We take stock of the 2025 EMEA Masters season, with a new format and three major tournaments.
The EMEA Masters returns in 2025 with three major tournaments: Winter, Spring and Summer. The LEC’s alignment with three seasons of ranked play and the three-split model promises a year rich in competition and talent.
EMEA Masters Winter
The first big event of the year, EM Winter, will welcome the 16 best teams in the region. Every winter ERL champion plus three additional second seeds will participate.
EM Winter will introduce the format Fearless Draftwhere no champion can be played more than once per series. The tournament will begin with a GSL group stagewith four groups of four teams. Teams with two wins will advance to the Playoffs, while two losses will mean elimination. Regional protection will be applied during this phase.
The Playoffs will pit the top eight teams against each other in a single-elimination bracket.
EMEA Masters Spring
The Spring tournament will follow the same format as Winter with two major differences:
- No Rules Fearlessallowing for a more flexible draft strategy.
- An increase to 32 teamsgiving more teams the chance to compete.
The group stage will retain regional protection, and the Playoffs, in direct elimination, will see 16 teams compete in best-of-five.
EMEA Masters Summer
The last tournament of the season will be the most imposing with 44 teams. It will begin with a Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ)where 16 teams will compete in the group stage to secure one of four spots for the main tournament.
-The next phase, the Swiss Stagewill see 32 teams compete in balanced matches between different regions. Four victories will allow access to the Playoffs.
In the Playoffs, the top 16 teams will compete for the title in a single-elimination bracket, with no second chances.
Distribution of regional places
Places will be allocated based on historical performance of ERL leagues:
- Winter : 1 place for each ERL champion and 3 additional places for the best leagues.
- Spring : 6 leagues will receive 3 places, the others will have 2.
- Summer : 3 places per region, except for the 5 best leagues which will have 4.
The 13 participating ERL leagues are:
- LFL (France)
- TCL (Turquie)
- Prime League (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
- Superliga (Spain)
- Rift Legends (Poland and Baltics)
- NLC (UK and Nordics)
- LIT (Italy)
- Arabian League (Middle East and North Africa)
- Hellenic League (Greece and Cyprus)
- LPLOL (Portugal)
- Hitpoint Masters (Czech Republic and Slovakia)
- EBL (Balkans)
- ROL (BeNeLux)
This 2025 season promises to be exceptional, with a confrontation between young talents and experienced players. Follow all the action on lolesports.com and live on Twitchfrom March 17 with the kickoff of EM Winter.
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