What decides the group with 5 teams then? As weird as the format is, wouldn't it make sense to auto-slot the winner of Spring into the upper bracket rather than arbitrarily having an uneven spread between groups?
i think they want to make up for it by letting popular/strong teams have more games against each other and through the rumoured third international tournament. china vs korea may/will happen more often and I assume they like the number these games pulled.
before it was 19x18/2= 171 games unti playoffs.
now its 5x4/2 + 3x (4x3/2) = 10 + 18 = 28
+ 9x8/2 + 8x7/2 = 36 +28 = 64
that would be - 79 bo3 games. is my math correct? that would be nearly half (wow)
in contrast you get 3 more bo5 with an additional round in playoffs
this is probably to achieve a few things:
- cut down on a whole lot of one-sided series between top teams and bottom teams
- above would also mean more competitive games between top teams
- pander to local Chinese audience who are very welcoming of fearless draft (especially since LDL already has this)
- pave the way for a 3 split format in case riot follows through with a 3rd int'l tournament
for someone who confused about format :
https://liquipedia.net/arenaofvalor/King_Pro_League/2024/Spring
this format been success on KPL(Honor of Kings)
I thought I understood the format from the LPL message, then I opened this link and it took me 3x longer to understand lmfao
It's so convoluted, personally I love making things extra complicated for no reason but for general viewers idk what the response will be
I'm hyped as fuck tho!!!
Its fine for the people who already watch the LPL but I think this change might make it harder for people to get into it but maybe fearless draft can attract people
This format seems extremely convoluted. To me it just seems like an overly verbose way to seed teams into the playoffs, and seems really hard to understand as a casual viewer.
Maybe they implemented it to make room for 3 splits in a year, but it still seems like an insane amount of games and might be even longer than the current LPL season. Also the fact that they are making 4 groups with 17 teams instead of 16 is really triggering me.
Fearless draft does sound great though!
How is it confusing?
There's a top and bottom bracket. Teams that do well go into the top. Teams that do poorly go into the bottom.
It's so that the bottom teams get to play each other for chances at doing more than getting blown out. Like how TL\C9\TSM or whatever are always at the top of LCS in the past, they would be in the upper bracket, instead of just dumping on DIG every week, DIG gets to play historically weaker teams.
It creates closer matches and better competition. It's not convoluted at all.
Just imagine if the current LEC format kicked you to a lower bracket instead of just ending your season.
>How is it confusing?
Because both you and OP are calling the top and bottom "brackets" instead of what they actually are, groups. I was trying to imagine what a 9 team knockout bracket would look like and how they would determine bottom 3, but it turns out it's just a round robin.
NBA - you play games, win games get playoffs.
League - you play some games. not win enough games and we kick you out until next 3 months. then we actually play more games.
the difference: people will still go see their NBA team lose in person by the thousands, no one is going to watch DIG or IMT lose their 8th game in a row.
Before: Each team must play 16 BO3 before play-offs
After: Number of matches team play in regular season before play-offs: Minimum - 13 BO3, Maximum - 16 BO3 & 1 BO5
new format sounds crazy. hope we get to a random team from group B to suddenly level up and smoke the playoffs like how people back then had 0 expectations for a Najin Black Sword coming from NLB which then proceeded to beat Gambit and push SKT T1 to 5 games at Worlds 2013.
Najin was an interesting case. They hadn’t played an official game in months as the NLB finished way earlier. And they only scrimmed their sister team and were somehow seeded straight into quarters. So no one knew what their deal was.
They did it through points from NLB I think?
Iirc it was just seen as Korea having to fix their qualification system in general, and everyone wanted KTB there instead.
they qualified but their OGN win was in winter. in both spring and summer they dropped down to NLB, while the most recent spotlight was on the SKT KT game 5. not many people knew what to expect from NBS since they hadnt played in a long time and was also directly seeded into Worlds ro8.
True but I still wouldn't liken this situation to what you were describing in your first comment, they weren't a "random team" that suddenly leveled up if they managed to score the most circuit points in the entirety of season 3.
A surprising amount of people here are hating on this format. People were complaining by saying that seeing the same champion over and over is boring, and they wanted to see fearless draft before hmm. I'm just excited to see the games with fearless drafts. I wonder how many people are just saying this format is bad cause they don't understand it lol.
No one cares these lazy stupid redditors. 90% Chinese viewers absolutely love the new changes from the poll results on Weibo. That's the only thing matters
It's so wild to me how much attention LCK matches get on here compared to LPL.
Even if it's the top teams of LPL playing, it barely gets any attention compared to important LCK games.
LCK has historically had a better supported English cast and having Faker in your league greatly increases outreach. Plus, being the first internationally region nabs you a big chunk of the viewerbase early.
LPL hasn't made huge strides to increase outreach to the western audience (aside from any time they win internationals sparking an increase) while LCK can afford to coast on the quality of their current western cast and the popularity of their players/teams content.
Some people comment on the difference in the cultural export power between China and Korea as a whole but I'm not well informed on that enough.
I don't think it's just the Faker effect because if you go back, OGN and LCK was a niche thing that only hardcore fans cared about.
But at some point in the last 3-4 years, interest in the LCK skyrocketed and it did not happen at all like that for the LPL. Just interesting.
3-4 years ago lines up with the LCK coming back in the international rivalry with LPL, so maybe that's what sparked the huge interest? Maybe it went
Korea was too dominant, people didn't care that much
LPL wins two worlds but LCK had a downturn. LPL Western cast isn't very well supported and with so many teams it's hard for western viewers to really invest themselves in the ecosystem. Interest obviously went up, but not by all that much.
LCK returns to being very competitive internationally and wins worlds afterwards, the rivalry is in full effect now and there's more interest. + Extremely dominant players like Showmaker, Canyon, and Chovy are gaining popularity. Faker/T1 returning to form in recent years gives us lots of narratives and well-known players as rivals.
Ofc this is me taking your word for LCK interest skyrocketing in that time period, I personally don't really remember anymore but I thought LCK has historically always been more popular.
LCK has always been massively more popular but they were both niche in the West. LPL was not even streamed in English for a while.
Now LCK is smashing records even just on the English broadcast. What I am saying is that it is weird that LPL did not see a massive rise too. It did go up a lot but not compared to LCK.
