These have been a hard few weeks for Riot Games and its esports division, facing tough criticism on a number of fronts. While much of that criticism was warranted, frustration over the company’s decisions when it comes to the esports side of their operations need not blind us to the positive and productive changes Riot has made over the years.

When Riot entered the esports space, particularly with the start of LCS (League Championship Series) seeing them taking over operation of the Western regions from third party tournament organisers (Dreamhack, ESL, MLG etc.), it was easy to criticise them for their poor implementation of numerous format components and the vision of the circuit they had unveiled. As the years have gone on, and this list will show, Riot have tweaked and upgraded many key elements of their circuit and leagues to improve the experience both for purists seeking the most high level competitive formats and viewers hoping for more exciting matches.

Here are my top 10 changes Riot have implemented since the LCS era began.

10. Creating a huge spectacle for big moments

When the LCS began it was rare for esports tournaments to be held in traditional sports arenas or large seater venues. The Season 1 Championship had been simply another tournament on the exhibitor floor of Dreamhack Summer, the world’s biggest LAN party. ESL were holding their biggest tournament in one of the halls at CEBIT, one of Europe’s biggest electronics trade fairs.

Riot levelled up their game and the industry by booking out the Staples Center, home of the world famous Los Angeles Lakers NBA franchise and the NHL’s LA Kings, for the Season 3 World Championship. Future Worlds would be held in prestigious locations like Seoul Stadium, home of the South Korean national football team, and the “Bird’s Nest”, a.k.a. Beijing National Stadium – a location used for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Even the NA LCS got in on the action, seeing the Season 5 Summer Split final played out in the legendary Madison Square Garden. Few other esports can boast even their biggest and most important events being held in such locations. Riot put a lot of money into ensuring their biggest tournaments had epic backdrops to facilitate great games and an unforgettable crowd atmosphere.

9. Crowd-funding for Worlds from skin sales

When LoL first made steps into the esports space one of the big selling points, in fact a key reason they got the attention of the big third party tournament organisers, was the notion Riot was willing to shell out a lot of money to make the esports side of their game a reality. The first year of LCS had not finished yet, though, when Valve Software implemented their crowd-funding efforts for The International via 25% of sales of their compendium going into the prize pool for the event.

As the years have gone by, this initiative has seen TI massively dwarf every other big world championship level esports event, including Riot’s World Championship, to almost laughable degrees. For the Season 5 World Championship, held in 2015, Riot provided a prize pool of $2,130,000. The International 5, held the same year, boasted a titanic $18,429,613 for its prize pool.

This disparity began to be addressed, though arguably there is still a ways to go for Riot, with their introduction of a similar initiative via the sale of specially labelled “Championship” skins, with a similar 25% of sales going to the prize pool for Worlds. For 2016’s Season 6 World Championship sales of Championship Zed and the Championship Ward skins raised the base prize pool, provided by Riot, of $2,130,000 to a far healthier $5,070,000, more than doubling it. Likewise, for last year’s Season 7 World Championship, sales of Championship Ashe and the Championship Ward skins raised the already increased base of $2,250,000 to a not dissimilar $4,946,970, more than double again.

While five million dollars is still a long way from the 25 million dollars the recent TI8 boasted, Riot’s iniative has seen their prize pool over doubled the last two years and it is worth pointing out that Riot’s $2,250,000 prize pool base amount is actually higher than Valve’s base of $1,600,000.

8. Creating an LCS Most Valuable Player (MVP) award

Fans of traditional sports will take it for granted that once a season of a league has concluded then a Most Valuable Player (MVP) will be voted upon and an award given out. This has rarely been the case in esports, though, at least in an official capacity. From 2014, the second year of LCS, on there has been an LCS MVP award given out officially to the player voted most deserving. Such awards, while sometimes contentious in the specifics of who ends up winning and the reasons as to why, help create focal points in history to highlight great players and their excellent level of play.

For a casual fan or outsider from another game hearing that Bjergsen has won five NA LCS titles hints that he was a great player, but unless they understand his carry role within the team and significance to the team relative to his team-mates then those team accomplishments don’t say much beyond that vague hint. Being told that he has four times been voted MVP of the NA LCS and with three and a half years, roughly, between his first and last win of said award, does a much better and more effective job of quickly translating how dominant and consistently great he has been both for his team and throughout league play for most of the LCS era.

