Riot Games loosens the reins on LoL community competitions: Boost to the scene or bad sign?

For almost the entire existence of League of Legends, Riot Games has held an iron grip on just where and when a LoL tournament can take place. From refusing to allow LoL at tournaments with rival titles, to controlling just how collegiate and event high school level competitions can be held, the company has also long restricted how smaller, grass-roots tournaments could earn money and reward its winners.

But now some of those restrictions have been loosened as Riot unveils a new set of community competition guidelines and rules. Revealed by social media post and accompanying blog posts on Aug. 4, these changes widen the opportunity for grass-roots competition, although maintain a strict level of control on sponsorship and other aspects.

Riot adjusts standards for community League tournaments

As revealed in Riot’s blog post, the newly updated guidelines removed a licencing system for LoL tournaments and instead opened up competitions to be hosted by more people. Prize pool caps for community, collegiate, and high school events were removed, as well as allowing organizers to charge more for entrance fees, spectator fees, and earn more sponsorship revenue.

High school events can now be broader than just inter-state competitions, and collegiate events had limits removed from sponsorships and the amount they earn.

This huge loosening of the rules effectively means that community tournaments are now actually feasible, and not beholden to an archaic system of rules that Riot previously implemented to keep control over all aspects of League of Legends. These rules, importantly, don’t extend to government-run or professional competitions, making them a huge boost to the grass-roots of competitive play, but not a free reign for TOs to start running LoL events.

Triumphant Ryze returns as tournament-winner reward

Along with the announcement of a change in rules for community tournaments, Riot also revealed that Triumphant Ryze would be returning to the game. This unique skin was previously available to players that won Riot-sanctioned community tournaments. The practice of giving out this skin faded out around Season 5, as Riot’s grip on the competitive scene reached its peak.

Now it’s back, and tournaments submitted to Riot Games via the new Visibility form can potentially have this skin as a reward in their tournaments. Full details are available on the announcement blog post.

Overall, while this seems like a slamdunk boon for lower-level LoL tournaments, the questions of “why now?” are looming. Is League of Legends’ competitive scene in such a dire state that these measures are essentially needed just to keep the game alive?

Beyond this, the past few years have seen Riot finally letting its game exist alongside competitors to MOBA crown in individual tournaments, most notably the Esports World Cup. Long gone are the days where Riot Games forced ESL to create an entire separate tournament so that League of Legends and Dota 2 wouldn’t be at the same event. Now LoL proudly sits on the same schedule as Honor of Kings, MLBB, and Dota, overlapping and directly competing in some cases.

Are these the signs that League’s vice-like grip on the esports scene is dwindling? Potentially. Either way, it’s the small tournament organizers that will benefit now, even if years of drought may have killed off the grass-roots before they were able to sprout.