First Stand Tournament newly joins Riot Games' lineup of global League of Legends competitions
Seoul is set to host First Stand Tournament 2025, a newly lauching international League of Legends esports competition organized by Riot Games, this month.
The tournament kicks off March 10 at LoL Park in Jongno-gu, Seoul, and runs for six days. First Stand Tournament will join the World Championship and Mid-Season Invitational as one of the professional LoL esports' global events.
Five teams representing various regions will participate in the tournament.
Hanwha Life Esports, the 2025 LCK Cup champion, will represent South Korea, while Team Liquid will take the banner for League of Legends Championship of The Americas. For LoL Championship Pacific, team CTBC Flying Oyster will take the stage, while Karmine Corp and Top Esports will represent Europe and China, respectively.
The tournament will kick off with the round-robin stage, March 10-14, in which each team will face every other team once.
The four top-performing squads from the group stage will advance to the knockout stage -- a best-of-five, single-elimination bracket -- slated to take place March 15-16.
The finals, held at LoL Park's LCK Arena on March 16, will determine the first-ever First Stand Tournament champion. The champion of First Stand Tournament will earn a direct spot in the 2025 MSI playoffs, bypassing the preliminary rounds. The 2025 MSI will be held in Canada in July.
A key feature of First Stand 2025 is the Fearless Draft system, which prevents teams from selecting champions used in previous games. If a best-of-five series reaches its final round, a total of 50 champions will become unavailable, demanding a broad mastery of the game’s diverse roster for players and ensuring dynamic matchups for LoL fans.
Riot Games said it will be introducing a revamped heads-up display at the First Stand Tournament. This new interface, designed to deliver live updates on active buff trackers, champion information and other match statistics on-screen without obstructing essential gameplay visuals, aims to modernize and deepen audience immersion, according to Riot Games.
First Stand 2025 will be streamed live on lolesports.com, Soop, Naver Esports & Games, and the YouTube LCK channel.
Matches will begin at 5 p.m. on weekdays and 3 p.m. on weekends. Tickets to watch the games offline can be purchased via Interpark starting 48 hours before each match.
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