Mini LCS Tournament Ruleset

This competition is not affiliated with or sponsored by Riot Games, Inc. or League of Legends Esports

Recent changes are marked in blue.

1 Eligibility Requirements                                        

1.1 Disclosing peak account

Players must disclose the Riot ID of their highest peak rank League of Legends account from any region used in the current season - Season 2025.

If a player has two or more accounts with the same peak rank, all accounts should be disclosed.

1.1.1 Reaching a new peak mid event.

If a player ranks up an account to a higher peak than their current registered peak, staff should be notified of this account as soon as possible.

1.2 Account Requirements

Restrictions are applied based on a player’s peak rank in Solo/Duo, using data from the 2025 & 2024 ranked seasons.
Flex queue rank does not count towards peak rank.

1.2.1 Account with highest peak rank

These requirements must be met by the player’s account with the highest peak rank (refer to 1.1), and  account used in any official tournament game.

• The account must have a total of 20 ranked solo/duo games during the 2025 season..

1.2.2 Additional requirements for the account

These additional requirements must also be met by a player’s account that is used in any official tournament game:

• The account must be a minimum of level 60.
• The account must be on the EUW server.
• The account must be verified with Orianna Bot on the users discord account.

1.2.3 Game date requirement

The account requirements highlighted above must be met before the event start date, or if a player is being added to a team during the course of the event, they must be accurate for the player to participate. If a player has signed up and does not meet these requirements by the event start date they will be removed from the roster.

1.3 Rank Lock

The rank the player is recognised at will be locked at the time their team is officially notified of their acceptance into the league, or via a free agent joining mid tournament or team transfer thereafter, or when they have met all of the Account Requirements (refer to 1.2), whichever is later.

1.3.1 Rank Unlocking

When a player leaves a team their locked rank is unlocked and will require re-evaluating if and when they join a new team (refer to 3.3).

1.4 Riot ID

Riot ID changes have to be submitted to staff before the team has locked in the roster of their next game (refer to 4.3) as it could interfere with roster sheets. Failure to do so may result in penalties. (refer to 7.1).

1.5 Staff Members

All staff members are allowed to participate and have affiliation as a team member for any team as an emergency substitute (see 3.2). Additionally, staff members may be full-time members of any one team. If a staff member joins a team permanently, they are no longer allowed to be an emergency substitute and cannot join another team for the remainder of the event if they leave the current team.

2 Team Management

2.1 Premade Rosters

2.1.1 Roster Requirements

A team must have:

• At least 5 players.
• Up to 2 substitutes.
• Up to 2 coaches
• Up to 1 Team Manager.

A team can have no more than 7 players and 2 coaches at any one time. A player can only be assigned to one team. However, a player may coach for another team as long as the team they are affiliated with are not in the same bracket. Coaches can only be assigned to one team per bracket, and they cannot participate as a player if they are coaching in the same bracket.

2.1.2 Players

Player responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Communicating their availability for tournament games week-to-week.
• Team coordination
• Communicating relevant information between staff and team members

Teams, once formed,  must elect a team captain. The team captain will assume the following responsibilities:

• Being an available point of contact inside and outside of games for the staff team.
• Submitting roster changes & substitution requests.
• Scheduling games with opponents during the tournament.

2.1.3 Coaches

Coaches are not required but are permitted, they have no responsibilities except to adhere to the rules outlined here. Team coaches may only be assigned to one team but may play for another team so long as they aren’t in the same bracket as the team they’re coaching.

2.1.4 Team Withdrawal

A team may withdraw themselves for any reason. Withdrawal will result in all scheduled games for that team to end in forfeit. All players from that team will be considered Free Agents.

3 General League and Roster Rules

3.1 Roster Guidelines

All rosters (be that Premade or Mashup) must adhere to the strict ranking caps of the bracket they intend to play in. These caps are as follows:

Weenie Hut Junior Bracket:

Teams can be worth a total of 20 points.

Players cannot be higher than Low Platinum, valued at 5 points.

Hardstuck Heroes Bracket:

Teams can be worth a total of 40 points.

Teams can field one Master (0-150LP) player, valued at 11 points & one High Diamond (Diamond 2 - Diamond 1) player, valued at 10 points.

All other members cannot be higher than Low Diamond, valued at 9 points.

Sweatlord Bracket:

Teams can be worth a total of 55 points.

Teams can field players of any rank in the Sweatlord bracket.

All players are given a point value upon signup based on the following metrics:

• Their peak rank in Season 2025.
• Their current rank in Season 2025.
• How many games played in Season 2025.
• Ranks in previous seasons, weighing recent seasons more heavily than earlier seasons.
• Peak rank & historic peak on any alternate accounts.

