League of Legends: Reborn in Season 3, Tuning the Entire League

Chapter 283 LPL Tournament Format Reform!

Shanghai, the conference hall of the LPL new season venue.

"We are now holding the second meeting of the LPL competition format reform discussion!"

After a brief opening speech, the LPL event director posed the topic to the representatives of the various clubs present at the meeting.

With the New Year approaching, the players are already on vacation at the end of the season, but they still don't have any free time.

There are still many issues to be discussed regarding the detailed schedule and rules for the 14 LPL season, as well as the upcoming LSPL secondary league.

Of course, most of the club leaders in the meeting room were more interested in participating.

For example, the XM (Xiaomi) eSports club, which just joined the LPL, and the owner of the little-known company that acquired the PE team's spot in advance.

Having just entered the esports scene, they haven't even figured out many of the rules and details, let alone offered constructive suggestions for the development of the LPL.

Today's meeting will continue to focus on the four clubs: NXG, WE, IG, and Royal Club.

Pei Le, the head of WE Club, known as "Old Jiang," was the first to speak out, saying, "I really don't understand why you are so insistent on changing the BO1 format? Hasn't this system been working quite smoothly this year?"

“Blindly increasing the number of matches will lead to additional costs and a longer event process, which are issues that must be carefully considered.”

Pei Le really couldn't understand it.

Judging from their performance in the two seasons this year, Jiang Ming and his NXG are clearly the biggest beneficiaries of the current BO1 format. They won the Spring Split with a perfect record, which made them incredibly famous. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that they became famous overnight. So why are they the ones who have taken the lead in proposing league reforms now?
All eyes immediately focused on the young man in the front row.

The conference room was filled with seasoned business veterans, but at this moment, no one objected to Jiang Ming sitting in that central position—his achievements and NXG's status in the LPL were the best proof of his qualifications.

To everyone's surprise, Jiang Ming's answer was unusually decisive: "BO1 must be changed! If we don't reform, our LPL will eventually be caught up with or even left behind by other regions!"

“If a region only uses a BO1 format, it will be completely uncompetitive.”

He surveyed the entire audience, his voice steady and powerful: "This year, we are adopting BO1 because the league is newly established, the number of teams is limited, and the funding is not yet sufficient. But this does not mean that it is a reasonable long-term solution! Its drawbacks—" He paused, his gaze sharp, "I think everyone here is well aware of them, and I don't need to elaborate further."

Jiang Ming's words were almost merciless.

Is BO1 not competitive?
Who are we talking about? It's none other than those who were used as "spinning tops" by NXG.

I wanted to lash out, but I was helpless—after all, they had hit the nail on the head.

The drawbacks of the BO1 format in League of Legends are well known.

The most immediate concern is the immense element of chance in match results. BO1 matches are single-elimination, highly susceptible to factors such as player performance on the day, on-the-spot play, unexpected mistakes, and even initial luck (e.g., hero selection, matchup in lane). The closer the teams are in skill, the more fatal this element of chance becomes; a small mistake can cause a strong team to lose, making it difficult to accurately reflect the true gap in skill between the two sides.

Secondly, BO1 severely limits the scope for tactical strategies. With only one game, teams can only go all in on the draft and tactical layout, unlike BO3 or BO5 where they can plan and adjust dynamically across the board. This not only makes it difficult to showcase a team's rich tactical reserves and diverse systems, but also reduces the space for players to adapt to their opponents on the spot, making it difficult to fully demonstrate the strategic depth of the draft and the players' tactical proficiency.

It's important to understand that the appeal of League of Legends competitions lies not only in the top-tier skills of the players, but also in the strategic maneuvering of the coaching teams in selecting and countering hero combinations, which is a core element of the competitive experience.

To put it more bluntly: BO1 matches lose much of their entertainment value. When a strong team faces a weak team, the outcome often lacks suspense, the match easily becomes one-sided, and the tense, exciting competition and dramatic comebacks are nowhere to be found. The fans in the stadium, whose excitement has just been ignited, may find that the match is over in the blink of an eye.

If this continues, it will undoubtedly be a heavy blow to the enthusiasm of players who come specifically to support a particular team.

Yes, from the perspective of the alliance's commercialization alone, once this issue is brought to the forefront, reform is imperative.

"How about BO2? I saw that the OGN region next door is using this," a person in charge suggested from the crowd.

"Pfft!" Edward Zhu laughed. "Hey Lao Xu, what are OGN's results? What are our region's results? How can a champion region copy the runner-up region's format?"

“That’s right,” Jiang Ming chimed in at the opportune moment, occasionally taking on the role of listener. “The BO2 format also has its problems, and we don’t recommend using it.”

