2017 is to be another amazing year for competitive League of Legends, and we are about to see the end of the first half of it, the Spring Season. This year again, the Season is divided into several tournaments spanning 4 months, 5 continents, hundreds of pro players and more than a thousand matches!
We covered all the major steps of this Season, and are now ready to gather all information into a single place for you to see. As usual, every tournament listed here links to its public page, with detailed results, statistics and replays!
Time to dive into the 2017 Spring Season!
Things started off with the Spring Splits, league play to determine the teams that will reach the Playoffs. Those tournaments lasted for weeks, with points awarded every week depending on the results of each team in their respective matches.
The Challenger Series are a bit of a special case, as they are Tier2 competitions for teams to try to reach the Championship Series (a.k.a the Professional League).
Challenger Series: North America 6 Teams |
25/01/2017 01/03/2017 |
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Challenger Series: Europe 6 Teams |
05/02/2017 05/03/2017 |
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Championship Series: North America 10 Teams |
20/01/2017 26/03/2017 |
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Championship Series: Europe 2×5 Teams |
19/01/2017 02/04/2017 |
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LOL Champions Korea 10 Teams |
17/01/2017 02/04/2017 |
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LOL Master Series 8 Teams |
21/01/2017 09/04/2017 |
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LOL Pro League 2×6 Teams |
19/01/2017 16/04/2017 |
With the Splits over, a variable number of teams got qualified to participate in the Playoffs of their region. This time, no more points awarded, but Single-Elimination formats where only the strongest were to go forward, to try and qualify for the Mid-Season Invitational. And even though Spring Season doesn’t qualify directly for the Worlds Championship, doing well during the season awards the much wanted points that will award a team with a qualification!
Here are the Playoffs and podium for each one:
Challenger Series: North America 4 Teams |
N/A | |||
Challenger Series: Europe 4 Teams |
N/A | |||
Championship Series: North America 6 teams |
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Championship Series: Europe 6 Teams |
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LOL Champions Korea 5 Teams |
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LOL Master Series 4 Teams |
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LOL Pro League 8 Teams |
And when the Spring Season is over, it is time to move on to the Mid-Season segment, where teams from the Challenger Series test their skill against the lowest-ranking LCS teams in the Promotion tournaments:
Summer Promotion: North America 4 Teams – Winners go to NA LCS |
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Summer Promotion: Europe 4 Teams – Winners go to EU LCS |
The biggest upset happened in Europe, with both Challenger teams managing to defeat the teams coming from the LCS, and therefore taking the LCS Spots for themselves! No such luck in NA, where the LCS teams managed to hold on to their spots.
As for the Spring Champions, they are now about to face each other in the Mid-Season Invitational, for prize and glory of course, but also and mainly for Worlds’ sake. Indeed, since last year, the MSI is where the seeds for the Worlds are determined. Best ranking teams from the MSI allow their regions to get the best seeds in the Worlds, with a few additional spots available for best-faring secondary regions.
Mid-Season Invitational Play-In Stage 1 5 Teams – Winners go to MSI Stage 2 |
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Mid-Season Invitational Play-In Stage 2 4 teams – Winners go to MSI Play-Offs |
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Mid-Season Invitational Main Event 6 Teams |
N/A |
This year, the MSI is about to be played in 3 distinct Stages, with teams starting at different stages of the competition depending on the previous results of their region. The starting seeds are as follows:
- Teams (Region) seeded into Play-In Stage 1
(BR) – (CIS) – (JPN) – (LAN)
(LAS) – (OCE) – (SEA) – (TUR) - Teams (Region) seeded into Play-In Stage 2
(NA) – (LMS) - Teams (Region) seeded into Play-Offs (Main Event)
(LCK) – (CN) – (EU)
Two teams will emerge from the Play-In Stage 1, one per group, and they will move on to fight the two teams seeded in the Stage 2.
They will then have two chances to qualify for the Play-Offs stage, as one win is enough to qualify in a Double-Elimination bracket with 3 out of 4 teams qualified.
Finally, the Main Event will start, with a standard Group Stage + Playoffs structure, at the end of which a MSI Champion will be crowned. It will then be a matter of weeks before the Summer Season starts, inexorably leading to the Championship of all Championships, the Worlds!