Just as A Song of Ice and Fire’s Varys explained that “power resides where men think it resides”, a similar statement could be made about greatness and the MVP award helps mark out in history who truly excelled beyond mere general opinion.

7. Creating the Mid Season Invitational (MSI)

One of the biggest criticisms of Riot’s tournament circuit structure after its first year (2013) was that it kept the best teams locked away in their regions too much, with the World Championship standing as the only time they interacted. Sure, there were still IEM (Intel Extreme Masters) tournaments being held which gathered some of these teams, but they were not comparable to Worlds and were also organised outside of the context of Riot’s circuit.

In 2015 Riot introduced the Mid Season Invitational (MSI), a big international tournament to take place between the two regional splits, as opposed to the World Championship which takes place after the region’s two splits have been played out. The tournament’s theme was to gather the top team from each major region and the top wild card, from a smaller region, to battle for a title and prize money.

Riot essentially test ran the concept in 2014, changing All-Stars from an exhibition tournament of voted in players to a similar tournament featuring the top team from each region, albeit with a flawed qualification process in contrast to MSI.

Firstly, MSI allowed another memorable and exciting big international tournament but without devaluing the concept of Worlds as the ultimate test and prize at the end of the year. Secondly, the gimmick of having the best team from each major region ensured the competition was of a high level.

Imagine how unbeatable Korea would appear if we had not had EDG’s 2015 victory over SKT and RNG’s 2018 upset of KZ. More tournaments and opportunities for high level play gives us a more accurate picture of the balance of power in the world and more chances to see great matches.

6. Implementing Best-of-2s (Bo2) in the EU LCS

This may seem like a strange change to highlight, being as Riot changed to Best-of-3s (Bo3) themselves the following year, but that doesn’t alter the positive nature of the change in the first place. The format was unpopular, as many fans felt it was not satisfying to see a game end in a tie, as opposed to a definitive winner being determined, but there were a number of meaningful reasons as to why it was a superior format.

LoL has been a game which has practically always featured a side imbalance, to red or blue. This affects both objective control and how teams draft. As such, it is not insigificant which side a team starts on when playing a specific opponent. Implementing Bo2 in the 2016 EU LCS Summer split allowed both teams to play each side once, removing what would be the otherwise obviously uneven nature of the contest.

It’s also this author’s opinion that part of the dissatisfaction with the format was actually misdirected frustration at the relatively pedestrian, in contrast to tournament play, nature of league play. This is seemingly corroborated by fans’ appreciation of Riot’s reversion entirely back to Bo1s, rather than Bo2 or Bo3. The same fans who didn’t like seeing a game end in a draw seem to prefer watching a single game rather than a series of any variety.

Bo2 might not have satisfied viewers, but as a purist for competitive integrity it was a welcome change, however brief its lifespan may have been.

5. Reseeding for LCS play-offs

For the first three seasons of the LCS once the LCS play-off bracket was set a team’s path to the final was carved in stone, with merely the opponent winning the matches outlined to be determined. From 2016, Season 6, onwards, Riot has implemented reseeding for the semi-finals, meaning the lowest seeded team to progress from the quarter-finals is the team who plays the top seed in the semi-finals. This ensures that an upset in the first round, such as C9’s elimination at the hands of TSM in S6 Spring doesn’t end up punishing the top seeded team with a harder semi-final match-up than the second seed, who is sat on the other side of the bracket.

This is a system reminiscent of the NHL’s play-off system of around half a decade ago, which ensured low play-off seeds had to truly prove their level was higher than the regular season had shown, since even a big upset still saw them facing the hardest path to the title. This famously led to the now legendary 2012 LA Kings’ run to the title, which saw them coming in as the eighth in the West and defeating the number one, two and three seeds to make the final, where traditional seeding would have let them play against the fourth seed in the second round, as opposed to the second seed.

Again, this is a victory for the format purists, but teams certainly appreciate not getting a harder opponent due to an upset, perhaps initiated by a meta shift from patching or a substitution which makes a team a different line-up.

