How to watch the North American LCS promotion tournament: Full schedule and new format

With the regular season officially over in both the North American and European League Championship Series, it’s that time of year where the bottom teams from the LCS and the top teams from the Challenger Series square off for spots in the LCS for next split.

The North American promotion tournament was delayed because of work eligibility requirements changes, so it’s happening after the first round of the playoffs this year. Europe’s promotion tournament already went down, with all three LCS teams staying up in the league.

Professional League of Legends seasons have two splits (Spring and Summer), with promotion/relegation tournaments (and playoffs) in between. So the teams that finished eighth, ninth and 10th in the LCS Spring Split will play against the teams that finished first and second in the Challenger Series (the second-tier league) for the right to be in the LCS for the Summer Split.

Renegades entered the final week of the LCS Spring Split in 10th place, but managed to claw its way up to eighth with victories over Team Impulse (two of them, including a tiebreaker) and Echo Fox in the final week, finishing the season at 6-13 and in a much better position for the promotion tournament. Renegades’ roster looks different than it did at the start of the season: support Remi retired and mid laner Alex Ich and top laner Flaresz were traded to Team Dragon Knights, but Freeze has been one of the best marksmen in North America and Crumbzz still brings veteran leadership from the jungle. New top laner Seraph and new mid laner Ninja (both formerly with TDK) have fit in well with the roster, and Renegades seems favored to stay up in the LCS.

Team Impulse attempted to sell its spot in the LCS before last split, but went forward after being unable to find any buyers. Now, with an uncertain future, TIP will be playing to keep that spot. With just one player returning from last season’s playoff squad (former sub Gate), it was a rough split for TIP. Losses in the final week of the split to Renegades and Immortals secured the No. 9 spot in the standings and a place in the promotion tournament. Marksman Mash has had a solid split, while Gate is one of the few players to move around and play multiple positions this split (he starts at support, but Impulse’s two best individual performances this year by Earned Gold Per Minute were Gate in the top lane and Gate in the mid lane).

Team Dignitas support KiWiKiD. Image via Riot Games.

Team Dignitas had some good performances this split, winning games against perennial North American powers Counter Logic Gaming and Team SoloMid, but collapsed at the end and finished in 10th place. Mid laner Shiphtur and marksman Apollo had pretty solid splits, per usual, but uncertainty in the top lane (SmittyJ left for EU’s Giants Gaming two games in) and inconsistent play in the jungle led to Dignitas’ bottom of the table finish. Dignitas support KiWiKiD is the only player who has played every single NA LCS split for the same team.

Apex is one of the most talented Challenger Series teams we’ve seen in years, and is absolutely loaded with experience. Former TSM and Liquid support Xpecial has qualified for three different, mid laner Keane had success with Gravity in the NA LCS last split and has one of the widest champion pools of any professional player, top laner Cris and jungler Shrimp have played in the LCS before and jungler Eve (Apex has two junglers) and marksman Police both come from the Korean scene. Apex went 8-2 in the Challenger Series regular season, a game ahead of second-place Ember and three ahead of TDK, the other Challenger team in this tournament.

Team Dragon Knights was in the LCS last split but finished in 10th, getting automatically relegated as a result. A late season trade with Renegades brought Alex Ich and Flaresz to the roster, and the team managed to qualify for the promotion series with the new-look squad. Marksman Ohq has been the team’s main gold earner, but Alex Ich has been an improvement from the previous situation in the mid lane. Jungler Kez is the only returning member of TDK’s 2015 LCS squad.

Until recently, the 10th place LCS team was automatically relegated, while the first place Challenger team was automatically promoted. The road is still definitely easier for that to happen, but now all teams involved get a chance to prove themselves in a tournament.

Here’s the schedule this time around. Each series will be a best of five.

There’s also this handy graphical image from Riot.

All of the matches will be streamed live on LolEsports.com.