This Week in Esports [January 11th - January 17th]

With the first of the LCS Spring Split over, we're back with our regularly scheduled edition of This Week in eSports!

[Warning: This post contains event spoilers!]

Continue reading for more on details on LCS Spring Split standings, various team/player news, and more!

Current Standings:

The brackets and standings below are up to date as of Sunday, January 17th and, as always, VODs can be found here.

[NA] LCS:

• Standings after Week 1:

• Top Two (W/L)

• NRG (2 - 0)

• IMT (2 - 0)

• Schedule / Teams / Standings - LoL eSports // eSportspedia

[EU] LCS:

• Standings after Week 1:

• Top Three (W/L)

• G2 Esports (2 - 0) 

• H2K (2 - 0)

• Unicorns of Love (2 - 0)  

•  Schedule / Teams / Standings - LoL eSports // eSportspedia

[Korea] LCK:

• Top Four (W/L)

• KT Rolster (2 - 0)

• Samsung Galaxy (2 - 0)

• Longzhu Gaming (1 - 0)

•  ROX Tigers (1 - 0)

Schedule/Teams/Standings - eSportspedia



[China] LPL:

• Top Four (W/L) - Groups A & B

• Qiao Gu Reapers (4 - 0)

• Snake eSports  (2 - 0) 

• Royal Never Give Up (4 - 1)

• Vici Gaming (3 - 2)

Schedule/Teams/Standings - eSportspedia


[TW/HK/MO] LMS:

• Top Four (W/L/T) - Points

• ahq e-Sports Club - (2- 0 - 0) - 6 Points

• Hong Kong eSports - (2 - 0 - 0) - 6 Points

• Taipei Assassins - (1 - 0 - 0) - 3 Points

• eXtreme Gamers - (0 - 1 - 0) - 1 Point

Schedule/Teams/Standings - eSportspedia

Team, Player, Event & Organization News

CN:

• TBQ joins OMG.
• dade and T0M join QG Reapers.

BR:

• An official competitive ruling has been issued, INTZ e-Sports and RED Candids regarding breaking the rule about sister teams.
• paiN gaming announces the addition of Picoca to their starting roster as Support.

Riot Games

• A large set of rule changes for the 2016 LCS Spring split have been announced:

• From the article:

TL;DR: As we kick off each new LCS Season, both in NA and EU, we take a close look at our LCS ruleset to ensure that we are addressing issues that might affect competitive integrity, players, teams or any other element of the game. You can keep up with these detailed changes via our change log and the 2016 LCS Official Rules but in this post we’ll be outlining a few of the most significant changes and what they mean for the 2016 LCS Season. 

The 2016 LCS ruleset contains updates to a few policies including: 

• Playoffs: During Playoffs, matchups will now be reseeded in the semifinal round so that the #1 seed will face the lowest remaining seed and the #2 seed will face the highest remaining seed. This is designed to reduce the incentive to place lower in the regular LCS season to set up for an easier run to Playoff finals. We’ll also be closing a loophole so that going forward, any player who has competed in the CS Playoffs will not be allowed to compete in any phase of the LCS Playoffs - and vice versa.
• Competitive Patch/Tournament Realm: Champions who have not been available on the live service for more than one week (previously two) will be automatically restricted. We’ve lessened this time due to a couple of factors, but primarily because a shorter break from release helps to preserve a connection between the Live environment that fans are playing at home (and pros are using to practice) and the Tournament realm.
• Subs/Loans: We’ll be limiting each player contractually to one organization, but also adding a formal loan process by which players can be listed on more than one roster - allowing for movement between CS and LCS rosters.
• Revamped Promotion/Relegation System: Auto promotion/relegation will be replaced with a Bo5 tournament with double elimination after round one. We believe that over time we can gradually reduce the relegation risk that LCS teams face to encourage greater stability of the league year-over-year, as well as helping LCS organizations attract longer term sponsors. Please read on for full information.