en
ua
ru
de
pt
es
pl
fr
tr
fi
da
no
sv
en
All

All news: LCK LoL: Champions Korea

More about LCK
LCK
The LCK or Champions Korea is the key competitive league in the eSports League of Legends in South Korea. The first LCK series tournament was held in Korea in 2012. The title league is considered the strongest in the professional LoL scene. Teams from the LCK have become World Champions more often than others.
Read more
13.02.24
LCKLCK
LCK Dominance: Unveiling the Spectacular World of Esports Sponsorships, Advertising Innovations, and Unique Brand Integrations!
1573
13.08.23
LCKLCK
FakerFaker
Notable League of Legends Star Faker Receives Death Threats; South Korean Authorities and LCK Respond Swiftly
2903
26.01.23
LCKLCK
PartnershipPartnership
ONE EsportsONE Esports
ONE Esports expands agreement with the LCK tournament series
The parties will continue to create and distribute content for the LCK Tournament Series throughout the 2023 season.
3406
06.01.23
Riot GamesRiot Games
LPLLPL
LCKLCK
LCSLCS
Riot Games has announced a special two-day event Season 2023: Kickoff - the event will take place from January 10 to 11
During Season 2023: Kickoff, you will be able to watch the participants of nine title leagues in the LoL competitive ecosystem.
6271
22.12.22
LCKLCK
Keria and Oner became "Best Support" and "Best Jungler" of the year according to LCK Awards 2022
The T1 players had an outstanding season and came close to winning the world championship.
9672
09.12.22
LPLLPL
TransfersTransfers
LCKLCK
Worlds 2017 and LCK Summer 2022 Ruler champion moved to JD Gaming
The botlaner will strengthen the Chinese club at the upcoming LPL Spring 2023.
6924
03.12.22
DRXDRX
LCKLCK
Worlds 2022Worlds 2022
Worlds 2022 DRX Champions Reveal Updated Roster at LCK 2023
The South Korean club will fight in the LCK 2023 in a new guise.
7686
29.11.22
T1T1
LCKLCK
Sky is T1 coach for next season
The twenty-four-year-old specialist received a promotion.
9099
23.11.22
DAMWON GamingDAMWON Gaming
TransfersTransfers
LCKLCK
DeftDeft
Canna and Deft Join DAMWON Gaming
The South Korean organization completed the roster ahead of the start of the new LCK 2023 season.
4948
20.08.22
Gen.G EsportsGen.G Esports
LCKLCK
Worlds LoLWorlds LoL
Gen.G Esports is the first finalist of LCK Summer 2022
As expected, Gen.G advanced to the finals by defeating SANDBOX Gaming
3485
07.07.22
Riot GamesRiot Games
LCKLCK
2022 LCK Summer Finals will be held in LAN format
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, fans will be able to watch the best teams in the region play live.
2529
30.06.22
T1T1
LCKLCK
LCK Summer 2022: T1 and DRX suffered their first defeat in the group stage
Gen.G Esports have become the undisputed leader of the tournament table. Let's talk about how yesterday went.
4195
27.06.22
T1T1
Gen.G EsportsGen.G Esports
LCKLCK
LCK Summer 2022: DRX, Gen.G Esports and T1 are group stage leaders
The teams showed excellent results at the end of the week.
2503
Show More

LCK is the name of the world's most popular competitive League of Legends. Riot's MOBAs are enjoying massive hype in the country, and competitive gaming is one of the professions there.

Not surprisingly, South Korea is considered to be the center of LoL competitiveness. This has been the case almost every time since 2012.

History of LCK

The first season of the Korean LCK Pro League took place in 2012. Back then, Riot was testing formats and just getting ready for the next steps to grow LCK into a multi-million dollar franchise.

The first tournament of the series was called Champions 2022. The event had the outlines of a classic championship from Riot with a split season into two parts and a large number of participants, but the spring split stood out a lot.

In the spring of 2012, teams from South Korea were divided into 4 groups of 6 participants: a total of 24 clubs took part in the tournament. In each group, a Single Elimination tournament was played with bo2 matches, where 2 teams from the group went to the playoffs.

The playoffs themselves were again played in the Single Elimination format. Since the beginning of building the esports ecosystem, Riot has strived to make League of Legends a real sport, hence the vision to play not the most popular format in esports in the later stages of major tournaments.

The winner of the first LCK split was Azubu Blaze, who beat Azubu Frost 3-0 in the final. In the summer of the same year, the LCK summer split started, where the summer split took place that year, in an already changed format and with a rather interesting list of teams.

LCK Summer 2013 – an attempt at “western” expansion

The Summer Split of the Championship 2013 was an attempt by Western teams to enter the battlefield of the South Korean giants. She nearly succeeded.

Among the participants in the tournament, in addition to local teams, there were NaVi, Americans Dignitas, Europeans from CLG EU. We shouldn't have expected special weather from the trio, because only CLG EU made it to the playoffs. The group stage, by the way, received an update: 4 teams and Round-Robin.