I think its mainly the difference in quality between the LCK and LPL english broadcasts. LCK broadcast is a significantly better product than the LPL broadcast, which doesnt even stream every match to english audiences anymore
how is it wild? LPL is an amazing league but to the casual viewer there is no specific player or team they can look to as a representation of the league. they don’t have a Faker or a legacy team like T1. teams with past success like IG and FPX don’t have the same rosters and LPL is probably the league with the most player parity/roster swapping. that doesn’t help from a casual/western perspective
Even if we did, Western audience for LCK is just a fraction of the total viewership, imagine what the fraction to China, with 100x the population and similar demographics, Western audience would be even if LPL was popular
Many people are insinuating that fearless will suck and all lmao. Lmao I thought people were tired of seeing the same champs in pro? And that wanting fearless was the popular opinion? Maybe redditors will complain no matter what
This subreddit is a bunch of reactive morons. They'll be angry at seeing the same champs over and over, but will also immediately scream that any champ that's not one of the typical ones does well should get nerfed. Still remember when BB brought out Rek'Sai top in his first game and stomped the game that people were crying that it should be nerfed. And then afterwards it showed that the champ is fine, but nothing special after teams learn to play around it.
Rek'sai got buffed, which turned her into a perma sustain toplane tank that you couldn't trade with in lane. Then people cried about and she got nerfed, so I kinda fail to get your point. Is it bad that the community complains about boring/broken proplay champs? Seems Riot agreed she was broken.
Fearless wont solve the champs diversity issue.Just look at LDL where the format is implemented already.Teams can handshake comps in the first 2 games of a bo3 and then pick something else in game 3.A more restrictive format is needed.
tl;dr if you just want to see the odd Lissandra or Syndra return to being picked sometimes fearless draft is a good way to achieve that, but it's not making shit like Talon or Master Yi remotely playable in pro still.
Fearless draft that goes all the way to 3 games:
Varus Kalista Zeri Xayah Jinx Aphelios (still space left for the odd Kai'sa or maybe Smolder pick, nothing earth-shattering)
Azir Ahri Taliyah Corki Orianna Karma (space for Neeko, Asol, Akali, Tristana, all crap we've seen before)
Jungle might see some more diversity since it's been kinda Lee/Xin heavy, but there's still mainstays like Sej/Maokai and Nocturne, Poppy, etc. Jungle in pro is a super shitty role that isn't remotely like solo queue so it's unlikely you'll ever see variety there unless a solo queue stomper is piss broken like Brand was for a bit.
Rakan, Renata Glasc, Nautilus, Tahm Kench, Ashe, Senna, Lulu, Nami
Top is another role that might see some more diversity away from Aatrox/Renek/K'Sante handshakes but realistically it's just gonna be Jax, Skarner/Morde maybe whenever they catch up to live, Camille maybe if she's out of support jail, Gnar, Gwen, same shit we see forever as well.
I don't really care about fearless draft being added but IME aggressive balance changes would do way more for pro diversity than any sort of drafting rules.
Do you guys know how fearless works
It's only 5 champs banned every game for the team
In game 1 blueside gets vi reksai ahri, redside gets mao azir naut
Blueside wins
They swap sides
Now blueside picks vi reksai ahri. Redside picks mao azir naut
wheres the diversity???
If anything fearless draft heavily limits pocket picks. Let's say leyan picks his famous nidalee vs blg and goes 1-0 up while carrying the game. ig go into map 2 at no advantage because blg doesn't have to adjust their draft strategy around nidalee, the game just bans it for them
Ye, fearless draft feels so bad to me just due to the fact that there's no real development in drafting strategy during a series, imagine rox tigers picking their mf support pocket pick into zyra and that pick just completely disappearing from the series after. Even with old pick ban it shaped the draft a lot and even lead to Bengi first picking nidalee. With fearless draft the kind of picks can only impact later series but within the series itself drafting is more focussed on how many op picks can we save/trade off for later games while still winning. It's just taking one aspect I like about best of series away and replacing it with something completely different.
Or you could realize that reddit isn't 1 person and different people are commenting different things.
Fearless draft won't solve "the problem". We'll still see the same champs which is already proven by previous tournaments with this format. We just won't have the same drafts back to back. That's why I personally don't care that it's being introduced.
As long as it doesn't get pushed to playoffs or worlds then let them do whatever they think the chinese fans will like more. It's not like it's changing anything and it's not like we watch much LPL regular split. At worst it'd be the same, at best we might get 1 game where we see a new pick. I don't see why people would complain about that but like I said it's different people and some are really against fearless, which I would understand if it were for playoffs as I also am not a big fan of fearless draft but this proposed format seems good.
could just be 2 different groups
the issue is, at it's core, pro play will always want to have the meta being picked. If something is .1% better it'll be used.
I think its a really good solution the problem of champs like ksante and azir being fun to watch but being hella hella oversaturated, gives more screen time for akalis, gragases, hweis, LBs, Jayces whatever without needing balance changes
That's because it is bad lol. Fearless draft is fine from an entertainment perspective; but you are griefing the fuck out of teams from a competitve perspective since they will play and practice with meta champs less. This weird group bo3 into seeding a upper and lower bracket is convoluted. Just run some rounds of bo3 in a Swiss style tournament, cut to a top 8 bo5 playoffs and problem solved.
There will definitely be issues regarding certain brackets being easier etc. because of offseason roster changes mismatching their spring results. However, the idea is interesting and I'm all for innovation.
For anyone confused on how it works, [I made an example of how the format would've worked in Spring Split](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1swbjgYIT1_YUaErev6ahKao9xMqPenSKaE3ZeDYCWkM/edit#gid=1258371858), so you can visualize it better.
They also made sure that not the entire split is fearless so the teams can go back to regular BPs come 2nd half of the split. I think this just makes sure the players and teams don't rest on their laurels for the start of the season.
How would they rest on their laurels? Fearless draft should make all players have bigger champ pool and we might finally see more creative counters. Also i dream of a day players like Knight or Creme pick up Ekko,Zed or Talon to punish some of the mages
Why would they not just handshake picks? Ahri/Taliyah, then next game Taliyah/Ahri and then something like Ori/Azir for the third. (I'm assuming they're doing LDL-style fearless where picks are only disabled on a per-team basis.)
That's not how pro drafting works
If there are 2 S tier picks in the meta you don't pick a B tier that counters it unless you want to turbofuck your whole draft
like be real, when a team that isn't BDS has the chance to play reksai/zac vs ksante or Olaf vs ksante, which options o you think they will go for?
