Riot announces new playoff structure

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Ever since its inception, the League of Legends Championship Series' format has been a hot topic of discussion by players, fans, critics, experts and casters. From the best-of-one format during the regular season, to the best-of-three knockout stage followed by the best-of-five final, everyone had suggestions for improvement - the OGN approach with groups and playoffs and the legendary IPL5 double elimination among others. Today, Riot Games announced the host of NA LCS Season 2014's Summer playoffs - PAX Prime, in addition to some changes coming to the playoff stage.

Chief of eSports at Riot, NickAllen, stated that both the quarter-final and the semi-final will be a best-of-five series from now on. The change comes after thorough consideration and was mostly met with positive response from fans. Most of them remember the epic clashes between community favourites Cloud9 and TSM which despite the convincing 3 - 0, brought many emotions to both teams and their respective fan bases. Interestingly enough, the CLG camp met the decision with mixed feelings.

General manager Kelby May was pleased with the change which puts his team in a decent position to succeed, given the strength of the coaching staff that is OGN expert Christopher 'MonteCristo' Mykles. The latter however, was displeased with the outcome, stating that the crammed schedule virtually eliminated the possibility of a Korean bootcamp prior to the beginning of the Season 2014 World Finals later this year. Regardless, viewers were more than happy with the change, with only a few fearing in jest that a potential Curse versus Complexity match could take a whole day.

In a separate announcement, Riot confirmed the host of the EU LCS Summer playoff phase host - Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. In addition, the best-of-five change will apply to both regions which promises tons of entertaining matches across the Atlantic.

The NA Regional finals will take place in Seattle from 29th August until the 1st September. Given the long playoff phase, the quarter-finals will take place in the LCS studio, one week prior to PAX Prime. In Europe, the exciting end of the Summer split will take place at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany from 13th August until 17th August.

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