In the playoffs, the representatives of Europe from CLG Europe managed to get to the grand final. In the decisive match, they were defeated 3-2 by the vice-champions of the LCK Spring 2012.

Back to the roots

In 2013, Riot banned non-South Korean teams from the Regional League. Those received their tournaments, and only local representatives remained at the LCK.

For the first time, the season was divided into three splits: winter, spring and summer. Each of them played 12 teams, divided into 2 groups.

In the playoffs, 4 teams from each group were selected, that is, 8 teams. The most interesting in this regard was the LCK Winter 2013 split: then 2 bo5 matches played in the semi-finals of the main stage. Later, the idea was abandoned.

The running champions are:

  • Najin Sword - winter
  • MVP Ozone - Spring
  • SK Telecom T1 2 - summer

SK Telecom T1 2 deserves a special mention. The team launched the careers of legendary Korean artists such as Faker, Impact, Bengi and others. Subsequently, SK Telecom will transform into T1, which will become the most titled team in the history of the League of Legends.

Becoming a LCK Franchise

A global change in the system of the South Korean competitive League of Legends happened in 2015. Nominally, then the event was called Champions 2015, but in fact it turned into LCK.

This happened due to the transition to the structure of the league. In the first season of a full-fledged league, only 8 teams played. It was divided into 2 splits: spring and summer.

During the group stage of LCK 2015, the teams met each other in Bo1 Round-Robin duels. 4 teams with different seedings went through to the playoffs, and the two worst teams by the end of the group stage left the championship.

Already in the summer split, the number of participants in the LCK competitive league has increased to 10, which has become a standard for future years.

Another major milestone came in the summer of 2020. After 5 years of competition, the LCK came to the conclusion to move the league to a franchise model: this meant privileges for teams and players, in-depth cooperation between Riot and participants. For the fans, this meant one thing - a greater presence of their favorite clubs: since the summer of 2020, the team has not left the LCK, regardless of the results. The only option was to buy-in and buy out the slot.

The debut list of partner teams included:

  • DAMWON Gaming
  • DRX
  • Gen.G
  • T1
  • Afreeca Freecs
  • KT Rolster
  • SANDBOX Gaming
  • Team Dynamics
  • Hanwha Life Esports
  • SeolHaeOnePrime

Later, the list of participants will change slightly, but the backbone of residents will remain unchanged.

Teams from the LCK on the international stage

The LCK has the status of the strongest region in the world of eSports League of Legends for a reason. Since 2012, the LCK team has been proving everything in practice.

In total, clubs from the LCK became champions of the Worlds series tournaments once, and T1 did it most often. The latter are the absolute champion in the number of World Champions Cup trophies (won 3 times).

All Worlds champions from LCK

  • SK Telecom T1 – Worlds 2013
  • Samsung White – Worlds 2014
  • SK Telecom T1 – Worlds 2015
  • SK Telecom T1 – Worlds 2016
  • Samsung Galaxy – Worlds 2017
  • DAMWON Gaming – Worlds 2020
  • DRX-Worlds 2022

Teams from South Korea have won more than half of the world championships (7) of all played (12) as of 2022.

Top Teams of All Time LCK

High performance in international tournaments for teams from the LCK is ensured by a healthy system of intra-regional competitions. As mentioned above, in South Korea, esports is a highly developed industry and therefore it is prestigious to be an esportsman.

Competitive struggle and a serious approach to the competition provides LCK with a large number of top teams. Among the many representatives of the South Korean League of Legends, there are some of the biggest players on the scene.

The unconditional leadership in the number of seasons won is occupied by T1. The South Korean grand is the most successful team in the LCK in particular and the competitive League of Legends in general.

Team

Number of titles

Seasons won

Second place in the season

T1

ten

2013 Summer, 2013–14 Winter, 2015 Spring, 2015 Summer, 2016 Spring, 2017 Spring, 2019 Spring, 2019 Summer, 2020 Spring,

Spring 2022

2017 Summer, 2021 Summer, 2022 Summer

DWG KIA

3

2020 Summer, 2021 Spring, 2021 Summer

-

Gen.G

3

2013 Spring, 2014 Spring, 2022 Summer

2013–14 Winter, 2014 Summer, 2020 Spring, 2021 Spring, 2022 Spring

DRX

2

2017 Summer, 2018 Spring

2020 Summer

KT Rolster

2

2014 Summer, 2018 Summer

2013 Summer, 2015 Summer, 2016 Summer, 2017 Spring

CJ Entus

2

2012 Spring, 2012 Summer

2012 Spring, 2012–13 Winter, 2013 Spring

Hanwha Life Esports

one

Summer 2016

2015 Spring, 2016 Spring

Fredit Brion

one

2012–13 Winter

Spring 2014

Griffin

0

-

2018 Summer, 2019 Spring, 2019 Summer

CLG Europe

0

-

2012 Summer

BRING TO TOP
FREE SUBSCRIPTION ON EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
Receive a selection of the most important and up-to-date news in the industry.
*
*Only important news, no spam.
SUBSCRIBE
LATER
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic.
Customize
OK