Los Ratones will play in the LEC next year in new LEC Versus event

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 23/10/2025

Riot Games has announced new formats for the LEC 2026 season, which will see Los Ratones compete in Winter.

The new LEC Versus event replaces the Winter Split and temporarily expands the league to 12 teams with guest slots.

Those guest teams will have the chance to compete with the LEC teams for EMEA’s sole slot at First Stand.

This is despite the fact that Karmine Corp owner Kameto claims LEC teams didn’t agree to letting ERL teams compete.

The new Winter Format

Riot has confirmed Los Ratones’ participation in LEC Versus 2026 and how the guest slots are decided.

One slot goes to the most consistent EMEA Masters team from the previous year.

This is already confirmed as Los Ratones, Marc ‘Caedrel’ Lamont’s team, after winning EMEA Masters Winter and Spring.

The second LEC Versus guest slot is then given to the EMEA Masters Summer 2025 Champions.

This means either Karmine Corp or Team Heretics will have two teams in LEC Versus with the EMEA Masters final set.

Riot has confirmed LEC secondary teams can compete in Versus, so either KCorp Blue or Los Heretics will qualify.

KCorp Blue embarrassed Los Ratones 3-0 and eliminated them from EMEA Masters in the NLC’s champions’ first best-of-five loss.

The format for LEC Versus will see the 12 teams compete against every other team once in a Best-of-One.

The top eight will then advance to the Playoffs, a double-elimination bracket with Rounds 1 and 2 played as Best-of-Threes, and all remaining matches as Best-of-Fives.

Then the eventual champion will face the other Winter regional champions at First Stand.

LEC Spring and Summer Split formats

In addition to the LEC Versus announcement, Riot has also confirmed the LEC Spring and Summer 2026 formats.

It has been confirmed that the guest ERL teams will not compete in Spring or Summer, no matter how they perform.

The 2025 LEC Summer format was controversial for having a lack of games.

Navi jungler Francisco ‘Thayger’ Mazo Sánchez was eliminated from the LEC after just three series.

To address this, Riot has announced that Spring and Summer 2026 will have the exact format.

Both will follow the previous Spring 2025 format.

This means the 10 LEC teams will compete in a Single Round Robin of best-of-threes to decide the top six teams.

The top six will then compete in best-of-fives in the Playoffs to decide split champions as well as MSI and Worlds participants.

Riot claims this duplicated format will make scheduling easier and will allow for more Roadtrips.

The announcement teased that there will be more Roadtrips and they’ll be ‘enhanced’, but no further details were shared.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

All Posts By Jack Stewart