Season 2026 is coming shortly, and with it, the League of Legends Champions Korea will return on January 14th, 2026. The format of the LCK won’t change as much as that of the LEC and LCS in 2026, but it won’t be the same as 2025 either. The LCK Cup is changing, the regular season will be shorter, and the league will introduce Coach Comms.
Here’s all there’s to know about the 2026 LCK format.
For readers familiar with the 2025 format, the article contains a changelist at the bottom.
The LCK will feature 10 teams for the entirety of 2026. These teams are the same as in 2025, with DN Freecs renaming to DN SOOPers. All matches in 2026 will be played using Fearless Draft, like in 2025.
The LCK Cup 2026 will also use Coach Comms, a feature allowing the coaches to communicate with their team during the games. This trial run is applied to the LCK Cup and to the LCP’s Winter Split. Read more about Coach Comms here.
The LCK Cup starts with a group stage. Teams are separated into two groups of five teams, group Baron and group Elder. Teams play against each team from the opposite group once.
Week 3 will be a “super week”. On week 3, each team faces the opponent of the same seed as them. This means group Baron’s first seed against group Elder’s first seed, and so on.
All matches are Best of 3s, except the super week matches, which are Best of 5s instead. Each team scores a point per match win, and two points per super week match win. At the end of the Group Stage, the group with the more points will be named “Winners Group”, and the other one “Losers Group”.
Play-ins teams are seeded into a bracket by their amount of series wins.
Seeds 3 to 6 start in round 1. The two losers are eliminated, while the two winners move on to face seeds 1 and 2 in round 2.
The round 2 winners advance to the Playoffs. The round 2 losers go to round 3, where they’ll face off in a last chance qualification match.
The first 4 matches are Best of 3s, while the last chance qualification match is a Best of 5.
Playoffs are a double elimination bracket among the remaining 6 teams. (A double elimination bracket with 6 teams means that the top 2 teams start directly in round 2, and a 5-round losers’ bracket.)
All 10 playoffs matches are Best of 5s. The two finalists qualify for First Stand 2026.
Read our LCK Cup predictions.
Faker delivers his speech after winning the Best Sportsmanship Award at the LCK Awards 2025. Image Source: Riot Games
Like in 2025, the LCK 2026 Rounds 1-2 are the first half of the tournament’s season. They lead to qualification for MSI 2026, but the results don’t reset afterwards. Rounds 1-2 and Road to MSI are unchanged from 2025.
Rounds 1-2 are a double round robin, with each team facing the other nine twice. All games are Best of 3s. For the remainder of the year, the top 5 teams will then go to the Legend Group, and the bottom 5 to the Rise Group.
As for Road to MSI, the top 6 teams from Rounds 1-2 qualify for it.
Road to MSI is the playoffs equivalent of Rounds 1-2. It uses a King of the Hill gauntlet, and one separate upper bracket match.
The top 2 teams from Rounds 1-2 play in the upper bracket match. The winner of that match qualifies for MSI 2026.
Then, for the other teams:
The team that wins the round 4 match books Korea’s second ticket to MSI 2026.
GenG lifts the trophy after winning the LCK 2025 Grand Finals. Image Source: Riot Games
The LCK 2026 Rounds 3-4 are a double round robin group stage. Rounds 3-4 function the same as Rounds 3-5 from 2025, except as double round robin instead of triple round robin.
The teams were seeded into the Legend and Rise Groups. Each team faces all opponents in their group twice. All matches are Best of 3s, and Rounds 1-2 results carry over to Rounds 3-4. Afterwards, at the end of round 4:
This is due to League of Legends being an official category at the 2026 Asian Games. The second half of the season is being condensed in order to give a breather to the Korean national team playing in the Asian games in Japan in September 2026.
For the 2026 Season Play-Ins, four teams are fighting over the remaining two playoffs spots.
Legend Seed 5 and Rise Seed 1 face off in a qualification match, and the winner advances to the playoffs.
Rise Seeds 2 and 3 battle each other. Afterwards, the winner moves to face the loser of the first match, and whoever wins that 3rd match claims the final playoffs spot.
All matches are Best of 5s.
GenG hoists the LCK 2025 banner after winning the LCK 2025 Grand Finals. Image Source: Riot Games
The Season Playoffs format is identical to that of the LCK Cup Playoffs, or to the 2025 Season Playoffs. Playoffs are a double elimination bracket among the remaining 6 teams.
Once again, all matches are Best of 5s, and the top three teams qualify for the League of Legends 2026 World Championship!
In 2026, all LCK weekend matches will play two hours later (5pm KST instead of 3pm).
| Stage of the season | Category | 2025 version | 2026 changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCK Cup | Group Stage | Winners Group Seeds 1-3 advance to the playoffs | Winners Group Seeds 1-2 and Losers Group Seed 1 advance to the playoffs |
| Play-ins | In Round 2, Seed 1 faces the winner of Seed 4 vs Seed 5. Seed 2 faces the winner of Seed 3 vs Seed 6 | In Round 2, Seed 1 picks their opponent from the winners of Round 1 | |
| Playoffs | Round 1 disqualifies, double elimination from Round 2 onward (8 matches are played in total) | Full double elimination (10 matches are played in total) | |
| Rounds 1-2 | Regular season | No changes | No changes |
| Road to MSI | No changes | No changes | |
| Rounds 3-4 | Regular season | Rounds 3-5: Triple round robin (each team plays 8 matches) | Rounds 3-4: Double round robin (each team plays 8 matches) |
| Season play-ins | Double elimination bracket between the 4 teams. Teams that win 2 matches advance to the playoffs. (5 matches are played in total) | The highest two seeds play one match, the winner advances.
The lower two seeds play one match. The winner faces the loser of the first match. The winner of that final match advances. (3 matches are played in total) |
|
| Season play-ins | Side selection is decided by coin toss | The higher seeded team has side selection | |
| Season playoffs | Season playoffs | The loser of Round 2 with a higher regular season ranking moves to Losers Round 3 | The loser of Round 2 with a higher playoffs seeding moves to Losers Round 3 |
Featured Image Source: Riot Games
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