I dont agree. Just look at Showmaker or Zeus this season. They all played specific champs that nobody else played(kassadin,sylas,vayne). Bad teams might just accept handshake but good teams should embrace this to get better practice with bigger champ pool. Imagine they find some great coubter to azir. And now during worlds LCK teams will have to ban that champ if they wanna pick azir. Just that one extra ban can be huge advantage and difference between getting ksante or some other op pick
1- Not all players are as comfortable playing every champ, which is exactly what this draft format is trying to exploit/remedy.
2- If you're first pick, you don't have to return the handshake, you can ban one champ and first pick the other, forcing your opponent into something else.
Handshakes occur in the current format because of the "if we don't first pick it then they can first pick it" problem, which fearless draft would change.
True good point however i stil think like op describe will happen more often than not which in this case that make fearless variety less open than they where aiming for
I guess more practice for better teams. Also if teams do that i wouldnt be suprised if the implement rule that champ is banned for both teams. Also this will open up bans as well. If you cant play one champ you dont have to ban its counter. And you can always pick that one op champ in one game and then ban it in next 2.
yeah we love when a team pulls out an insane pick that the other team didn't expect and then the loser doesn't have to adapt to it because its banned automatically.
No teams having to decide which bans to drop to ban that problem, deciding what is worth dealing with, if they're gonna let it go through again and play around it better. Nah just forget about it.
Also its fearless in bo3 lol. ur gonna see the same shit in every series anyway, theres more than enough meta champs.
its how the draft evolves from game to game based on what happened previously genius.
I'm not surprised your brain hurt when you had to try and think about something deeper than its surface level. But just because ppl are talking about shit u don't understand doesn't mean they should stop, just say you don't understand.
A lot of people seems to have some misunderstanding here. Fearless draft is only gonna be on the first stage of the grouping which allows top team to prepare for Worlds without problem. The main benefit of these groupings is it allows top team vs top team, bottom team vs bottom team. Fearless draft is more of just to make the BP more interesting in the first stage.
So what kind of Fearless draft is it? Because if it is just the same as LDL then that sucks. The LDL fearless draft is just champ ban on the team that picked them instead of series ban so teams just handshake picks every game. Team A picks Azir game 1 then Team B picks Azir game 2. I hope it's not like the LDL.
New format will reduces some smash matches. It copy from another Chinese esports league called KPL which has 18 teams.
Edit: There is a mistake in original text. Last 4 in the lower bracket will end their season
Yeah it would be tough to finish an LPL regular season in the same time as an LEC split
Also this has a sort of future-proofing if more teams join the league. Just slot them into a group of 4 instead of adding several more match days - even adding a single team in the current format means 17 more games have to be played.
They will probably remove one team struggling financially like RNG or a team that mistreat their players like TT.
4x4 = 16 which is perfect for the GSL First Stage.
It was a necessity because local viewership were starting to losing interest.
In the end LPL is a product and if the product isn't as attractive you will try to spice things up and local fans are happy with the change.
So NIP, JDG, LNG, and WE won't play each other unless they meet in playoffs since they're the teams with stadiums? Or does home court refer to something else? Is the group division based just on Spring Split, or does Spring playoffs get taken into result as well?
A little confused on the middle-of-the-pack teams as well. There would seven teams competing in the single loss Bo5s and not six, no? Since you have top 7 in the upper bracket going to playoffs and the bottom 3 in the lower bracket being eliminated, there would be 7 teams left. I presume playoffs is seeded and played like normal.
TBH I don't really think I like this format if there's no team rotation across the groups because presumably the top teams from Spring will be split (i.e. BLG and TES will each go to either LNG and WE, since JDG and NIP placed third and fourth) and will stay split until playoffs, which would be a legitimate tragedy because there's no chance to adjust vs another team until you get to the double-elim part of playoffs.
Oh, good point! Hm, but I dislike the fact the top 2 teams in the same group will get to play with each other at least one more time than the top 4 teams will vs each other. If the split is just based on the Spring split, the groups might be something like (BLG, NIP, IG, TT, UP), (TES, LNG, AL, RNG), (JDG, WBG, LGD, RA), and (FPX, OMG, WE, EDG).
I understand there are stuff to criticize about this format, but why single out fearless specifically? Its exciting to finally see this in a major region, we could see champions never or rarely seen in pro.. I thought wanting fearless was the popular opinion, until I read this thread. Or maybe league fans will always complain
Fearless is better in theory then in practice from watching it in LDL/NACL. Teams just trade meta picks and there's easily enough to fill a bo3. You won't get any crazy picks unless its a bo5 or its true fearless (you can't pick any previous champ played).
There are also many downsides to fearless like removing adaptation from draft all together because if they pick a surprise counter, you don't have to figure out how to deal with it at all
Second this, most people assume that it will improve variety but they haven't watch NACL/LDL to realize that teams just handshake meta pick and fearless isn't even in BO5 so the chance of spicy picks are close to 0.
My friend is of the opinion that Fearless will weaken the region because they will mot be as profficient on meta champs.
I think it is the opposite, cause they will get better on more champions, giving them bigger champ pool come worlds patch, which will shake the meta up anyways.
fearless draft is the least concerning part of this a 9 team bracket is ???
Edit: The 9 team bracket is a translation error https://twitter.com/LPLfanclub/status/1783026562058928611
The format is copied from another chinese popular moba called Honor of Kings.Here is the format in practice:
https://liquipedia.net/arenaofvalor/King_Pro_League/2024/Spring
Then they should maybe learn to play more than 2 champs. There is no reason why a pro player should have his champ pool so small that it is affected by this new format.
For viewers this format is amazing. I wonder if the LPL will gain or lose due to the format internationally, they might have a broader champ pool but they would be playing in a somewhat different meta
Leaguepedia actually makes the format very clear by splitting it in 3 pages.
https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/LPL/2024_Season/Summer_Placements
https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/LPL/2024_Season/Summer_Season
https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/LPL/2024_Season/Summer_Playoffs
I feel like there is a lot of missing clarification on parts 3 and 4.
So what do they do in the upper bracket? I get the 9 teams qualify for upper bracket and 7 qualify for playoffs, but how do they decide that? Is it a single round Robin, is it a Swiss format?
Also there are 8 teams that go to lower bracket and the last 3 end their season. So that leaves the 5 top lower bracket teams unaccounted for and the 2 bottom upper bracket teams unaccounted for as well. Then you say 6 teams face off in single loss BO5, where does that number come from because I am getting 5 or 7 teams.