Players are assigned one of the following values:

1 Point - Iron

2 Points - Bronze

3 Points - Silver

4 Points - Gold

5 Points - Low Platinum (P4-P3) [CUTOFF FOR WEENIE HUT JUNIOR BRACKET]

6 Points - High Platinum (P2-P1)

7 Points - Low Emerald (E4-E3)

8 Points - High Emerald (E2-E1)

9 Points - Low Diamond (D4-D3)

10 Points - High Diamond (D2-D1)

11 Points - Low Master (0-150LP)

12 Points - Master (151-400LP) [CUT OFF FOR HARDSTUCK HEROES BRACKET]

13 Points - Master (401LP+)

14 Points - Grandmaster

15 Points - Challenger

3.1.1 Non Premade Rosters

For players who have signed up as a solo, duo, or trio entry instead of as a Premade 5, all of the same rules above apply but their teams must be drafted. Upon signup, players can elect to be a captain. Captains will be selected by the staff after the submission deadline.

3.1.2 Team Draft

The draft will be held before the start of the event and if possible will be streamed. Each bracket, starting with Sweatlord and finishing with Weenie Hut Junior, will have their respective captains assigned a random number, depending on how many teams can be formed from the player pool for their bracket. In the event that there are more formable teams than we have eligible captains (i.e. 25 players in the pool, only 3 captains) then staff members will fill and draft in a captains stead to ensure that a team is drafted that isn’t significantly weaker than the rest of the field.

The draft will be a reverse snake draft. This means that captains will pick from #1 to the last number picked during random assignment for the first round, and then in reverse order for the second round, repeating this process until teams are fully drafted.

Teams must be drafted within the legal boundaries of the bracket they are drafted for. If the ability to select a legal roster is available during drafting, it MUST be followed. ONLY in situations where there are no remaining players in a role and no other legal way to build the roster will captains be allowed to ignore the point cap, allowing them to finish their roster.

Players MUST NOT be forced into roles that they have not opted into playing. If a captain wishes to pick a player for a role they have not selected in their application they must provide evidence to staff that the player in question has consented to playing that role, otherwise it is illegal.

3.2 Emergency Substitution

Emergency Substitutes are players that are not signed to your team and may be used when no other member of your roster is available. Team Captains must submit a request by direct messaging a staff member and disclose who the substitute will be replacing for the substitute to be approved.

Usage of emergency substitutes is a last resort and depending on context when a substitution may be used it may incur penalties for the player who was initially scheduled for the game (see 7.1). Any emergency substitute must adhere to the following rules:

• They can only play for 1 team per week, rescheduled games count for the week as their original scheduled date.
• They must be of equal points or less than the player they are covering if the team in question is capped out on points for their bracket. In the event that the team has excess points, the team may use them. For example, if a team has 3 points left over and is finding a substitute for a Bronze player (worth 2 points), they may use 5 total points for the emergency substitution.
• Cannot be a player who has been registered to the opposing team or has played for them in the last two weeks as a substitute.
• Cannot be a player from a different team in the same bracket.

3.2.1 Penalty Waiver

If the e-sub is declared more than 24 hours before the series and listed on the line-up submission, the penalty is waived. This does not apply during Winners Finals, Losers Semi-Finals, Losers Finals or Grand Finals.

3.3 Roster Changes

A team captain may request a roster change at any time by direct messaging a staff member. Teams are allowed to make roster changes at any time but any player change made less than 24 hours before a scheduled series will only be completed afterwards.

The addition of players new to the league may take extra processing time due to background checks done by staff. Responsibility to submit these additions in a timely manner lies with the team.

3.3.1 Adding a player

When adding a player, the team captain/manager must provide their:

• Discord name
• Riot ID
• OP.GG Link to the account they intend to use.
• Highest peak ranked LoL account, if different from verified account (refer to 1.1)

All prerequisite account requirements (see 1.2) apply to any newly added players. New additions to the team have to fit within the teams allocated point cap. For example, if a Hardstuck Heroes team is using 38 out of 40 points and replaces a player worth 6 points, they can fill that players spot with someone worth 8 points in total before hitting the point cap.

3.3.2 Removing a player / leaving a team

A team captain may request to remove a player, or a player may choose to leave a team at any time.

3.3.3 Transfer Restrictions

• After leaving a team for the second time during the same tournament, a player cannot play for their new team during their next series.
• No player will be able to rejoin a team they have been previously part o
• f during the ongoing split.

4 Tournament Format

4.1 Standard Event

The Mini LCS Winter Open 2026 will be a Two Stage event. This will play out as follows:

The Group Stage

Depending on the number of teams there will be a number of groups that will play a Single Round Robin. For example, if we have 20 teams there will be four groups of 5, if there are 8 teams we will do two groups of 4, if there are 17 teams we will do three groups of 4 and one group of 5. If we have to utilise a group of 3 teams, the single round robin will be double round robin for that specific group.

