With January ending, many starter events of the major LOL leagues across the world also ended. If you haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on, now’s your time to catch up, and if you’ve been confused as to why everybody’s suddenly talking about LCS, it is time for demystification.

Contrary to what we are used to, many heads were turning towards the LCS direction. North American LOL league, usually taking the back seat to Asia and Europe, had a lot happening at the beginning of the year. The season kicked off with the start of the year, but before that happened, RIOT announced a complete rebranding for the LCS league, with an intention to make the league more competitive.

What Are The Big Changes In LCS

What does that mean though? Well, first of all, they’ve released a video stating “it’s an end of an era” with many big players leaving for good, implying also that “a new era of LCS begins”. What that really means is that Riot has changed league’s logo, overlays and mottos, just like it recently also did with LCK. They also stated that from now on they will focus on new faces to lift the scene, trying to push rookies forward, making them future carriers of the league.

Riot also brought in a new format, starting with a new Lock In tournament, presented as a single-elimination kick-off tournament for the 2021 season. Ten teams competed for the final prize of 150k dollars, which at the end went to Team Liquid, who beat Cloud9 in the finals.

Of course, Lock In didn’t pass without the excitement, with everybody watching closely what some of the most prominent (and new) names in NA are going to do. The finals were very eventful, but Team Liquid managed to win the tournament after a 3:2 win over Cloud 9. Fans weren’t very satisfied with Cloud 9’s overall performance, since they have lost seven games throughout the tournament and didn’t show a very consistent game.

Perkz Hasn’t Exactly Delivered, But Doesn’t Care

Luka Perkz Perković, who transferred from Europe with a big bang, didn’t have stellar performances, but he wasn’t horrible either. At least, not horrible enough to deserve a backlash fans gave him, after having the expectations so high, it was impossible to reach them. Also, the team should at least have some time to adjust their play-styles, and that is only going to happen with time. Perkz didn’t care much about the criticism though, saying in a recent interview how he doesn’t intend to “prove anybody right or wrong” but instead just play the game and enjoy the “new adventure”.

Arguably the most popular game out there, at least if you are considering twitch numbers, LOL didn’t get to where it is today simply by inertia. Riot Games keep investing in the game and all of the assets around it, and they seem to be making the right moves. Let’s wait and see if these latest changes really wake LCS up and make them worthy competitors on the world level.

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