Vortex Gaming

The 2025 LoL Champions Cup (LCK Cup), introduced for the first time this year, has recorded unprecedented success amidst fervent enthusiasm. According to esports viewership statistics site Esports Charts (https://escharts.com/), the 2025 LCK Cup recorded a peak viewership of 1,907,634, achieving the second-highest viewership in LCK history. (The all-time highest peak viewership record was the 2024 LCK Spring, which surpassed 2.6 million.)

Compared to overseas leagues, the success of the LCK Cup is even more pronounced. The 2025 LCK Cup recorded overwhelmingly higher viewership numbers than other League of Legends tournaments held in other regions this year. The LCK Cup's peak viewership was approximately 3.5 times higher than the next most popular LEC league Winter 2025, and the average viewership per game was also about 30% higher.

The prevailing assessment is that the 'Fearless Draft,' newly introduced in this tournament, had a significant impact on the event's ability to achieve such great success despite being an event cup match rather than a regular season.

'Fearless Draft' is a rule that prohibits the reuse of a champion used in one set in the following set. Teams must create new champion combinations for each game, maximizing strategic diversity and unfolding unpredictable matches. In particular, the strategy of Fearless Draft becomes even more complex in best-of-five series with a large number of games.

Fearless Draft sparked heated discussions from the beginning to the end of the tournament. As the first tournament to apply the Fearless Draft rule, a much wider variety of champions appeared than before, captivating the attention of LCK fans. During the tournament, teams and players experienced contrasting fortunes due to the Fearless Draft rule, creating talking points. In the latter half of the tournament, heated debates arose among fans due to various joker picks emerging from the disadvantaged red side and the win rate difference between the blue and red sides within the Fearless Draft rule.

As such, Fearless Draft sparked fervent interest from fans, whether positive or negative. Riot Games, which has benefited greatly from the effects of Fearless Draft, is reportedly planning to gradually expand the application of the Fearless Draft rule to other tournaments in the future. In particular, it is known that they are discussing the possibility of applying Fearless Draft to the regular season held in April 2025, leaving all possibilities open.

While it is clear that Fearless Draft has sparked fans' interest and garnered more attention, it is necessary to consider the negative aspects revealed through this tournament.

First, we can consider the fact that the win rate difference between the blue and red sides is excessively large under the Fearless Draft rule. In the 2024 LCK Summer regular league, the blue side's win rate was 50.2%, and the Summer playoffs win rate was 54.8%. Usually, the blue side's win rate tends to increase slightly in the playoffs season, when the meta is stabilized and only teams with a high understanding of the meta remain. However, in this LCK Cup, the blue side's win rate averaged 61.5%, including the groups and playoffs.

The win rate difference between the blue and red sides existed before, but the win rate difference between the two sides is particularly pronounced in the Fearless Draft rule. Regarding the reason why the blue side is more advantageous than the red side, LCK commentator Go Su-jin explained that if the blue side completes the champion combination first in a situation where the number of champions that can be used becomes insufficient as the number of sets increases, it is difficult for the red side to counter it.

League of Legends is a game that balances with champion matchups. When champion A appears, it is countered with champion B, and the win rate is matched by responding to champion combination C with champion combination D. However, within the Fearless Draft rule, the counter champion of champion A is often banned and cannot be used. Other champions that perform similar roles can be selected, but they are less efficient or require taking risks compared to the champion that was originally intended to be selected.

Also, it should be considered that the League of Legends champion balance is not perfect. If a game proceeds to the 5th set under the Fearless Draft rule, approximately ⅓ of the total champions cannot be used. Among the remaining champions, there are champions with good performance and those that do not, and even among these, there are champions that are so poorly performing that they cannot be used. Since the blue side has the first pick here, the red side's disadvantage becomes more severe as it goes to the later stages.

Fearless Draft led the success of the LCK Cup and injected new vitality into League of Legends esports. However, challenges that need to be addressed, such as the win rate imbalance between the blue/red sides and champion balance issues, have also emerged. Riot Games must continue research and improvement to maximize the positive effects of Fearless Draft and minimize the negative aspects. As solutions, we can consider granting advantages to the red side through system improvements and adjusting champion balance.

I hope to see the Fearless Draft, which led to unprecedented success, again soon. However, I want to face it with a more improved appearance than before.

웹진 인벤김병호 기자
2025-02-26