2025 is a new era for League of Legends esports with one of the biggest changes happening here in the Pacific.
A whole new esports season has dawned upon us as the inaugural year of the League of Legends Championship Pacific is about to start with the LCP Split 1 2025 this January 17. By combining the Southeast Asia and Oceania leagues, the LCP looks to heighten the level of play of the whole region.
For the next five weeks, eight teams gathered from Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Vietnam will start by playing in a best-of-three, single round-robin. The top six teams will then be placed in a double-elimination bracket. Whoever emerges as the champion represents the region in First Stand, the first of the three major international tournaments of 2025.
Each team has been isolated to their own leagues until their inclusion in the LCP Split 1 2025. Many of these teams will be facing each other for the first time so it’ll be interesting to see how the clash of styles pan out.
Moreover, each of these regions is considered to be ma inor league who’ve had its own individual flashes of brilliance. The hope is that with a larger variety of competition, the skills of the teams will increase as well.
Becoming Fearless
What makes the LCP Split 1 2025 truly exciting is that it will be played under Fearless Draft rules.
For a quick refresher on what the Fearless Draft rules are, it essentially means that any champions used in previous games will be unavailable for the rest of the match. It guarantees that team compositions will be different every game, thus encouraging teams to come up with new strategies.
This is all part of Riot’s plan to spice up the League esports scene as all regions, as well as First Stand, will be using Fearless Draft. They’re still testing out this format, however, as it’ll only be used for the first third of the year.
Still, if the demand is big enough, we might be seeing more Fearless Draft in the future.
Banner photo by Jianhua Chen / Riot Games.