LVP UK in partnership with Riot Games UK has announced the return of their UK League of Legends league. The league will return on January 23rd with teams’ new and old competing.
2018 saw the first league in the UK from Spanish league organiser LVP, titled Forge of Champions. With £50,000 on the line and a spot in the EU Masters, the league promised to take UK LoL to the next level. For the most part, LVP succeded, so the league is back in 2019 currently titled ‘NewLVPuk‘. LVP stated in 2018 that the Forge of Champions name was tempory for that year whilst a long-term tournament was put in place.
MnM Gaming, Barrage Esports, Enclave Gaming, Diabolus and exceL Esports (Now of the LEC) all return for 2019, with Bulldog, DarkSpawn Esports, Phelan Gaming and EULCS champions Fnatic all fill out the new event. A notable omission from this year is Forge of Champions winners Misfits Academy, whom we assume have entered another regional league. A possible two academy per region rule might well be in place.
Outside of the image above, very little has been confirmed thus far for the 2019 season. No word has been given about an open league prior to the event, the format etc. The hope would be that this 2019 was less convoluted than Forge of Champions and is kept to a simple group system.
Esports Insider says: The UK has a big role to play in professional League of Legends; with two of our organisations in the LEC and Misfits having roots in the scene, we’ve seen a rise of UK talent, hopefully, this new UK league can continue to show the best of what the UK has to offer and we see academy teams experimenting with starting rosters as we saw in the NA LCS.