Riot have for this year experimented by making it so that in the NA LCS the top seed actually gets to pick their opponent, as opposed to simply receiving the lowest seeded winning team from the quarter-finals. This is a move which is less pleasing to a format purist, but certainly allows for potential excitement for viewers with opportunities to trash-talk and even the potential of a top team picking their main rival, strong or not, simply to try and eliminate them earlier than the final.

4. Creating more space for the LCS play-offs

When the LCS began it was the era of the so-called “weekend tournaments” where most big LANs took place over 2-4 days, playing from the group stage to the grand final in just over half a week at most. As such, LCS likewise saw its play-offs played out over a three day span. Over in South Korea, OGN Champions was following the tradition of Korean esports tournaments past of having their play-offs with numerous days, usually around a week, between rounds of the play-offs. This format allowed teams more time to prepare specifically for their opponent, as opposed to having less than 24 hours to focus upon the upcoming opponent.

For Season 5, in 2015, Riot implemented more time off between play-off rounds. Seeing them with a week between each round. As such, teams have been able to potentially gain the same advantages as the best teams were able to leverage in Korea. Fans also get time off between series to fully digest the outcome and journalists have greater opportunities to create content and coverage of the play-offs.

3. Changing to Best-of-5 for all playoff matches

For the first two years of LCS the only play-off match which featured Best-of-5, the consensus best series length to showcase high level play in LoL, was the final of the play-offs. All other matches were Bo3. With teams battling over a whole split to reach the play-offs, it seemed unnecessary to have them potentially eliminated from their would-be championship campaign after potentially only two games played.

This was especially concerning when it came to the Summer split, since the only method for qualifying for World Championship back then was placing top three in this split. That meant the semi-finals, which determined two of the Worlds teams, and the third place decider, which determined the other team, were both only Bo3. Over in Korea, they were again ahead of the program and had been using Bo5 series for their play-offs from at least the semi-finals on since 2012.

For the Summer split of S4, the third LCS split overall, Riot introduced Bo5 series for all play-off matches. Consider that with LMQ led their Bo5 semi-final against TSM 2:1 but lost the series overall and, likewise, that Chinese team ended up qualifying for Worlds over Voyboy’s Curse after coming back from a 1:2 deficit in the third place decider.

2. Adding the Regional Qualifier

For the first two seasons of LCS, qualification to Worlds came only though placing top three in the LCS Summer split play-offs. For Season 5, Riot took a page from the Koreans’ book again, implementing a regional qualifier, often dubbed “The Gauntlet” – due to a team starting at the bottom having to beat every other team included to take the coveted Worlds spot.

This change included another tournament in the qualification process for the World Championship. A team might not have won LCS or consistently placed highly but if they could beat out the other teams in contention for the third and final Worlds spot then they could earn a Worlds berth nonetheless, ensuring a team could come into Worlds off a hot run at the end of the season.

In practically all regions this system has seen some very memorable runs which would not have been possible in a circuit point system without this feature. Reminisce upon C9’s unexpected Hai-Jungle-led Season 5 run to Worlds or the same organisation’s success the following year, beating out the IMT squad who had been dominant in both splits’ regular portion.

With the introduction of the Regional Qualifier most excuses for failing to reach the World Championship fell away, as far as format is concerned.

1. Creating the Circuit Point System

The first two seasons of LCS used the Summer split play-offs as the qualification method for Worlds, as has been pointed out already a number of times, but Season 5 saw a circuit point system introduced. Placings in the play-offs of both splits were given a set number of points and then added together and used to determine how a team could qualify to the World Championship. The winner of the Summer split automatically qualified, ensuring the region’s best team at the time, in theory, was in attendence, in contrast with the bizarre scenario in OGN’s S3 circuit in which SKT were the Champions winner in Summer and the consensus best team in LoL but had to go through the gauntlet all the same.

Next the circuit point system was used to determine the highest ranked team, aside from the Summer champion, and they were qualified to Worlds. Finally, the teams to participate in the Regional Qualifier were determined from the squads remaining, depending on the number of slots for the gauntlet, with the winner of that tournament taking the third and final Worlds slot. This system created three different ways to qualify for Worlds, again ensuring every team qualifying had a good reason behind their accomplishment and teams failing to reach the hallowed grounds of Worlds had few if any complaints they could make regarding the format of the circuit itself.

Love or hate Riot, in the interest of fairness we must always give the devil his due, as they say.