The EMEA Masters Spring 2023 League of Legends tournament is approaching, and Riot Games has today revealed its dates and other info.
The EMEA Masters is the new name for the European (EU) Masters, which sees the best League of Legends teams from the various EMEA Regional Leagues, including the UK/Ireland/Nordics/Maltese NLC. It’s the level below the European LEC.
A full list of the stages of the EMEA Masters Spring 2023 competition and key dates can be found below:
- Play-ins: 4 April, 5 April, 7 April
- Main stage groups: 11 April, 12 April, 13 April, 14 April
- Quarter finals: 18 April, 19 April, 20 April
- Semi finals: 25 April, 26 April
- Grand final: 29 April
The dates announcement comes after Riot made changes to EU Masters last year, when the NLC was downgraded. There was the merging of Europe, Türkiye, CIS and Middle East and Africa (MENA) to become a single competitive region: EMEA.
Last year, it was branded the Amazon European Masters, but it looks like Amazon’s partnership with Riot for this was for Summer 2021 and the whole of 2022, so the Amazon name isn’t in this year’s tournament.
EMEA Masters Spring 2023 ERLs and format
Teams from the Türki̇ye Championship League and Arabian League will join the best sides at the tournament for the first time this year. They’ll be joining by the best teams from the 11 other ERLs in the ecosystem, including: Elite Series, Esports Balkan League, Greek Legends League, Hitpoint Masters, La Ligue Française, Liga Portuguesa de League Of Legends, Northern League Of Legends Championship, PG Nationals, Prime League, Superliga and Ultraliga.
The competition will once again feature the top 28 teams from the ERLs competing against each other over the course of four weeks.
12 teams will automatically qualify for the group stage, with the remaining 16 teams competing in the play-ins, which will start on 4 April. The 16 teams will be split into four groups of four teams and play a double round-robin, with the top two teams in each group progressing to the Knockout Stage.
The best teams will reach the group stage on April 11th. Here, teams face each other in another double round-robin, with the top two teams from each group making it to the eight team Playoff stage. This is where teams will duke it out in a best-of-five single elimination rounds, beginning with the quarter finals, followed by the semi final and ending with the grand final itself on 29 April.
Riot said in this EMEA Masters Spring 2023 announcement post:
“We’re excited to see ERLs fight for regional pride and our refreshed EMEA Masters come to life. We can’t wait to see new talent kick things off and take to the stage in hopes of winning it all!”
Riot Games
Hasib Uzejrovic, who works in Riot Games’ competitive operations for LoL Esports, also spoke about some rulebook changes for EMEA Masters Spring 2023 in this Twitter thread.
Hasib said: “Teams will require usage of cameras, from main stage onwards. More details in the rulebook and EM guide for teams [available from each ERL tournament operator]. Credits to @Astorio_.
“Draw pools for play-in and main stage are updated too. We also overhauled the match ops language and simplified a lot of language.
“TLDR – the competition format is exactly the same, but there are some schedule changes which made EM a bit shorter.”
Last year, the EU Masters was won by Karmine Corp (Spring) and Team Heretics (Summer).
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.
