Riot Games Confirms League of Legends NA LCS Teams

The full list of teams that will be competing in the next season of the NA LCS has been confirmed in a recent announcement.

Some of these League of Legends teams are returning fan-favorites, but others might quickly amass a new following thanks to the prominence of their partnerships and their presence in other esports ventures. OpTic Gaming, for example, is well-known throughout other games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but they'll soon be known for their League of Legends team as well with a huge following likely accompanying the group.

Below are all of the teams that'll be competing in the upcoming NA LCS season:

• TSM
• Golden Guardians
• Cloud9
• FlyQuest
• Echo Fox
• Clutch Gaming
• 100 Thieves
• Team Liquid
• OpTic Gaming
• Counter Logic Gaming

The six teams returning to the NA LCS will quickly be identified by avid fans as TSM, Cloud9, FlyQuest, Echo Fox, Team Liquid, and Counter Logic Gaming, but the other four are the newer additions to make up the 10-team league. These teams are the first organizations to be featured in the NA LCS after the switch was made towards a partnership model instead of the model based off of relegations and team placement. The new partnership system involved teams bidding for their spot in the league while laying out a detailed plan explaining how the players would be taken care of as well as plans for engaging with fans. Applying was no cheap task with the buy-in fee totaling $10 million, but the new system creates a more long-term plan for the teams and their players.

Immortals is one team that is noticeably absent from the lineup, their application being rejected alongside Phoenix1 and other teams that have been excluded from the NA LCS. The Golden Guardians, Clutch Gaming, and 100 Thieves all boast support from NBA organizations as well, the teams being backed the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, and Cleveland Cavaliers, respectively.

The rosters for the teams are still being sorted out with sources claiming different moves and free agents scouting for opportunities, but a full breakdown of which team each pro player will call home will likely come soon from each organization.