The Playoffs

Depending on turnout, we will then have a Top Eight cut into a Single Elimination Playoffs. If there are eight teams or less, there will be no cut and all teams from the Group Stage will be seeded into a playoff bracket. If there are 5 teams or less, the playoff bracket will be Double Elimination.

4.1.1 Time frame & Scheduling

Each round will take one week to complete and will consist of one series for teams to play. During extenuating circumstances such as Riot server issues when a series was initially planned or if both parties agree to postpone their game then there may be scenarios where multiple series are played in one week, but the expectation is one series per week.

At the beginning of a week, each round pairing will have a thread made for it where the team captains of the respective teams can organise amongst themselves what day their teams will play. Games must be completed before the deadline, the end of that week, unless extenuating circumstances prevent such.

4.3 Line-up Submission

Team Captains are to provide their team’s starting line-up for the upcoming game day at least 24 hours beforehand in the scheduling thread for the game in question.

This message must include:

• The team they are playing against

• Riot IDs of the 5 players who will play in Game 1, as well as their roles.

• Riot IDs on the line-up do not have to be 100% accurate, as long as they can still be used to identify a player through the Mini LCS Teamsheet.
• If the player’s registered peak account is different from the account they are playing on, both accounts must be listed.

• Potential substitutes for after Game 1.

• Using a listed substitute in Game 1 will be treated as an emergency substitute and may incur penalties in line with emergency substitutions (see 7.1)

• Side-selection, if the team has been granted it. This will be decided by coinflip on stream and the team with side selection will be alerted by staff ahead of time in case they missed the stream.
• Multi op.gg of all players accounts that are listed on the line-up and any peak accounts that are listed in the Team Sheet.

Missing the above criteria may result in penalties (refer to 7.1).

4.3.1 Side Selection

If the team has been granted side selection but does not include it in the line-up submission, the team will be defaulted to being the blue side for Game 1.

4.3.2 Inability to submit line-up

In case the team captain is unable to submit the line-up, another member of the team may submit the line-up through their team text channel with staff. A staff member will post the line-up on behalf of the team. Potential deadline penalties will be applied based on the time of line-up submission in the message.

5 Gameday Procedures

5.1 Series Procedure

Official series lobbies will be created automatically through Battlefy. Codes will be given out for each lobby in the scheduling thread for each individual game.

5.1.1 Voice Channels

All players must only use their allotted voice channel throughout the entire series unless explicitly told otherwise by a staff member.

Other team members are allowed in the team’s voice channel before and after the games but not during and must leave once the loading screen ends. Failure to have team members leave will result in penalties (refer to 7.1).

5.1.2 Pre-Game Lobby

Each team is permitted to have up to 2 coaches as spectators (unless 5.8.3 applies). Please ensure that you are in the lobby at the agreed time and that if you or a teammate are running late you have informed staff. Teams are given a fifteen minute grace period for their player to arrive or for them to organise an emergency substitution in the event their scheduled player can no longer participate. After fifteen minutes, game 1 will be a forfeit victory to the enemy team, at the team captains discretion.

5.1.1 Fearless Draft

All games played in the Mini LCS Winter Open 2026 will be done so under Fearless Draft. All rules pertaining to Champion select below are referring to Fearless Draft.

5.2 Champion Select Draft Procedure

Drafting should begin once both team captains have confirmed their teams are ready. Drafting will be done initially through https://drafter.lol/ to prevent any drafting issues. The champion select should be made by one of the captains or a staff member if they are present for the game. After this is completed, teams can go into champion select on the client. The picks and bans must match the draft completed on Drafter but the order in which they’re picked can be changed, to avoid any issues with champion ownership.

In addition, player roles MUST follow the assigned roles given in the Line-up Submission 24 hours before the game. For Games 2 and beyond, players are free to switch roles and substitute players in and out of the game with other members of their listed roster.

5.2.2 Issues during Champion Select

If a player disconnects or is unable to select their intended champion due to client issues in the Pick-&-Ban phase, the player must take evidence, via a screenshot or recording, and have a teammate immediately leave the lobby before the other team has locked in their next selection.

The team must then inform the opposing team captain and the opposing team captain and a staff member. The staff team will then decide the proper course of action. If sufficient evidence is provided, the champ select will be remade from the point right before the incorrect pick. Other picks and bans must stay the same.

If the technical issue prevents the player from playing, the team will have 15 minutes from the moment the issue occurred(to be proven by ticket or screenshot), to find a substitute or use a listed substitute (penalties as per 7.1 may still apply). If they are not able to resolve the problem or restart champ select within this timeframe, they will forfeit the game. After 1 hour, the series will be forfeited. If a substitute is used and/or bans are lost, pick and bans will be reset.

