The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Summer Split will now be starting on Saturday, June 13th, according to an announcement from Riot Games on Monday. The LCS Academy will return on June 12th, though details on the Academy schedule are still forthcoming. This decision follows Riots announcement last week that they will be cancelling MSI 2020 due to the ongoing pandemic last week.
The LCS Summer Split will begin June 13th with Academy beginning on the 12th. (Photo courtesy Riot Games)
“With the cancellation of MSI, we’ll be moving the Summer Split start date to Saturday, June 13 with Academy returning on Friday, June 12.” Stated Riot Games in Monday’s announcement. “We’ll also be moving the LCS games on Saturday and Sunday to a new start time of 1:00 PM PT. Saturday and Sunday will continue to host 4 LCS games each, and Monday will host 2 LCS games starting at 5:00 PM PT.”
The new split will open with a rematch of the Spring Split finals between FlyQuest and Cloud9. Cloud9 won the Spring Split finals earlier in April, after finishing the regular season with a dominant 17-1 record. Cloud9 is looking to bring that momentum into the Summer Split, while FlyQuest is looking for vengeance.
The first half of the 2020 LCS Spring Split was played from the studios in Los Angeles. However, the competition was moved online in March following the expansion of the coronavirus outbreak. The LCS is hoping to return production to the studios for the start of the Summer Split, but it is too early to tell if that will be possible.
“We’ll continue to follow the local and state guidelines around COVID-19 to determine when it’s safe to return to the LCS Studios.” Riot explained. “If we’re unable to return to the LCS Studios for the start of the LCS Summer Split, we’ll continue to have the games take place online.”
Riot also announced that the League of Legends European Championship (LEC) will be starting the LEC Summer Split on June 12th.
To accommodate the new LEC Summer Split schedule, Riot rescheduled the Summer Finals to September 5th & 6th and the EU Masters Finals to September 19th and 20th. In similar fashion to the LCS, the LEC is also monitoring the COVID-19 situation to make a decision on whether they will play the LEC Summer Split online or in the Berlin based LEC Studio.
