The long-hinted merger for American League of Legends has come at last, with Riot Games today confirming the LCS, CBLOL, and LLA competitions will soon be consolidated into a new dual-conference Americas League.
The league will be divided into two conferences: North America and South America, with the LCS and CBLOL clubs competing independently, similar to how the leagues are now divided. However, the LLA will no longer be classified as a tiered region in the ecosystem and will be represented at each of the Americas conferences.
The merger, which was announced in a Riot Dev Update on June 11, is part of Riot’s larger strategy to streamline its tier-one ecosystem across League esports. The eventual result will be top-tier competition in the Americas similar to that of sister title VALORANT, which has an American Champions Tour comprised of players and squads from both continents.
It’s just one of multiple large mergers made ahead of the 2025 League season, with Asian subregions outside China’s LPL and Korea’s LCK coming together next year. The American and Pacific regions will follow in the footsteps of Europe and the Middle East, which had their subregions consolidated by 2022.
This means that professional teams from Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Japan, Vietnam, and Oceania will all play in a new multi-region competition.
It is unclear how this will affect each new-look league’s international representation. However, we expect the Americas competition to keep three World Championship hopefuls and maybe extend to five—essentially taking over the present Brazil and Latin America seeds.
The APAC division could receive all four qualification berths from Asia-Pacific’s semi-combined PCS (two) and Vietnam’s VCS (two). However, Riot is more likely to relocate some of those slots to important regions.
Several commentators hinted at the news on June 10. Former League coach and analyst LS believes the future of the region is “very good” but added the decision is likely to be polarizing. Cloud9 chief executive Jack Etienne simply tweeted a GIF of his hands up in front of flames.
Exact details, such as the impact of the merger on foreign berths, the future of the LLA, and how the Challenger circuit would be integrated into the new American League, were not disclosed, but are likely to be released as the summer progresses.
The LCS Summer Split 2024 began on Saturday, June 15.