Nirvana will go Bo5 against each other based on their standings. The winners will go straight to the elimination stage.

It's a double-elimination bracket. For the first round, the top four teams of Group Advance will select their opponent based on their rankings. After that, the champion qualifies for the MSI as 1st seed, and the runner-up will be 2nd seed.

On the last stage before the LoL Worlds 2025, the eight LPL teams that played the Stage 2 elimination stage will go to the Group Ascend and the remaining ones to the Group Nirvana. They will play single round robin Bo5, instead of the Bo3 of the previous stage. The top four teams of Group Ascend will advance to the playoffs.

The format is the same as Stage 2: the bottom four teams of Group Ascend and the top four teams of Group Nirvana will play against each other in a single Bo5 match based on the standings and the winners will advance to the playoffs.

In the League of Legends normal double-elimination bracket, for the first round, the top teams of Group Ascend will select their opponent based on their rankings.

If you still have some trouble understanding the LPL format, here is a simplified version shared on X by a fan and an English/Chinese translator.

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