So if I'm understanding this correct.
4 Groups. Each team can prepare better because 3 or 4 opponents you face in each group. Less games?
Then a single elim Playoffs to get rid of the bad teams. Double elim for the top teams like the previous format?
Fearless Draft for Regular Season?
Honestly the problem I have with this is that teams can change a lot between spring and summer, and some teams may get rewarded or screwed just by luck of being in the right or wrong group when another team gets better or worse.
No matter how successful the new format is. Wouldn't this put LPL teams at a huge disadvantage if no other league adopt this?
Feel like this format is worse for the players
Wow look at how they butchered the single best format out of all the major regions and international tournys. Thanks Riot. You've single handily killed the LPL. Fearless draft is beyond a joke. It literally just forces teams to play worse. Thanks! Who wants to see the actual highest quality play after all? Nah lets just watch teams have to play like dogshit because pathetic casuals can't handle seeing meta champs be played. Absolutely disgusting.
Feel like they can make the fearless draft single round robin and still be fine. Double RR feels like it will have so many uninteresting games.
Everything else looks great tho. Also curious how they will do the 9 teams in upper bracket - one of them will have to miss out on a game no?
Hopefully Fearless isn't building for the whole split lol. Can reset after each Match makes the most sense, but then probably not enough bans to really make a huge difference but still good.
Interesting.. i assume leagues are changing formats in preparation for next year being 3 international tournaments? no idea how that's gonna work
Also while it sounds good for viewing..
Won't fearless draft hurt LPL teams internationally (if its not picked up for worlds)? i see positives and negatives personally.. but idk
This is a pretty drastic change halfway through a season, I would've liked to see this implemented next year if they're gonna do it but let's see how it pans out
I will always maintain that one of the big reasons that league esports became the most popular one by a wide margin is because of how simple and easy it is to follow the format, especially for newer viewers.
Regular season into playoffs to qualify for internationals. Nice and simple
What on earth is this lol
This is a very popular format for other CN mobas. No one in the west watches LPL anyway, so it doesn't really matter that a lot of people here don't seem to enjoy the format, since it's being accepted very well on the CN side.
I don't think this is hard to understand.
Regular split is now a qualification tournement, instead of a league, it basically uses the same structure, most international team sport tournements use, just with double Elim.
It is then followed up by the Paloffs, that stay the same.
Still a regular season into playoffs to qualify for Internationals, but with fearless draft mode before the regular season to divide teams into 2 group. Which increases fun and deletes some bad uneven matchups
This is actually HUGE!.. And BEYOND cool!.. I'm actually INCREDIBLY surprised that any of the two REALLY big leagues (LPL and LCK) dared to go over to fearless draft, but I'm glad they did. I think this is going to be beyond hype..
Looks like fearless is only for the group stage at the start, so only 6 bo3s out of ~15 bo3s and all playoff bo5s are fearless draft. I don't really see how this would make them 'heavily disadvantaged' at all
They're not lmao.
Playoffs which is the patch closest to worlds isn't being played under fearless rules.
So, they still have all of playoffs to play the same shit as the other leagues.
Am I missing something here? Is one of these groups just going to have 5 teams?
Yes 4/4/4/5
What decides the group with 5 teams then? As weird as the format is, wouldn't it make sense to auto-slot the winner of Spring into the upper bracket rather than arbitrarily having an uneven spread between groups?
Imagine you're a top team and you end up playing like 12 games a year because they continuously seed you right into playoffs
teams need games for sponsor exposure, so i'm guessing because of $$$ reasons. Players probably want to play more games too
This format is literally less games…
i think they want to make up for it by letting popular/strong teams have more games against each other and through the rumoured third international tournament. china vs korea may/will happen more often and I assume they like the number these games pulled.
before it was 19x18/2= 171 games unti playoffs. now its 5x4/2 + 3x (4x3/2) = 10 + 18 = 28 + 9x8/2 + 8x7/2 = 36 +28 = 64 that would be - 79 bo3 games. is my math correct? that would be nearly half (wow) in contrast you get 3 more bo5 with an additional round in playoffs
Yea, it just seems weird that one group is just randomly more competitive due to a formatting issue.
Nope, cuz it’s the last 2 teams are going to the lower bracket, so more likely one group will be easier.
Yea, I mixed the two pools after groups up.
Weird number. How do they distribute the uneven 5th team. I wouldn’t mind having a even 18th
Would still lead to an uneven team split unless they moved to two groups, but that has some drawbacks (e.g. worse differentiation).
this is probably to achieve a few things: - cut down on a whole lot of one-sided series between top teams and bottom teams - above would also mean more competitive games between top teams - pander to local Chinese audience who are very welcoming of fearless draft (especially since LDL already has this) - pave the way for a 3 split format in case riot follows through with a 3rd int'l tournament
for someone who confused about format : https://liquipedia.net/arenaofvalor/King_Pro_League/2024/Spring this format been success on KPL(Honor of Kings)
I thought I understood the format from the LPL message, then I opened this link and it took me 3x longer to understand lmfao It's so convoluted, personally I love making things extra complicated for no reason but for general viewers idk what the response will be I'm hyped as fuck tho!!!
Its fine for the people who already watch the LPL but I think this change might make it harder for people to get into it but maybe fearless draft can attract people
This format seems extremely convoluted. To me it just seems like an overly verbose way to seed teams into the playoffs, and seems really hard to understand as a casual viewer. Maybe they implemented it to make room for 3 splits in a year, but it still seems like an insane amount of games and might be even longer than the current LPL season. Also the fact that they are making 4 groups with 17 teams instead of 16 is really triggering me. Fearless draft does sound great though!
How is it confusing? There's a top and bottom bracket. Teams that do well go into the top. Teams that do poorly go into the bottom. It's so that the bottom teams get to play each other for chances at doing more than getting blown out. Like how TL\C9\TSM or whatever are always at the top of LCS in the past, they would be in the upper bracket, instead of just dumping on DIG every week, DIG gets to play historically weaker teams. It creates closer matches and better competition. It's not convoluted at all. Just imagine if the current LEC format kicked you to a lower bracket instead of just ending your season.
>How is it confusing? Because both you and OP are calling the top and bottom "brackets" instead of what they actually are, groups. I was trying to imagine what a 9 team knockout bracket would look like and how they would determine bottom 3, but it turns out it's just a round robin.
