Riot Games will not be restricting third-party tournament organisers from running their own UK League of Legends tournaments.
The League of Legends developer announced earlier this year it was leaving ESL behind to work with LVP on its own upcoming UK tournament: Forge of Champions.
But this doesn’t mean ESL UK has to stay away from League of Legends, if it so chooses. It just means Forge of Champions will be the official Riot-backed and developed tournament for the UK going forwards.
Riot UK’s Head of Esports Mo Fadl told Esports News UK: “We will not restrict third parties. [ESL/Insomnia etc] can run third-party tournaments, but ours is the official league with LVP. We want to help third-party tournaments, not stop them.”
Prior to Forge of Champions’ reveal, the ESL Premiership and UK Masters were the two biggest League tournaments in the UK (most recently won by Misfits and exceL respectively).
Esports News UK reached out to ESL and GAME – which runs the Insomnia gaming festival – for comment.
“We are definitely still running Insomnia BYOC opens – expect to see an Insomnia 63 announce for League soon.”
Mary Antieul, GAME
GAME/Belong’s senior esports and partnerships manager Mary Antieul said: “We are definitely still running Insomnia BYOC opens and expect to see an Insomnia 63 announce for League soon.
“UK Masters is still being reviewed internally before we run any further online leagues. We have rebranded all Insomnia tournaments as UK Masters though.”
ESL offered no comment on the matter.
Belong by GAME recently announced its grassroots summer season Arena Clash tournaments – including League of Legends, Call of Duty, Tekken and Overwatch.
Qualifiers begin June 4th, league stages commence June 25th, playoffs start from July 30th and the finals are August 26th to 30th.
It will be broadcast live from 7pm to 10pm each night covering two fixtures via Twitch and GAME’s Facebook Page, plus weekly round-up show will be recorded each Sunday.
Riot will also be running more community events in the UK, like its Clash 5v5 event held in London’s Server bar last week.
More news on Forge of Champions is expected soon; check back on Esports News UK for the full reveal.
June has just begun, and we are ready to share so much news very soon. We ask for just a tad of patience please!#Forgeofchampions pic.twitter.com/YQ9VSX3SWF
— LVPuk (@LVPuk) June 1, 2018
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
