Yesterday the League of Legends Circuit Oceania (LCO), a new 8-team League of Legends (LoL) competition was unveiled by ESL and Guinevere Capital.
Guinevere is a shareholder of UK esports organisation Excel Esports and it also has a partnership with Cloud9 for London Spitfire.
The news comes after LoL developer Riot Games shut down the official Oceanic Pro League last October.
Starting on Tuesday February 23rd, Oceania’s top League of Legends players will take to the Rift to compete in a new format for the region.
Over the course of 8 weeks and 19 play days, eight of the region’s best teams will compete in a double round robin format, facing off against each other twice over the course of five weeks.
The LCO teams are:
- Order
- Pentanet
- Chiefs
- Dire Wolves
- Legacy
- Mammoth
- Avant
- Gravitas
“We’re excited to build up the LCO and create the strongest and most entertaining League of Legends competition that the region has ever seen.”
Peter Du, LCO and ESL Australia
At the conclusion of Regular Season, the bottom three teams will be eliminated. The remaining five teams will advance through to a Double Elimination Playoffs running from March 30th to 31st and April 6th to 7th.
Finals will take place on April 10th, where they will fight for the title of inaugural LCO champions and a place at the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI).
“Raise your koalas, because competitive Oceanic League of Legends is back,” said Peter Du, LCO league manager and senior project manager at ESL Australia.
“We’re excited to build up the LCO and create the strongest and most entertaining League of Legends competition that the region has ever seen.”
“This is a new opportunity for Oceanic League of Legends talent to step up and begin their pathway to the world stage, while playing in the sort of competition that every LoL esports fan wants to watch.”
Dave Harris, MD of Guinevere Capital, commented: “While it’s been great to see Australia and New Zealand talent competing in other regions over the past few weeks, we are looking forward to having this region’s homegrown competition back on February 23rd.
“It’s taken a huge amount of work to get to this stage and we really want to thank all the players, teams, brands and fans who are ensuring 2021 is Oceania’s biggest year yet for competitive LoL.”
Guinevere Capital previously owned Dire Wolves but sold the team to abide by Riot’s multiple team ownership rules.
All matches of the LCO will be broadcast live on multiple platforms including Twitch.tv/LCO from ESL’s new purpose-built esports studios in Sydney.
A full lineup of broadcast talent will be announced in the coming weeks.
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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.
