First Stand 2025: Riot Games Announce First League of Legends International Event Of The Year - Here's All You Need To Know

The League of Legends 2025 season will officially kick off with the First Stand. The Rio Games, the publisher of this smash-hit title, has also revealed the season cycle featuring the Mid-Season Invitational and the World Championship. (More Sports News)

The launch of First Stand was announced at Worlds Media Day 2024, and the inaugural edition will feature five teams from major professional esport regions - South Korea, China, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), the Americas, and Asia-Pacific.

Scheduled to be held from 10 to 16 March at LoL Park studio in Seoul, South Korea, the First Stand 2025 will precede the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) in Vancouver, Canada and the 2025 World Championship in China (Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu) in the season calendar.

The next two editions of First Stand will take place in Brazil in 2026 and Southeast Asia in 2027. Vietnam has been touted as the favourite to host the 2027 iteration. The country last hosted a League of Legends event in 2019, the Mid-Season Invitational.

First Stand 2025 Qualifiers

The best teams from the abovementioned five regions will compete in the First Stand 2025. Here's how the qualification paths look like:

South Korea: League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) Cup 2025 winners

China: League of Legends Pro League (LPL) 2025 Split 1 Playoffs winners

EMEA: League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) 2025 Winter Playoffs winners

Americas: League of Legends Championship of The Americas (LTA) 2025 Split 1 Playoffs winners

Asia-Pacific: League of Legends Championship Pacific (LCP) 2025 Season Kickoff Qualifying Series winners

First Stand 2025 Format

First Stand 2025 will start with a group stage, featuring a single best-of-three (BO3) round-robin format which will eliminate the worst team.

The knock-outs, a best-of-five (BO5) affair, will see a single-elimination bracket with the winners becoming the first-ever First Stand champions. And they will get a second direct spot in the MSI 2025 bracket stage, skipping the play-ins.

This is the first event to feature a version of Fearless Draft, which stipulates that champions can only be picked once by either team during the series.