2024 LEC season


The 2024 LEC season is the 12th season of the League of Legends EMEA Championship, a professional esports league for the MOBA PC game League of Legends. The season is divided into three splits, Winter, Spring, and Summer, and will culminate with the LEC Season Finals.
Three team changes occurred leading up to the 2024 season, with Astralis selling their LEC franchise slot to Karmine Corp, KOI effectively rebranding to Rogue, and Excel Esports rebranding to GIANTX.

League changes

Format and eligibility

In contrast to previous season, the LEC merged the group and playoff stages into one double-elimination tournament playoff for the 2024 season. It will maintain the same number of best-of-three and best-of-five series as the previous year. Additionally, teams that can face can face each other in the upper bracket of the playoffs will not face each other in the lower bracket, aside from the lower bracket final. The league also put increased emphasis on the Summer Split, with winner of the Summer Finals automatically qualifying for the 2024 World Championship and giving both the second- and third-place finishers in the Summer Split Playoffs a spot in the LEC Season Finals as well. Additionally, any ties in Championship Points heading into the LEC Season Finals are broken by which team earned the higher number of Championship Points in Summer.
The league increased the time in between the Winter and Spring splits and Spring and the Mid-Season Invitational by one week. The break between Summer split and the LEC Season Finals will be shortened by one week.
The LEC also increased the minimum age requirement to compete from 17 to 18. Riot said the reason for the age limit increase was to "enable teams and the LEC to explore additional revenue opportunities."

Teams

Several team changes occurred heading into the 2024 season. In October 2023, La Ligue Française team Karmine Corp purchased the LEC franchise slot of Astralis. The following month, KOI ended their partnership with Infinite Reality, splitting their esports assets. With the split, Infinite Reality retained the LEC franchise position and reverted their branding back to Rogue. OverActive Media, owner of MAD Lions, would then buy KOI in January 2024, rebranding their League team to MAD Lions KOI. In December 2023, Excel Esports and Giants Gaming merged. As a result, LEC franchise Excel Esports rebranded to GIANTX.

Winter

The Winter Split regular season began on 13 January 2024. All matches took place at the Riot Games Arena in Berlin, Germany. The split concluded with the Winter Split Final on 18 February.

Spring

The Spring Split regular will begin on 9 March 2024. The split will conclude with the Spring Split Final on 14 April.

Summer

The summer split will begin on 8 June, with the regular season ending on 30 June. After a one week break to allow for the League of Legends tournament at the 2024 Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia, the playoffs will run from 12 to 28 July.

Season Finals

Qualification

A total of six teams will qualify for the Season Finals. The winner of each split, as well as the second- and third-placed teams from the Summer Split are automatically qualified, while the remaining teams are determined based on Championship Points. Teams are awarded Championship Points at the end of each split based on their performance, and seeding in the Season Finals is determined by a combination of Championship Points and Summer Playoffs placement.