2020 LEC Spring Playoffs: Schedule, format, prize pool, teams, how to watch

The 2020 League of Legends European Championship (LEC) Spring Split are here! Starting on Friday, 3rd April and running for three weekends we will get to watch six of Europe’s best teams compete for the lion share of a €200,000 prize pool.

Who is competing?

Six teams are competing in the upcoming 2020 LEC Spring Playoffs.

The favourites going into the event are Origen, Fnatic, and G2 Esports. The other teams, Mad Lions, Rogue, and Misfits Gaming, are certainly not out of contention yet. However, with the format of the spring playoffs this time around, upsets are certainly more challenging to accomplish than previously.

Riot Games has made the decision that all games will be played online, due to the ongoing situation with the Coronavirus. 

The event schedule

The 2020 LEC Spring Split Playoffs start this Friday, the 3rd of April. The event finals take place on Sunday, the 19th of April. The winning team earns themselves Europe’s invitation to the 2020 Mid-Season Invitational event. The schedule of the first three matches is as follows.  

• Read more: LEC Spring Split 2020: Best picks of the season so far

The weekend starts with 1st place G2 Esports playing against the 4th place team Mad Lions, at 6 PM on the 3rd of April. Saturday sees the 2nd place team, Fnatic play against Origen, at 5 PM local time. In the lower bracket the regular season 5th place team, Misfits Gaming, faces off against 6th place Rogue, on the 5th of April, starting at 5 PM.

The remaining matches of the 2020 LEC Spring Split Playoffs are live every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the weekends of the 10th to 12th and 17th to the 19th of April. 

The reason for the earlier starting times of the Saturday and Sunday matches is the 2020 LCS Spring Playoffs, which are played later on the day.  

The format of the 2020 LEC Spring Playoffs

The 2020 LEC Spring Split uses a type of double-elimination format. The exception to this is that the 5th and 6th place teams start their run in the lower bracket instead. However, the format gets even more needlessly complicated from here. The losing teams of the first round of the Winners Bracket stages enter in the lower-bracket format based on their regular-season standings. To best understand this, look at the image above.

• Read more: LEC Spring 2020 Week 8: Playoffs power ranking

Let’s say both Origen and the Mad Lions end up losing their Winners’ Bracket matches. In this case, Mad Lions, being the 4th place team, would be placed in the Losers’ Bracket Round 2 match. To face off against the winner of Misfits Gaming vs Rogue on Friday, the 10th of April. The regular format deciding the placement would mean that Origen, as 3rd place team, would place in the Losers’ Round 3, to play against the winner of the 10th of April game. 

However, if Mad Lions (somehow) win against G2 Esports, as the 1st place team, they would place in the Round 3 match instead, requiring Origen or Fnatic to first play in the 10th of April game. For the entirety of the 2020 LEC Spring Split Playoffs, all series use the best-of-five format, on the 10.6 League of Legends patch.

At this time, we don’t know whether Wukong or Vi remain disabled. 

Prize Pool

A total of €200,000 is up for grabs in the playoffs event this time around. However, the main prize the teams are looking to pick up is the Championship Points. In addition to the cash prize and the Championship Points, the winner of the 2020 LEC Spring Playoffs can also earn themselves a spot for the 2020 Mid-Season Invitational event, later this year. The Championship points decide which teams can attend the 2020 League of Legends World Championship later this year. 

The prize pool is as follows:

• 1st: €80,000, 90 Championship Points, Mid-Season Invitational Invite
• 2nd: €50,000, 70 Championship Points
• 3rd: €30,000, 50 Championship Points
• 4th: €20,000, 30 Championship Points
• 5th: €10,000, 20 Championship Points
• 6th: €10,000, 10 Championship Points

2020 LEC Spring Playoffs: How-To Watch

Riot Games has official streams for the 2020 LEC Spring Playoffs in English on both Youtube and Twitch.

However, there are dozens of unofficial twitch broadcasts in other languages permitted to stream during the event.

You can find the unofficial broadcasts on the League of Legends page of Twitch.tv. 

Twitch (English)
Youtube (English)
 

For additional in-game rewards, be sure to watch through the Watch page of Lolesports.