The 2025 LEC Season has begun on the 18th of January, and with it, the West has also awoken from its winter slumber. The Tier 1 of EMEA League of Legends has already surprised us with GIANTX taking the lead during Week One, while last year’s 4-time winners, G2 Esports having a rough start.
While the LEC is the pinnacle of League in Europe, the EMEA Masters is the culmination of young talent – as well as some really hype teams this year. Even though the first tournament won’t start until a month, Riot Games has revealed the full EMEA Masters schedule and format for this year – and a lot has changed.
EMEA Masters 2025 Format – Everyone Gets a Shot
First of all, instead of two EMEA Masters – one in the Spring Season and one during the Summer – we will have a Winter event as well. This Winter tournament will have all the best teams from all of the EMEA Regional Leagues, so a squad from:
- the French LFL;
- the Turkish TCL;
- the German, Austrian and Swiss Prime League;
- the Spanish SuperLiga;
- the Polish and Baltic Rift Legends;
- the UK and Nordic NLC;
- the Italian LIT;
- the Middle Eastern and North African Arabian League;
- the Greek HLL;
- the Portuguese LPLOL;
- the Czech and Slovakian Hitpoint Masters;
- the Balkan EBL;
- and the BeNeLux Road of Legends
The first three – so the Prime League, the LFL and the TCL – will also have a chance to send their second teams into the fray.
During EMEA Masters Spring, the 6 strongest leagues will get 3 seeds, while the smaller ones will be able to nominate 2 to the international event. During Summer, the roster expands quite significantly, with everyone getting 3 slots, but the LFL, TCL, PRM and SL have an extra for a total of 44 teams competing for glory.
EMEA Masters 2025 Format – All Three Tournaments
The Winter EMEA tournament will be the most tight out of all three, only featuring 16 teams from EMEA. The Winter Split will feature four GSL Groups with Best-of-Three series and a single elimination bracket, where only the 8 best squads of Groups will advance to. This event will also feature Fearless Draft, as Riot is trying to experiment more with the new format in picks and bans. This means that once a team picks a champion, neither of the squads can pick it in subsequent games, so by the time you make it to the 5th game of a Bo5, you’ll have to get creative!
The Spring EMEA Masters will have double the participating rosters at 32, but will not use Fearless – instead, teams can draft their comps in the classic way, only unable to pick the champions that their opponents banned. The 4-team GSL Groups will also stay, but there will be 8 of them instead of 4. The 16 best teams will then face off in a Single Elimination Bracket of Best-of-Fives, just like during Winter.
Summer will expand even further with the 44 team roster mentioned above. Starting off with a Last Chance Qualifier, the 16 lowest seeded teams will try and get 4 spots in the Swiss Stage that takes place afterwards. Playing only Best-of-Threes – and Best-of-Fives for the qualification matches, the 32 squads will fight for the 16 spots available in the Playoffs. In the last segment of the 2025 EMEA Masters Summer, there will be no second chances, as the year will end with a Single Elimination Bracket.
While the EMEA Masters’ have always been a great opportunity for younger players to show their talent and to prove they belong in the LEC, in 2025, there will be a lot more reasons to watch the tournaments then up-and-coming stars. With Marc “Caedrel” Lamont running his own team now in the NLC – and Los Ratones doing great – there are actual stars among the players in the ERL’s.
Another example is The Ruddy Sack, also from the NLC, which boasts players like Luka “Perkz” Perkovic, who recently swapped to toplane, Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski or Adam “LIDER” Ilyasov. The young players have some serious competition now, and the Tier 2 leagues of European League of Legends are closer to the LEC in skill than ever before – don’t miss out on the first international event, the EMEA Masters 2025 Winter, which starts on March 17!
