Format, Teams, Schedule and everything else

The 2025 League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) is set to get underway, with new teams, rosters and even a monster entering Summoner’s Rift.

Ahead of the 2025 LEC Winter Split, Esports Insider has created a run-through of all the major changes that have occurred — both in and out of the game — ahead of the split’s first game on January 18th. 

The most notable in-game change that will affect all of League of Legends’ competitive leagues is the introduction of a new monster called Atakhan. Ushered in for the new season, Atakham features two forms. Which one will present itself depends on the number of kills that have happened by the time the 14th minute comes along. 

There’s also a new early-game reward system in the form of improved boots for the team that takes two out of three objectives: first blood, first tower or first monster. Plus, there’s been a rework of the jungle to make it more symmetrical.

Now that the in-game changes have been discussed, let’s look at the 2025 LEC Winter Split.

Format-wise, the LEC will continue to operate with three splits in 2025 (Winter, Spring and Summer), however, each one will now have a unique format.

The LEC Winter Split is the most similar to the LEC’s previous iteration last year — a 10-team best-of-one (BO1) round-robin group stage that leads to a double-elimination playoff bracket after three weeks. 

The main addition to the Winter Split will actually be the introduction of Fearless Draft, a system which bans players from selecting champions that have been previously played in their series. 

For example, if a best-of-five (BO5) series goes to the last game, players will be unable to select any champion used throughout the series. When you add in traditional bans, this means the fifth game will see 50 champions removed from that final match (40 Fearless Bans and 10 traditional bans).  

For the first three weeks of the LEC Winter Split, Fearless Draft will not be utilised. This is because all 10 LEC teams will compete in BO1s to decide playoff seeding, with the bottom two teams eliminated from the competition. 

The remaining eight teams will then compete in a double-elimination bracket with BO3s and BO5s to decide the 2025 LEC Winter Split Champion. The winner will go on to represent EMEA at Riot Games’ new international event, First Stand in South Korea. Similarly to the LEC Winter Split, First Stand will also utilise Fearless Draft throughout the international event. 

This year, matches in the LEC Winter Split will be played on the game’s latest patch except for the Playoffs. This stage will remain on one single patch (15.3 / 25.S1.3) to uphold competitive integrity. 

The LEC Winter Split will also entirely take place at the Riot Games Arena in Berlin, Germany.

Being a franchised league, the LEC rarely sees teams come and go but this year there has been a name change. MAD Lions KOI is now Movistar KOI due to the completed acquisition of KOI and Movistar Riders by MAD Lions’ parent company OverActive Media.

The full list of teams are:

A lot has changed on the roster front following LEC’s performance at Worlds 2024. In fact, no team has stuck with the same roster from the previous LEC Summer split. 

Starting with Fnatic, the UK organisation made major changes to its bot lane, replacing  Oh ‘Noah’ Hyeon-taek with a returning Elias ‘Upset’ Lipp. Meanwhile, former G2 Esports player Mihael ‘Mikyx’ Mehle is the team’s new Support, taking over from Yoon ‘Jun’ Se-jun. 

G2 Esports changed its Jungler from Martin ‘Yike’ Sundelin to LEC debutant Rudy ‘SkewMond’ Semaan and Labros ‘Labrov’ Papoutsakis replaces Mickyx in the Support role.. 

GIANTX has also gone through some significant changes in the off-season. With four new players: Mid Laner Adam ‘Jackies’ Jeřábek is joined by Eren ‘Lot’ Yıldız, Can ‘Closer’ Çelik, and former Fnatic duo Noah and Jun.

Team Heretics followed a similar path to GIANTX with Bot Laner Victor ‘Flakked’ Lirola the only player to retain his role. Carl ‘Carlsen’ Carlsen (Top Lane), Théo ‘Sheo’ Borile (Jungle), Kamil ‘Kamiloo’ Haudegond (Mid) and Paul ‘Stend’ Lardin ( Support) join the new-look Heretics line-up. 

Karmine Corp made two high-profile changes to its roster for the 2025 Winter Split. Firstly, the French organisation enlisted the services of former G2 Jungler Yike to replace Closer. Moreover, Karmine Corp has promoted 18-year-old prospect Caliste ‘Caliste’ Henry-Hennebert to the team’s roster. 

Whilst Movistar KOI underwent a major name change, the team was the most conservative organisation in the LEC off-season. However, its one roster move made history with Mid Laner Joseph ‘Jojopyun’ Pyun becoming the first North American player to enter the LEC. 

Rogue has kept the services of Mid Laner Emil ‘Larssen’ Larsson, however, an entirely new roster surrounds him. Adam ‘Adam’ Maanane (Top) replaces Finn “Finn” Wieståland and Kim ‘Malrang’ Geun-seong takes Mark ‘Markoon’ van Woensel’s place in the Jungle. Patrik is the team’s new Bot Laner with Lee ‘Execute’ Jeong-hoon joining as Rogue’s Support. 

SK Gaming kept only two players — Ismaïl ‘Isma’ Boualem (Jungler) and Cho ‘Rahel’ Min-seong (Bot Laner) — while opting to put Janik ‘JNX’ Bartels in the top lane and Kim ‘Loopy’ Dong-hyeon in the Support role. Former MAD Lions Mid Laner Steven ‘Reeker’ Chen is also back in the LEC following a spell at Team BDS Academy (alongside JNX).

Following Team BDS Academy’s EMEA Master Summer Split victory, Team BDS has promoted its Support Polat ‘Parus’ Çiçek to the main roster. Moreover, the organisation made two other roster changes, bringing in Joel ‘Irrelevant’ Scharoll as its Top Laner and Doğukan ‘113’ Balcı as the team’s Jungler.

Finally, Team Vitality also decided to replace its Top Laner, going from Kyeong ‘Photon’ Gyu-tae to Kaan ‘Naak Nako’ Okan. Moreover, Mateusz ‘Czajek’ Czajka replaces Team Vitality’s former Mid Laner Vincent ‘Vetheo’ Berrié.

LEC Winter Split games will start at 6pm CET (5pm GMT) on competition days and there will always be a pre-show beforehand. 

The competition will pause for a week following the Group Stages to give teams time to reset and prepare for the Playoffs which will start on February 15th. The Playoffs will also be followed by another Break Week to allow the players a moment to recharge before the First Stand event which will begin on March 10th.

Week 1: January 18th-20th (Patch 25.S1.1 / 15.1)

Week 2: January 25th-27th (Patch 25.S1.2 /  15.2)

Week 3: February 1st-3rd (Patch 25.S1.2 /  15.2)

Week 4: February 15th-17th (Patch 25.S1.3 /  15.3)

Week 5: February 22nd-24th (Patch 25.S1.3 / 15.3)

Week 6: February 28th-March 2nd (Patch 25.S1.3 / 15.3)