Riot Games announces new format for EMEA Masters 2025

On Thursday, Riot Games announced a new format for the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) Masters in 2025. This dynamically adjusted format will change from season to season, with the core goal of further aligning Tier 2 with Tier 1 in multiple aspects while exploring unique and innovative ways to structure the tournament.

One of the highlights of this change is that the EMEA Masters will have three seasons for the first time: winter, spring, and summer. Riot's move is obviously to make the rhythm of the EMEA second-tier league consistent with the three-season system of most leagues around the world, filling the gap of only two seasons in the previous second-tier league.

EMEA's regional leagues (ERLs) have always been an important platform for training new talents and paving the way for the future careers of professional players. The new competition system in 2025 also provides a more optimized growth path for these leagues. Similar to major international events around the world this year, the scale of the EMEA Masters will gradually expand as the season progresses. The winter season will introduce the Fearless Draft mechanism, adding more strategy and highlights.

The GLS group stage will be used in both the winter and spring seasons, and the traditional single round-robin system (BO1) will be completely abandoned. The group stage will be changed to a best-of-three (BO3) system to ensure a more comprehensive assessment of the team's strength. This change is undoubtedly good news for viewers who are tired of the BO1 system, and it also puts higher demands on the team's tactical planning and the coaching team's draft strategy.

The summer season will adopt a competition system similar to the World Championship, including the qualifying stage (LCQ, equivalent to the play-in round) and the Swiss stage, and finally enter the BO5 knockout stage to further enhance the intensity and viewing experience of the competition.

• Winter Season: 16 teams participate, including the champions and runners-up of LFL (French League), Superliga (Spanish League), Prime League (German League), and the champions of other ERL leagues.

• Spring Season: The number of participating teams has been expanded to 32, with the top three teams from LFL, SL, PRM, TCL (Turkish Champions League), Italian League and Arab League, as well as the top two teams from other ERL leagues participating.

• Summer Season: The scale reaches 44 teams, fully covering the top teams in the ERL League.

This new competition system in 2025 will have a profound impact on the European e-sports ecosystem, provide more opportunities for emerging talents, and present higher-level competition content to the audience.