2026 LPL season

Similar to previous years, the LPL will utilize the championship points system in determining one of its representatives to the 2026 League of Legends World Championship, but the amount of points garnered increased from the most recent season. For instance, the team that wins the first split of 2026 would receive 80 points, as compared to only 20 from the previous season.

Two teams from the previous season left the league prior to the 2026 season. On 17 November 2025, 2019 League of Legends World Championship winners FunPlus Phoenix announced their departure from the LPL,^[1] while three-time Mid-Season Invitational champions Royal Never Give Up was confirmed not to participate for the 2026 season due to the organization's financial and legal issues. During the 2025 season, RNG finished as one of the bottom two teams, thus relegating them to the League of Legends Development League (LDL). However, the team and its academy team RNG Academy had to forfeit all its matches, owing to said issues. On 8 January 2026, RNG eventually confirmed its departure from competitive League of Legends.^[2]

The problems surrounding RNG stemmed from the organization being unable to meet both financial and legal commitments. Due to this, the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court imposed a CN¥ 160 million penalty in July 2025. RNG was also classified as a "high-risk defaulter" by the court. It was also further noted that the organization had also faced other issues.^[3]

With the departure of FPX and RNG, the league reduced to 14 teams.

Split 1 featured all 14 teams divided into three groups for the group stage - Group Ascend, Group Perseverance, and Group Nirvana. Each team was placed in their respective groups based on their performance during the 2025 season. The group stage followed a double round-robin format, with all matches being played in best-of-threes. The top four (4) Ascend teams directly advanced to the playoffs, while the bottom two (2) from the same group joined all the teams from the Perseverance group and the top two (2) Nirvana teams in Knights Rivals play-in stage. The bottom two (2) teams in the Nirvana group were eliminated.

The Knights Rivals play-in stage applied a hybrid double-elimination bracket with all matches being best-of-fives. In the first round, the bottom two (2) teams from Ascend faced the top two (2) teams from Perseverance with the winner of those two matches advancing to the playoffs. Meanwhile, the bottom two (2) teams from Perseverance and the top two teams from Nirvana went up against each other in elimination matches, with the winning teams advancing to face the losing teams from the first round for the final two spots in the playoffs.

In the playoffs, an eight-team double-elimination bracket was applied, with all matches played in best-of-fives. The two finalists from Split 1 qualified as the league's representatives at the 2026 First Stand Tournament.^[4]

Group Ascend

Group Nirvana

Qualification Series

Lower Bracket

Source: LoL Esports

Source: LoL Esports