In some respects, the problems with BO2 are even greater than those with BO1.

Not only does it not improve the entertainment value much, but the teams' desire to win may even be diminished due to the uncertainty of the match outcome.

Why argue over a 2-0 score? Wouldn't it be better to tie it 1-1, with everyone holding hands and taking a point home? Most of the esports professionals here are very experienced. If we were suppressed by OGN in the original timeline, we might blindly imitate the Korean format.

But now that we have the confidence to carry out reforms, the direction will naturally not go astray.

"So, Lao Jiang, your suggestion is to implement the BO3 format?" Hou Geting keenly grasped the key point in the words and directly raised the core question.

"That's right. The regular season will be BO3, and the playoffs will be upgraded to BO5. This is a good remedy for improving the competitiveness of teams within the region." Jiang Ming said confidently. "As for its feasibility, just look at the popularity of this year's LPL league, the ticket sales for the Shanghai All-Star event, and the crossover effect of the S3 World Championship. I think you guys, Lao Hu, should have a better idea than we do, right?"

"You can rest assured about the investment in the league," Hu Qiming added with a smile, a deeper meaning flashing in his eyes.

As everyone knows, implementing the BO3 format means that the organizers will face a series of challenges: precise control of the schedule, management pressure of daily duration, and even a sharp increase in personnel allocation, equipment maintenance, and venue rental costs.

However, with the influx of capital and the demand from audiences for high-density events, these problems seem to have become "solvable troubles".

What's even more intriguing is that while everyone was still debating the pros and cons of BO3 versus BO1, this "Comrade Xiao Jiang" had already submitted a proposal to Riot Games: to increase the ban/pick limit in professional leagues from three to five bans.

At first glance, it seems like a suggestion to "make trouble" for themselves, but in reality, it hides a secret – once this "tactical involution bomb" is detonated, it will force all teams to accelerate the expansion of their hero pool and upgrade their tactical reserves.

Will Riot Games adopt this approach?

The answer is definitely yes.

Even if the S4 season remains inactive for the time being, with the expansion of the hero pool and the deepening of the professionalization of the competition, the full implementation of five bans and ten bans is only a matter of time.

"How about we do a pilot program? Mr. Jiang is organizing the Ionia Cup, right? Before the new LPL season starts, how about we use the LSPL secondary league and the Ionia Cup as a pilot program? The group stage of the cup will continue to use BO1, and the knockout stage will go directly to BO5. The LSPL regular season will be replaced with BO3."

"Choose sides!" someone suddenly interjected.

"What about choosing sides? I think the previous method of choosing sides by flipping a coin was too luck-based and not conducive to the development of the league. Why don't we just have a solo round before the game? Since we're going to increase the intensity, let's raise it even higher, from individual player skill to team battles, to minimize the controversy over the game results."

"And the most important issue is that I think the rules for securing World Championship spots also need to be changed." Another person tapped the table.

"Just imagine this: PE, who finished as runner-up in both the LPL Spring and Summer Splits, failed to secure a single World Championship spot, and two of those spots were actually determined by their Summer Split regular season points rankings. Isn't that a bit unfair?"

"The tournament format can be shortened and the schedule can be more intensive. At the same time, the enthusiasm of domestic audiences for watching the games is high. There is no need to move the summer playoffs to November. It would be best if we could finish them before the World Championship."

"How about this: the Spring Split champion will get some points for a spot in the World Championship, then the Summer Split champion will get some points, and the remaining two spots will be contested through a gauntlet..."

"The highly entertaining blind pick mode can be retained and placed as a special rule in the last game of a best-of-five series."

"Okay, I have no objection to that."

What about the promotion and relegation system?

“During this period, many businesses that want to invest in the league have one core concern: they are worried that if they invest a lot of money, the team will be relegated and they will lose everything.”

"We'll discuss that later... The promotion and relegation matches absolutely cannot be touched right now!"

Someone waved their hand: "Prioritizing increasing the attention given to the secondary leagues is also a good approach."

Listening to the club leaders' lively discussion in the conference room, which was moving closer to the well-established state of the LPL competition system in his previous life, Jiang Ming silently withdrew his radical proposal for the entire draft phase.

Well, for the LPL right now, it's best to put aside some ideas that are too far ahead of their time.

Anyway, it's moving in the right direction now, isn't it?
……

With the LPL format discussion coming to an end, Jiang Ming and his senior finally ushered in their own Spring Festival holiday.

The club's new base site selection and decoration will be handled by professionals after the new year. As for Jiang himself, he successfully unlocked the achievement of visiting his future father-in-law's house during his sophomore year.

(End of this chapter)