The LCS Summer Split is an 8-week double round-robin that consists of 5 games. The 2022 League of Legends champion will be crowned in the Windy City after several years of being held back by the pandemic. For the first time in months, fans will be allowed back for live viewing at the arena where the best teams in the region will battle it out for the winning title.
The first major event organized by Riot Games was held in Houston Texas where thousands of fans were in attendance at the NRG Stadium. During this final, Evil Geniuses trumped 100 Thieves to win their first title. For the summer split events and finals, however, Riot Games opted to host the festivities in Chicago Illinois for the first time in ages.
This year, the LCS Summer finals will be held at the United Center, the home of the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks. Here, the top teams will compete against each other for the 2022 LCS Championship. The last time that Windy City hosted a professional League of Legends tournament was back in 2016.
Chicago helped to host the quarterfinal round of the main stage at the Chicago Theater. During the 2016 tournaments, fans and punters congregated at the Chicago Theater to watch SKT battle RNG in a brutal series, as well as witness hometown heroes Cloud9 yield to Samsung Galaxy. During the tournament, Samsung beat Chicago-based Cloud9 3-0.
League of Legends’ growth has been nothing short of spectacular and it is easy to see. Case in point, when the Chicago Theatre hosted the tournament in 2016, the theatre had a capacity of 3,800. However, this year’s tournament at the United Centre will see that capacity increase greatly to accommodate at least 23,500 individuals, which is immense growth in just 6 years.
What we cover
What should people expect from the 2022 LCS Summer split?
This year’s summer Split will consist of best-of-one games that will see teams in the league fight each other in a double-robin round. The double round-robin tournaments rely on round-robin tournament brackets and repeat each matchups twice. This means that each participating team will take part in 18 games combined.
The 18 games will unfold over an 8-week season. Certain weeks will require some teams to take part in 3 games. However, teams will only be allowed to play twice for most of the schedule. When the regular season is concluded, the top 8 teams will battle each other for spots in the playoffs.
This year, the teams taking part in the LCS Summer Split are the same ones that took part in the last 5 splits since LCS is now a franchised league. The 10 teams that will be taking part in the tournament this year include:
- Immortals
- Dignitas QNTMPAY
- Golden Guardians
- Evil Geniuses
- Counter Logic Gaming
- 100 Thieves
- FlyQuest
- Team Liquid
- Cloud 9
- TSM
Most of the teams taking part have maintained their roster. However, several others have made significant changes that are worth noting. For instance, team C9 will not feature their MVP top laner Park Woo Tae this year. C9 is also expected to push mid-laner Ibrahin Allami to the top lane once again.
C9 also signed Jensen to fill the gap that Ibrahim Allami has left in the mid-lane. Jensen last played for the team in the 2018 summer split. TSM also made some noteworthy changes this year when it brought in Huang Y-Tang from the pro league as the new mid-laner. CLG, on the other hand, promoted their MVP Niship Doshi as the team’s starting top laner.
This year’s summer split will be broadcast live on Twitch as well as Youtube. All the matches will take part each weekend on Saturdays and Sundays except during the first and last week of this year’s season. During the first and last week, additional games will be held on Fridays.
The action so far
The second week of this year’s League of Legends LCS Summer Split has already concluded. As everyone anticipated, in the weeks that the tournament has been underway, the top teams have continued to perform brilliantly. During the second week, the top performers maintained their lead but there were several surprises served up as well.
Counter Logic Gaming led the pack once again in the second week of proceedings as the team topped the table with an emphatic triumph over Spring Split champs Evil Geniuses. TSM also surprised quite a few people when it demonstrated its fighting spirit in the second week when they beat Team Liquid. Cloud9 has also performed well with 2 wins to boast of after ending week 1 0-3.
At present, Evil Geniuses and CLG are leading the table at the 2022 League of Legends LCS Summer Split. Both Evil Geniuses and CLG have recorded losses so there is a lot of action to be consumed by League of Legend fans and esports audiences. Team Liquid seems to be taking a while to gain its footing in the competition and will need to pick up its performance levels if the team expects to win.
Cloud9 has found itself in the middle of the pack, even though the team appears rejuvenated compared to the competition in week 1. The good news is that Cloud9’s jungler, Babler, was declared the player of the week in week 2’s events. As such, this is expected to help to motivate the team’s performance greatly in the coming weeks.
Final Thoughts
Counter Logic Gaming and Evil Geniuses appear determined to strike a heavy blow to reigning champions LCS. The teams taking part in this year’s tournament have already proven their worth, making for one of the most action-packed contests of the Summer Split yet. Teams are rallying to victory through the support of the best junglers in the game, who have not disappointed in bringing the action.
Across the game, the teams will keep securing dragons to ultimately secure the top prize. EG and CLG have proven that they are not to be messed with. And even though the teams still have a long way to go with a few more games left on the schedule, EG and CLG will likely keep leading the pack.