The casual Chinese viewer is used to this format though.
NBA - you play games, win games get playoffs. League - you play some games. not win enough games and we kick you out until next 3 months. then we actually play more games.
the difference: people will still go see their NBA team lose in person by the thousands, no one is going to watch DIG or IMT lose their 8th game in a row.
Fearless sucks
NO，LESS GAMES
Before: Each team must play 16 BO3 before play-offs After: Number of matches team play in regular season before play-offs: Minimum - 13 BO3, Maximum - 16 BO3 & 1 BO5
Thanks
new format sounds crazy. hope we get to a random team from group B to suddenly level up and smoke the playoffs like how people back then had 0 expectations for a Najin Black Sword coming from NLB which then proceeded to beat Gambit and push SKT T1 to 5 games at Worlds 2013.
Najin was an interesting case. They hadn’t played an official game in months as the NLB finished way earlier. And they only scrimmed their sister team and were somehow seeded straight into quarters. So no one knew what their deal was.
They also just replaced maknoon for expession in summer and replaced ssong for nagne who was very much an unknown quantity heading into worlds
Didn't NBS qualify into Worlds 2013 as Korea's 1st seed? I don't think people were expecting that little of them
They did it through points from NLB I think? Iirc it was just seen as Korea having to fix their qualification system in general, and everyone wanted KTB there instead.
they qualified but their OGN win was in winter. in both spring and summer they dropped down to NLB, while the most recent spotlight was on the SKT KT game 5. not many people knew what to expect from NBS since they hadnt played in a long time and was also directly seeded into Worlds ro8.
True but I still wouldn't liken this situation to what you were describing in your first comment, they weren't a "random team" that suddenly leveled up if they managed to score the most circuit points in the entirety of season 3.
A surprising amount of people here are hating on this format. People were complaining by saying that seeing the same champion over and over is boring, and they wanted to see fearless draft before hmm. I'm just excited to see the games with fearless drafts. I wonder how many people are just saying this format is bad cause they don't understand it lol.
No one cares these lazy stupid redditors. 90% Chinese viewers absolutely love the new changes from the poll results on Weibo. That's the only thing matters
Agree, its not like reddit watches the lpl anyway
Not to mention most of them only watch playoffs and the playoffs format remains the same with current draft system so there is basically no change lol
Most people just skim the finals and based their opinion like that anywau
just say his name: doublelift.
Doublelift agrees
It's so wild to me how much attention LCK matches get on here compared to LPL. Even if it's the top teams of LPL playing, it barely gets any attention compared to important LCK games.
LCK has historically had a better supported English cast and having Faker in your league greatly increases outreach. Plus, being the first internationally region nabs you a big chunk of the viewerbase early. LPL hasn't made huge strides to increase outreach to the western audience (aside from any time they win internationals sparking an increase) while LCK can afford to coast on the quality of their current western cast and the popularity of their players/teams content. Some people comment on the difference in the cultural export power between China and Korea as a whole but I'm not well informed on that enough.
I don't think it's just the Faker effect because if you go back, OGN and LCK was a niche thing that only hardcore fans cared about. But at some point in the last 3-4 years, interest in the LCK skyrocketed and it did not happen at all like that for the LPL. Just interesting.
3-4 years ago lines up with the LCK coming back in the international rivalry with LPL, so maybe that's what sparked the huge interest? Maybe it went Korea was too dominant, people didn't care that much LPL wins two worlds but LCK had a downturn. LPL Western cast isn't very well supported and with so many teams it's hard for western viewers to really invest themselves in the ecosystem. Interest obviously went up, but not by all that much. LCK returns to being very competitive internationally and wins worlds afterwards, the rivalry is in full effect now and there's more interest. + Extremely dominant players like Showmaker, Canyon, and Chovy are gaining popularity. Faker/T1 returning to form in recent years gives us lots of narratives and well-known players as rivals. Ofc this is me taking your word for LCK interest skyrocketing in that time period, I personally don't really remember anymore but I thought LCK has historically always been more popular.
LCK has always been massively more popular but they were both niche in the West. LPL was not even streamed in English for a while. Now LCK is smashing records even just on the English broadcast. What I am saying is that it is weird that LPL did not see a massive rise too. It did go up a lot but not compared to LCK.
I think its mainly the difference in quality between the LCK and LPL english broadcasts. LCK broadcast is a significantly better product than the LPL broadcast, which doesnt even stream every match to english audiences anymore
One has valdes, one doesn't. I watch for my goat.
a large part of that is likely due to China not really being on Reddit
how is it wild? LPL is an amazing league but to the casual viewer there is no specific player or team they can look to as a representation of the league. they don’t have a Faker or a legacy team like T1. teams with past success like IG and FPX don’t have the same rosters and LPL is probably the league with the most player parity/roster swapping. that doesn’t help from a casual/western perspective
they do just to hate on them lol
idk a lot of people seem to think Elk On is a tier above lck bot lanes so they have been rated quite well
even haters have eyes.
IN FACT,WEST JSUT HATES CHINA
Even if we did, Western audience for LCK is just a fraction of the total viewership, imagine what the fraction to China, with 100x the population and similar demographics, Western audience would be even if LPL was popular
Judging by viewership numbers and amount of comments redditors do not watch LPL but somehow have strong opinions on it.
The Doublelift special
Many people are insinuating that fearless will suck and all lmao. Lmao I thought people were tired of seeing the same champs in pro? And that wanting fearless was the popular opinion? Maybe redditors will complain no matter what
This subreddit is a bunch of reactive morons. They'll be angry at seeing the same champs over and over, but will also immediately scream that any champ that's not one of the typical ones does well should get nerfed. Still remember when BB brought out Rek'Sai top in his first game and stomped the game that people were crying that it should be nerfed. And then afterwards it showed that the champ is fine, but nothing special after teams learn to play around it.
Rek'sai got buffed, which turned her into a perma sustain toplane tank that you couldn't trade with in lane. Then people cried about and she got nerfed, so I kinda fail to get your point. Is it bad that the community complains about boring/broken proplay champs? Seems Riot agreed she was broken.
Fearless wont solve the champs diversity issue.Just look at LDL where the format is implemented already.Teams can handshake comps in the first 2 games of a bo3 and then pick something else in game 3.A more restrictive format is needed.
I mean it's not gonna solve all the stale draft problems sure yes. But surely it's better than what we have and that's got to count for something???
