League of Legends gets new community tournament guidelines, Triumphant Ryze returns

Craig Robinson, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 04/08/2026

Riot Games has updated its Community Competition Guidelines for League of Legends, the first revision since 2020. The new changes represent a significant loosening of restrictions to help community and grassroots events. The update launches alongside League Classic and covers all League of Legends game modes, including Summoner’s Rift, ARAM, Arena, League Classic and future experiences.

The new rules remove entry, prizing and other restrictions from tournament hosts

The headline change is the removal of all hard caps. There are now no fixed limits on entry fees, sponsorship revenue, prize pools or spectator ticketing. The tiered licensing structure has been replaced by a single unified community competition framework, and in most cases organisers no longer need to wait for Riot approval to run an event. Simply follow the guidelines, submit through a visibility and get started. You can also read about it on the official blog post.

A new Event Intake Process also allows organisers to register and receive advance approval for events, giving Riot better visibility into the grassroots landscape and allowing for more targeted support of successful events while helping identify issues early.

Triumphant Ryze also makes a return with the new updates. This skin was previously only awarded to winners of events and cups. With the renewed grassroots scene, earning the skin becomes something semi-pros and competitive aspirants can realistically target, which should help breathe life into those older cup formats like GO4LoL that are also making a comeback through August.

Riot ran almost identical changes for VALORANT back in June 2026, ahead of the League update. The VALORANT Community Competition Guidelines received the same treatment, with all hard caps on entry fees, sponsorship revenue, prize pools and spectator fees removed, the tiered licensing structure collapsed into a single framework, and most events now able to proceed without waiting for Riot approval.

Riot wants to rediscover the early magical days of its esports scene

The timing suggests Riot’s philosophy is shifting. The new rules for both of its flagship esports titles suggest it is reopening grassroots competition infrastructure across the board. For UK community organisers across both games, the practical impact is considerable. Running a local LAN, a college tournament or a larger invitational just got significantly less bureaucratic. We might also see more of those silly online cups return, some of which I used to play in back in the day despite being Gold elo or whatever.

It might also allow bigger event organisers to put on LoL events during off-season windows. Similar to how the Asian Games take place in December. Perhaps bigger event organisers like ESL, StarLadder or BLAST might even be able to run their own LANs, like they do in CS. It could be a way from the franchised leagues that dominate LoL without having to end franchising. We’ll have to see what the future looks like there, since the LoL top-level calendar is already extremely busy, especially if you qualify for the major international events. But still, there is actually room for that to happen now.

Previously, the 2020 guidelines had entry fees capped at a maximum of $20 per player. Yearly prize pools were limited to $10,000 across all events an organisation ran in a calendar year. A single brand could sponsor no more than three events per year. Naming rights were heavily restricted, dampening the viability of larger events. Larger events also required a custom licence with a licensing fee applied, again, making barriers to otherwise small events.

Craig Robinson, Senior Editor

Craig began his career with Esports News UK back in 2015/2016, looking to write about a passion while studying at Manchester Metropolitan University. He stayed there for several years before moving on to other websites to begin his career after graduating. Now he's back, covering esports adjacent topics and UK stories.

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