Recently, League of Legends experienced a global server outage due to Riot’s certificate expiration. The game was offline for much of the day, and Riot was heavily criticized for neglecting to renew the certificate. It appears the operation is quite chaotic. Notably, this incident also occurred ten years ago, but Riot failed to learn from it. For such a large company, it’s surprising no one recalled the need to renew the certificate.

The Chinese server bore the brunt of this downtime incident unfairly, taking the blame without cause. However, this likely won’t happen again because Riot has now renewed the certificate for 100 years, ensuring it won’t expire even if LOL fades away. Such a major failure honestly deserves some player compensation, but the official side hasn’t responded yet; presumably Riot will handle any compensation directly.

T1’s major sponsor pulls out

After another disappointing finish at the S15 World Championship, the LPL region has been significantly affected. There were rumors that the biggest sponsor, Mercedes-Benz, planned to withdraw their support. Though unconfirmed, the latest T1 jerseys this year no longer feature the Mercedes logo. If even T1 loses Mercedes’ backing, LPL’s situation looks grim. Online reports suggest Mercedes may be completely exiting League of Legends sponsorships.

Since 2017, Mercedes-Benz has been LPL’s largest partner, while in the neighboring LCK, Mercedes only sponsored T1. In 2024, Mercedes even customized a car for Faker. At last month’s Mercedes fan event, this car was showcased. After the event, Mercedes’ sponsorship with T1 ended, likely marking the final phase of their partnership. The collaboration between LPL and Mercedes is also set to expire by year-end.

Major changes to LPL’s new season format

With less than two weeks until the first stage of the LPL season begins, the organizers have once again adjusted the format, focusing mainly on BP and map selection. Previously, the priority was only on map choice, but this season BP and map selection will be separated. The blue side will no longer always pick first. For example, in the WBG vs. IG opener, if WBG chooses the blue side, IG will have first priority for BP and can pick heroes first even on the red side.

This reform balances the advantages of red and blue sides, where map and BP selection were previously combined. If a team wants to rely on the blue side map to create neutral resource advantages, they must give up a strong hero pick. Frankly, this is quite reasonable and should have been done a long time ago. Otherwise, whoever got blue side had a big advantage, making the first game a pure coin toss. Whether this change will extend to international tournaments remains unknown; it’s likely just a trial for now.

LCP tries Swiss system for the first time

The LCP region recently announced its first stage starting on the 16th, with an interesting format. LCP introduced championship points: teams earn +1 point per win and -1 per loss in the regular season. The first stage champion will compete in the VCT Challengers, and in the second stage, the champion and the team with the highest points will attend MSI. In the third stage, LCK will imitate the World Championship by adopting the Swiss system.

The most intriguing aspect of LCP’s Swiss system is that by the fourth round, teams with a 2-0 record will face those with 0-2 records, which almost guarantees strong teams advance to playoffs. With 8 teams playing Swiss rounds, the schedule will be longer. However, only a few teams are truly strong in this region. After PSG’s withdrawal, CFO is expected to dominate the league, though personally, I’m looking forward to Sofm’s debut.

Conclusion:

A format where map choice is done before side selection seems fair. Coaches will need to carefully consider whether to pick strong heroes or choose the better blue side for dragon control, as different teams have different strengths. The era of blindly favoring blue side is likely over, and win rates between red and blue sides should gradually balance out.

So, what do you think of this new format?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!