2025 LTA season

The 2025 LTA season is the inaugural season of the League of Legends Championship of The Americas (LTA), a Pan-American professional esports league for the video game League of Legends. The league launched with 16 teams, thirteen (13) of whom are franchised, two guest teams, and one provisional guest team,^[a] all playing across three splits in line with the new three-split structure and competitive calendar introduced the game's developer Riot Games starting with the 2025 competitive season.^[1]

• On 11 June 2024, Riot Games announced in a blog post titled "LoL Esports: Building Towards A Brighter Future" that the League Championship Series (LCS), Campeonato Brasileiro de League of Legends (CBLOL) and Liga Latinoamérica (LLA) would plan to merge into a Pan-American league that would begin play in 2025.^[2][3]
• On 31 October 2024, the League of Legends Championship of The Americas was formed, with the inaugural 16 teams in the league announced that same day.^[4]
  • 100 Thieves, initially planned to be a regular partnered team coming from the former LCS, also announced on October 31 that they sold their slot back to Riot Games. As such, they would be a "provisional guest team" for the 2025 LTA season, which means they'll not be eligible for relegation but may leave competitive League at the end of the 2025 season.^[5]
• On 13 January 2025, Mark Zimmerman, who was the final commissioner of the LCS, was named the first commissioner of the LTA.^[6]
• On 14 January 2025, Cloud9 announced a partnership with KIA America for their League of Legends division. The team is now known as Cloud9 KIA.^[7]
• On 24 January 2025, Fluxo announced a partnership with w7m esports for their League of Legends division. The team is now known as Fluxo w7m.
• On 16 March 2025, prior to the final of the 2025 First Stand Tournament, Riot Games announced that the "Fearless Draft" format would continue beyond the first split of the season. This included the LTA's Split 2 and Split 3 as well as MSI and Worlds.^[8]
• On 21 March 2025, Mark Zimmerman announced during an "LTA Address" that the formats for Splits 2 and 3 would change to align with Fearless Draft's global rollout. Split 2's regular season, initially announced as double round-robin best-of-1 group stage, was split into a single round-robin best-of-1 "positioning phase" and single round-robin best-of-3 "group stage", while Split 3's "Pick and Play" elimination stage matches were all converted to best-of-5s.^[9]
• On 19 May 2025, Japanese car manufacturer Honda would end their sponsorship of Team Liquid's League of Legends team in response to a tweet made by one of Liquid's Rainbow Six Siege players against a player on Japanese team CAG Osaka during the RE:L0:AD tournament.^[10]
• On 23 June 2025, Isurus and Estral Esports decided to part ways from their joint venture, Isurus Estral, who were in the LTA South as guests. As part of the split, Isurus would keep the LTA slot.^[11]
• On 19 July 2025, 100 Thieves confirmed its departure from the LTA after the 2025 season, with the league announcing a new partner team soon to take its place from the 2026 season onward.^[12]

Two guest teams are competing in the 2025 season – Disguised from the North America Challengers League (NACL) in the United States and Isurus Estral (later just Isurus)^[11] from Argentina. Both teams will compete in a promotion and relegation tournament against the top teams from the Tier 2 leagues.

The inaugural LTA Split began on 18 January, with the Finals held on 23 February at the newly renovated Riot Games Arena in São Paulo, Brazil.

All sixteen (16) teams, eight (8) in each conference, competed in a Double-elimination tournament bracket in their respective conferences to determine the top four (4) teams each from both the LTA North and LTA South. All matches were played in best-of-threes. The remaining eight (8) then-competed in an eight-team single-elimination playoff bracket, where all matches except the finals were best-of-threes and the first round of matchups being cross-conference matches. The finals were a best-of-five series, with the winner being crowned Split 1 Champion and the lone LTA representative at the 2025 First Stand Tournament.^[13][6]

Split 1 implemented the "Fearless Draft" format, which was popularized by China's LoL Development League, where teams cannot pick a champion that they've already played in a series, even if the champion was picked by the opposing team. While the format was initially intended to be used only for Split 1, Riot Games later announced that it would apply for the remainder of the season.^[8]

The draw for the first round matchups in each conference were held on 18 January 2025.

Venue: Riot Games Arena, Los Angeles
Source: LoL Esports

Venue: Riot Games Arena, São Paulo
Source: LoL Esports

Venue: Riot Games Arena, São Paulo

In both conferences, teams competed in a single round-robin best-of-one round called the Positioning Phase. The results of this phase determined the seeding for the Group Stage, with the teams split into two groups of four and competing in a single round-robin schedule of best-of-three games. After the Group Stage, the top two teams in each group, four total, advanced to their conference's best-of-five Double-elimination tournament playoff bracket and played an additional seeding match, while the bottom two teams in each group faced each other for the final two playoff berths.^[9] The winners in each conference were crowned Conference Champions^[13] and qualified for the 2025 Mid-Season Invitational and Esports World Cup (alongside the LTA North runners-up for the latter).^[6]

In case of teams with similar records, game scores (the cumulative number of games won and lost over multiple series) is applied. The following are the game scores for all team with 1-2 records:

• Shopify Rebellion: 4-5
• 100 Thieves: 3-4
• Dignitas: 2-5

Source: LoL Esports

In case of teams with similar records, game scores (the cumulative number of games won and lost over multiple series) is applied, with RED Canids taking the third place spot with a 3-4 game score as opposed to Fluxo w7m's 2-5. FURIA and LOUD, however, have an identical 5-3 game score, but FURIA takes the top spot due to their win against LOUD in group play.

Source: LoL Esports

On 3 June 2025, Riot Games announced that the final two games of the Americas Regional Championship (also known as the LTA Championship Finals) will be held at the Credit Union of Texas Event Center in Allen, Texas in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex in the United States on 27-28 September.^[14][15]

Split 3 will have a "Pick & Play" format for the initial stages of the split. Both conferences will have a similar format across seven (7) weeks of play. The first week sees each team face each other based on the second split results, but after which, the lowest-ranked teams pick their opponents. After the first three weeks, a double elimination bracket is formed for the remaining four (4) weeks called the "Elimination Phase", with the top 4 teams seeded into the winner's bracket and the bottom 4 seeded into the loser's bracket. This bracket sees the best ranked teams pick their opponents for the first two rounds.

After those two rounds, the bracket will go on as is, with the top three teams in each conference's elimination phase qualifying for the Americas Regional Championship. The winner of each bracket per conference will earn a slot at the 2025 League of Legends World Championship as conference champions. All games in "Pick and Play"'s first three weeks are best-of-threes, while the double-elimination bracket "Elimination Phase" is consisted entirely of best-of-fives.^[9]

In the Americas Regional Championship, the three remaining teams from each of the two conferences compete in a best-of-five Double elimination tournament bracket, with the winners of each conference (the first two LTA representatives at Worlds 2025) starting in the upper bracket, with the remaining teams starting in the lower bracket. The winner of the finals will be crowned the inaugural LTA Champion, with the final LTA spot for Worlds 2025 being determined by the final rankings.^[16]

North

Source: LoL Esports

South

Source: LoL Esports

Source: LoL Esports

The two guest teams – Disguised (North) and Isurus (South), as well as teams from the second tier leagues will compete in a five-team double-elimination tournament per conference. The winners of both tournaments will qualify for the 2026 LTA season as guest teams.