A very interesting rumour came out of the LPL Fanclub, a page that collects different leaks from Chinese media. According to it, the Chinese professional League of Legends circuit will move on from the single round robin group stage.

LPL has seventeen teams in it, so there are a lot of best-of-three matches. On the one side, fans should be really excited with so much content, but in reality, in the second half of such a round-robin, there are teams that have less motivation as they just need to finish the groups without any chances to place high. Even though ten teams played in the playoffs gauntlet, the impact of a sole match is not always big.

What does LPL reportedly want to do? Split 17 teams into four brackets and play a single round-robin. After that, there will be seedings for the pre-playoff stage. The two worst teams from each bracket will go to the losers' bracket, where they will fight on the brink of elimination. Nine other teams will battle in the upper bracket. Seven winners of the upper bracket move to playoffs, and the rest continue playing until three final playoff participants are determined. The last round will be a best-of-five match.

There were also rumours that LPL would change to the "fearless" format where teams are not allowed to use the same champion twice, but this doesn't seem to be the case. This new format is shorter, and that's its main advantage. However, it is more complicated, and we're not sure if the audience will understand it correctly. Only time will tell.

Main image: alphacoders.com

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