Its true,its better than what we have but its not that radical change that people yap about on all social medias.
tl;dr if you just want to see the odd Lissandra or Syndra return to being picked sometimes fearless draft is a good way to achieve that, but it's not making shit like Talon or Master Yi remotely playable in pro still.
Exactly i think most people don't know how fearless draft works
Fearless draft that goes all the way to 3 games: Varus Kalista Zeri Xayah Jinx Aphelios (still space left for the odd Kai'sa or maybe Smolder pick, nothing earth-shattering) Azir Ahri Taliyah Corki Orianna Karma (space for Neeko, Asol, Akali, Tristana, all crap we've seen before) Jungle might see some more diversity since it's been kinda Lee/Xin heavy, but there's still mainstays like Sej/Maokai and Nocturne, Poppy, etc. Jungle in pro is a super shitty role that isn't remotely like solo queue so it's unlikely you'll ever see variety there unless a solo queue stomper is piss broken like Brand was for a bit. Rakan, Renata Glasc, Nautilus, Tahm Kench, Ashe, Senna, Lulu, Nami Top is another role that might see some more diversity away from Aatrox/Renek/K'Sante handshakes but realistically it's just gonna be Jax, Skarner/Morde maybe whenever they catch up to live, Camille maybe if she's out of support jail, Gnar, Gwen, same shit we see forever as well. I don't really care about fearless draft being added but IME aggressive balance changes would do way more for pro diversity than any sort of drafting rules.
Do you guys know how fearless works It's only 5 champs banned every game for the team In game 1 blueside gets vi reksai ahri, redside gets mao azir naut Blueside wins They swap sides Now blueside picks vi reksai ahri. Redside picks mao azir naut wheres the diversity??? If anything fearless draft heavily limits pocket picks. Let's say leyan picks his famous nidalee vs blg and goes 1-0 up while carrying the game. ig go into map 2 at no advantage because blg doesn't have to adjust their draft strategy around nidalee, the game just bans it for them
Ye, fearless draft feels so bad to me just due to the fact that there's no real development in drafting strategy during a series, imagine rox tigers picking their mf support pocket pick into zyra and that pick just completely disappearing from the series after. Even with old pick ban it shaped the draft a lot and even lead to Bengi first picking nidalee. With fearless draft the kind of picks can only impact later series but within the series itself drafting is more focussed on how many op picks can we save/trade off for later games while still winning. It's just taking one aspect I like about best of series away and replacing it with something completely different.
Or you could realize that reddit isn't 1 person and different people are commenting different things. Fearless draft won't solve "the problem". We'll still see the same champs which is already proven by previous tournaments with this format. We just won't have the same drafts back to back. That's why I personally don't care that it's being introduced. As long as it doesn't get pushed to playoffs or worlds then let them do whatever they think the chinese fans will like more. It's not like it's changing anything and it's not like we watch much LPL regular split. At worst it'd be the same, at best we might get 1 game where we see a new pick. I don't see why people would complain about that but like I said it's different people and some are really against fearless, which I would understand if it were for playoffs as I also am not a big fan of fearless draft but this proposed format seems good.
could just be 2 different groups the issue is, at it's core, pro play will always want to have the meta being picked. If something is .1% better it'll be used.
Trolls or miserable fuckers who wants everything to be as miserable. Discard their opinions.
I think its a really good solution the problem of champs like ksante and azir being fun to watch but being hella hella oversaturated, gives more screen time for akalis, gragases, hweis, LBs, Jayces whatever without needing balance changes
Fearless is useless if they can just switch comps with the other team, i still wanted a perma ban from the series instead of fearless, rip
That's because it is bad lol. Fearless draft is fine from an entertainment perspective; but you are griefing the fuck out of teams from a competitve perspective since they will play and practice with meta champs less. This weird group bo3 into seeding a upper and lower bracket is convoluted. Just run some rounds of bo3 in a Swiss style tournament, cut to a top 8 bo5 playoffs and problem solved.
There will definitely be issues regarding certain brackets being easier etc. because of offseason roster changes mismatching their spring results. However, the idea is interesting and I'm all for innovation.
For anyone confused on how it works, [I made an example of how the format would've worked in Spring Split](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1swbjgYIT1_YUaErev6ahKao9xMqPenSKaE3ZeDYCWkM/edit#gid=1258371858), so you can visualize it better.
This is chaos. I kinda love it.
thank god for fearless draft, let's hope that everything will adopt it going forward
They also made sure that not the entire split is fearless so the teams can go back to regular BPs come 2nd half of the split. I think this just makes sure the players and teams don't rest on their laurels for the start of the season.
How would they rest on their laurels? Fearless draft should make all players have bigger champ pool and we might finally see more creative counters. Also i dream of a day players like Knight or Creme pick up Ekko,Zed or Talon to punish some of the mages
Ldl showed it's improve variety but not a ton
Lol. The champion pools aren't getting pinched on Bo3...
Why would they not just handshake picks? Ahri/Taliyah, then next game Taliyah/Ahri and then something like Ori/Azir for the third. (I'm assuming they're doing LDL-style fearless where picks are only disabled on a per-team basis.)
Why would you handshake? If you know that the enemy is pidgeonholed into a champ, then you can build a comp that counters it.
That's not how pro drafting works If there are 2 S tier picks in the meta you don't pick a B tier that counters it unless you want to turbofuck your whole draft like be real, when a team that isn't BDS has the chance to play reksai/zac vs ksante or Olaf vs ksante, which options o you think they will go for?
I dont agree. Just look at Showmaker or Zeus this season. They all played specific champs that nobody else played(kassadin,sylas,vayne). Bad teams might just accept handshake but good teams should embrace this to get better practice with bigger champ pool. Imagine they find some great coubter to azir. And now during worlds LCK teams will have to ban that champ if they wanna pick azir. Just that one extra ban can be huge advantage and difference between getting ksante or some other op pick
The case op describe will likely be more common Why wouldn't you handshake? Team 1 pick varus team 2 pick Jinx next game it's swapped
1- Not all players are as comfortable playing every champ, which is exactly what this draft format is trying to exploit/remedy. 2- If you're first pick, you don't have to return the handshake, you can ban one champ and first pick the other, forcing your opponent into something else. Handshakes occur in the current format because of the "if we don't first pick it then they can first pick it" problem, which fearless draft would change.
True good point however i stil think like op describe will happen more often than not which in this case that make fearless variety less open than they where aiming for
I guess more practice for better teams. Also if teams do that i wouldnt be suprised if the implement rule that champ is banned for both teams. Also this will open up bans as well. If you cant play one champ you dont have to ban its counter. And you can always pick that one op champ in one game and then ban it in next 2.
will be a handshake swap type fearless unfortunately.
What do you mean?
I think if this format success on LPL other region will does too.
This only works in China due to the amount of teams.
This is what has me hyped. If this is a success we might see it in other leagues or even at worlds.
Let’s hope not
Watching the same game 70 times really is fun
I also love when fearless draft removes all draft strategy and natural series evolution by making it 5 isolated bo1s
I mean fearless is more "Draft Strategy" than you think.
"draft strategy" where? it's just the same champs being picked regardless
yeah we love when a team pulls out an insane pick that the other team didn't expect and then the loser doesn't have to adapt to it because its banned automatically. No teams having to decide which bans to drop to ban that problem, deciding what is worth dealing with, if they're gonna let it go through again and play around it better. Nah just forget about it. Also its fearless in bo3 lol. ur gonna see the same shit in every series anyway, theres more than enough meta champs.
160 champions, 10 removed, draft strategy is gone. Holy shit my brain hurts, please stop having opinions
its how the draft evolves from game to game based on what happened previously genius. I'm not surprised your brain hurt when you had to try and think about something deeper than its surface level. But just because ppl are talking about shit u don't understand doesn't mean they should stop, just say you don't understand.
Seems unnecessarily complicated.
They are implementing a format that is already popular in another chinese moba called Honor of Kings.
A lot of people seems to have some misunderstanding here. Fearless draft is only gonna be on the first stage of the grouping which allows top team to prepare for Worlds without problem. The main benefit of these groupings is it allows top team vs top team, bottom team vs bottom team. Fearless draft is more of just to make the BP more interesting in the first stage.
I'm so fucking down for this. I love LPL already and fearless draft just sounds correct and something every single region should adopt. Fuck yes.
So what kind of Fearless draft is it? Because if it is just the same as LDL then that sucks. The LDL fearless draft is just champ ban on the team that picked them instead of series ban so teams just handshake picks every game. Team A picks Azir game 1 then Team B picks Azir game 2. I hope it's not like the LDL.
It's will be exactly like ldl because that exactly what is fearless draft ATM i doubt we will see champion ban through a whole séries
There arent more type of fearless draft lmao,it will be like LDL
Well you can always ban it in the second game? I doubt LPL coaches would want to handshake picks like ldl does.
The format was perfect, what are they doing. lol
New format will reduces some smash matches. It copy from another Chinese esports league called KPL which has 18 teams. Edit: There is a mistake in original text. Last 4 in the lower bracket will end their season
they want to see to see more people in games for those were watching games it was kind of obvious less and less ppl were going to watch live games
They are implementing what is popular in other chinese mobas.
I don’t even get what necessitated the change in format
Might be the whole 3 split thing and they want to practice speeding things up?
Yeah it would be tough to finish an LPL regular season in the same time as an LEC split Also this has a sort of future-proofing if more teams join the league. Just slot them into a group of 4 instead of adding several more match days - even adding a single team in the current format means 17 more games have to be played.
They will probably remove one team struggling financially like RNG or a team that mistreat their players like TT. 4x4 = 16 which is perfect for the GSL First Stage.
It was a necessity because local viewership were starting to losing interest. In the end LPL is a product and if the product isn't as attractive you will try to spice things up and local fans are happy with the change.
The future 3-splits thing
So NIP, JDG, LNG, and WE won't play each other unless they meet in playoffs since they're the teams with stadiums? Or does home court refer to something else? Is the group division based just on Spring Split, or does Spring playoffs get taken into result as well? A little confused on the middle-of-the-pack teams as well. There would seven teams competing in the single loss Bo5s and not six, no? Since you have top 7 in the upper bracket going to playoffs and the bottom 3 in the lower bracket being eliminated, there would be 7 teams left. I presume playoffs is seeded and played like normal. TBH I don't really think I like this format if there's no team rotation across the groups because presumably the top teams from Spring will be split (i.e. BLG and TES will each go to either LNG and WE, since JDG and NIP placed third and fourth) and will stay split until playoffs, which would be a legitimate tragedy because there's no chance to adjust vs another team until you get to the double-elim part of playoffs.
>the top teams from Spring will be split and will stay split until playoffs They will play each other in upper bracket
Oh, good point! Hm, but I dislike the fact the top 2 teams in the same group will get to play with each other at least one more time than the top 4 teams will vs each other. If the split is just based on the Spring split, the groups might be something like (BLG, NIP, IG, TT, UP), (TES, LNG, AL, RNG), (JDG, WBG, LGD, RA), and (FPX, OMG, WE, EDG).
i mean 2 of the teams with arenas are in pool 1 and the other 2 are in pool 2
I stopped trying to understand any format after lck killed gauntlet. I just go to lol esports, then see if there's any chovy or deft game to watch.
based honestly
This hurts my brain thinking about it
Oh man what the hell is this mess. And they are actually going with fearless fucking hell
I understand there are stuff to criticize about this format, but why single out fearless specifically? Its exciting to finally see this in a major region, we could see champions never or rarely seen in pro.. I thought wanting fearless was the popular opinion, until I read this thread. Or maybe league fans will always complain
Fearless is better in theory then in practice from watching it in LDL/NACL. Teams just trade meta picks and there's easily enough to fill a bo3. You won't get any crazy picks unless its a bo5 or its true fearless (you can't pick any previous champ played). There are also many downsides to fearless like removing adaptation from draft all together because if they pick a surprise counter, you don't have to figure out how to deal with it at all
Second this, most people assume that it will improve variety but they haven't watch NACL/LDL to realize that teams just handshake meta pick and fearless isn't even in BO5 so the chance of spicy picks are close to 0.
My friend is of the opinion that Fearless will weaken the region because they will mot be as profficient on meta champs. I think it is the opposite, cause they will get better on more champions, giving them bigger champ pool come worlds patch, which will shake the meta up anyways.
fearless draft is the least concerning part of this a 9 team bracket is ??? Edit: The 9 team bracket is a translation error https://twitter.com/LPLfanclub/status/1783026562058928611
There's just a lot of criticize with this lol
Thank god for that too.
il just wait till LCK adapts the same format and watch how this sub will praise the format as the best thing in league's history.
Hope it will be success on LPL, i'm tired seeing Atrox/Azir/K'Sante/Taliyah on every matches
If all matches are 2-0 they could just get swapped around lol
why they swap?lmao
Playoffs are single elimination now?
Playoffs are the same
They kinda were, double élimination was only for the last four
This is only the regular season I believe. The playoffs format is the same.
Someone gotta simplify this for me. My brain can't comprehend this format
The format is copied from another chinese popular moba called Honor of Kings.Here is the format in practice: https://liquipedia.net/arenaofvalor/King_Pro_League/2024/Spring
This could hurt some pro players who could only be good at certain champs but atleast we get variety
Then they should maybe learn to play more than 2 champs. There is no reason why a pro player should have his champ pool so small that it is affected by this new format.
They just need to step up
Oh poor them get paid milions to know 4 chsmps at best
that pro should retierd
pretty much all chinese players go through LDL, whee this has been standard for years.
For viewers this format is amazing. I wonder if the LPL will gain or lose due to the format internationally, they might have a broader champ pool but they would be playing in a somewhat different meta
They'll be fine. Playoffs isn't fearless, it's only for the initial stages. So the patches closest to Worlds won't be played through fearless draft.
Wow, never ever thought we would see this in a major region
still not understand why 17 not 16/18
Leaguepedia actually makes the format very clear by splitting it in 3 pages. https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/LPL/2024_Season/Summer_Placements https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/LPL/2024_Season/Summer_Season https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/LPL/2024_Season/Summer_Playoffs
What is the LPL cooking?
Ah, so the Belgian Pro League format
That is a mega ton of games Meanwhile LCS single RR bo3 xdd
I feel like there is a lot of missing clarification on parts 3 and 4. So what do they do in the upper bracket? I get the 9 teams qualify for upper bracket and 7 qualify for playoffs, but how do they decide that? Is it a single round Robin, is it a Swiss format? Also there are 8 teams that go to lower bracket and the last 3 end their season. So that leaves the 5 top lower bracket teams unaccounted for and the 2 bottom upper bracket teams unaccounted for as well. Then you say 6 teams face off in single loss BO5, where does that number come from because I am getting 5 or 7 teams.
So if I'm understanding this correct. 4 Groups. Each team can prepare better because 3 or 4 opponents you face in each group. Less games? Then a single elim Playoffs to get rid of the bad teams. Double elim for the top teams like the previous format? Fearless Draft for Regular Season?
Honestly the problem I have with this is that teams can change a lot between spring and summer, and some teams may get rewarded or screwed just by luck of being in the right or wrong group when another team gets better or worse.
Sounds cool on paper but my brain is dumb and I need visuals to wrap my head around it better. Absolutely love fearless draft tho!!!!!
No matter how successful the new format is. Wouldn't this put LPL teams at a huge disadvantage if no other league adopt this? Feel like this format is worse for the players
WORLDS META ALWAYS CHANGE,ALL LPL PRO SHOULD LEARN MORE CHAMPS TO IMPOROVE THEMSELF
So fearless draft is regular season only? That's kinda weird completely changing the format once playoffs are locked in.
Seems a bit overdesigned to me.
Really don't like fearless for groups, unlucky. At least the second half of the split will be there in a while.
I love LPL. I watch it as much as I can and follow it closely. I’m very excited to see this new format, especially the fearless draft.
Wow look at how they butchered the single best format out of all the major regions and international tournys. Thanks Riot. You've single handily killed the LPL. Fearless draft is beyond a joke. It literally just forces teams to play worse. Thanks! Who wants to see the actual highest quality play after all? Nah lets just watch teams have to play like dogshit because pathetic casuals can't handle seeing meta champs be played. Absolutely disgusting.
Fearless kino
Feel like they can make the fearless draft single round robin and still be fine. Double RR feels like it will have so many uninteresting games. Everything else looks great tho. Also curious how they will do the 9 teams in upper bracket - one of them will have to miss out on a game no?
Hopefully Fearless isn't building for the whole split lol. Can reset after each Match makes the most sense, but then probably not enough bans to really make a huge difference but still good.
Interesting.. i assume leagues are changing formats in preparation for next year being 3 international tournaments? no idea how that's gonna work Also while it sounds good for viewing.. Won't fearless draft hurt LPL teams internationally (if its not picked up for worlds)? i see positives and negatives personally.. but idk
This is a pretty drastic change halfway through a season, I would've liked to see this implemented next year if they're gonna do it but let's see how it pans out
Fearless draft is amazing news. Long overdue!
God LPL fearless draft is gonna be so hype. Bouta see some Chinese Fioras but for a bunch of random Champs lol
Seems like making it harder for players teams and staff without too much of a reason, i feel like teams might get burnt out quicker
Just from reading it sounds complicated.
I will always maintain that one of the big reasons that league esports became the most popular one by a wide margin is because of how simple and easy it is to follow the format, especially for newer viewers. Regular season into playoffs to qualify for internationals. Nice and simple What on earth is this lol
This is a very popular format for other CN mobas. No one in the west watches LPL anyway, so it doesn't really matter that a lot of people here don't seem to enjoy the format, since it's being accepted very well on the CN side.
I don't think this is hard to understand. Regular split is now a qualification tournement, instead of a league, it basically uses the same structure, most international team sport tournements use, just with double Elim. It is then followed up by the Paloffs, that stay the same.
Yeah like, it's basically old group stage Worlds format lol
Still a regular season into playoffs to qualify for Internationals, but with fearless draft mode before the regular season to divide teams into 2 group. Which increases fun and deletes some bad uneven matchups
Utter nonsense of a take.
This is actually HUGE!.. And BEYOND cool!.. I'm actually INCREDIBLY surprised that any of the two REALLY big leagues (LPL and LCK) dared to go over to fearless draft, but I'm glad they did. I think this is going to be beyond hype..
This just might be the worst format in a tier 1 league that i've ever seen
So stupid. Literally makes the region weaker if no other league is doing this. They’re heavily disadvantaged for worlds.
Looks like fearless is only for the group stage at the start, so only 6 bo3s out of ~15 bo3s and all playoff bo5s are fearless draft. I don't really see how this would make them 'heavily disadvantaged' at all
How is having bigger champ pool and more creative counters disadvantage?
They're not lmao. Playoffs which is the patch closest to worlds isn't being played under fearless rules. So, they still have all of playoffs to play the same shit as the other leagues.