5.2.3 Champion Trades

Teams must complete all Champion trades before the 20-second mark during the Trading phase, or will be subject to penalties (refer to 7.1). The offended team must provide evidence, via a screenshot or recording.

5.2.4 New / Reworked Champions

Certain major changes to champions will ban them from being picked for a short period after release. See table below:

5.4 Pauses, Remakes and Chat Usage

5.4.1 Chat Usage

General use of /all chat is not an issue. It is an expectation for players to communicate any relevant information such as reasons for pauses to their opponent. Any inflammatory text sent to players that is not relevant to the game (i.e. insulting a players person, threatening to dox them) will not be tolerated and will, at minimum incur a match ban for the player(s) involved.

5.4.2 Pausing the Game

A game may be paused due to, but not limited to, unintentional disconnection or a real life emergency but each team is only permitted 15 minutes of pause time.

If the pause exceeds 10 minutes, the staff team must be informed by the enemy team captain.

If the pause exceeds 15 minutes, the pausing team must immediately unpause at the opposing team’s or staff team’s request or will be subject to penalties (refer to 7.1).

5.4.3 Resuming the Game

A game may be resumed once both teams have verified they are ready to resume play via the game chat.

5.4.4 Remaking the Game

A game may be restarted if there are ongoing connection issues with one or more players due to server issues, game breaking bugs). This will require evidence from the team(s). Individual internet issues are not a good enough reason to remake a game.

5.5 Breaks        

If a technical issue prevents a player from playing the next game, the team will have 15 minutes from the moment the issue occurred(to be proven by screenshot), to find a substitute or use a listed substitute (penalties as per 7.1 may still apply). If they are not able to resolve the problem within this timeframe, they will forfeit the game. After 1 hour, the series will be forfeited.

5.5.1 Official Stream Exemption

Official streamed games may allow for an extra 5 minutes of breakage between games to allow the casting team a suitable break for the 3 minutes delay and post game statements.

5.6 Series Postponement

In the event where server or client issues prevent the majority of players from playing a series, after 30 minutes the staff team reserves the right to push back the affected division’s schedules one week which may cause an extension of the split.

5.7 Match Result Submission

Team Captains of winning teams must submit screenshots of their match reports from their match history tabs, not the end game reports, in their teams text chat for statistical purposes. Additionally, all games must be provided with the Replay (.ROFL) files, either supplied in the thread via Discord or via email to MiniLCS2024@gmail.com . If the .ROFL is sent via the latter, please inform the staff when it is sent and ensure that it is done as soon as possible to avoid issues with patching.

5.8 Streaming & Recording

5.8.1 Streaming

All players and spectators are permitted to stream any game with the only exception being that spectators are not allowed to stream the same game as the official Mini LCS streaming channels from spectator view, PoV streams of the same games are permitted but with at least a 3 minute delay.

5.8.2 Recording

Recording games is permitted and it’s highly encouraged that at least one player is elected to record their screen for every game, even if they do not wish to stream, as to provide evidence in case of any issues that arise as to provide evidence.

5.8.3 Official Stream Exemption

If a game is being streamed by Mini LCS, then no other spectators other than the streamer are permitted to spectate in the lobby, so other coaches may spectate the champion select via a player’s discord stream. If there are delays due to technical issues then no penalties are issued to teams and the series will be continued off-stream.

The streamer will confirm with the teams if they are ready to start and give permission to start the lobby.

6 Code of Conduct

Committing any of the below actions may result in any punishment deemed applicable by the staff team (refer to 7.2).

6.1 Competitive Integrity

6.1.1 Collusion

Any agreement between 2 or more team members that presents a disadvantage to opposing players or teams. This could include the following:

• Exchanging information or communicating with individuals not in the game, during the game.
• Deliberately losing a game for any reason, or attempting to persuade another player/team to do so.
• Coaching multiple teams/organisations which are within the same divisions as each other.

6.1.2 Hacking/Scripting

Any modification to the League of Legends game client to give any team member an unfair advantage. This is not in reference to overlays like Blitz/Porofessor/U.gg, overlays are legal.

6.1.3 Bug Exploitation

Intentionally using an in-game bug to seek an unfair advantage. This includes, but is not limited to, the use of glitches in items, champion abilities, or any other game function that is not working as intended.

6.1.4 Ringing

Playing under another player’s account, or encouraging/directing someone else to do so.

6.1.5 Intentional Disconnection

Purposely disconnecting from the game without a proper and explicitly stated reason.

6.1.6 Harbouring

Not reporting an instance of a player breaking the code of conduct, despite being aware of it.

6.2 Account Integrity

6.2.1 Smurfing

Playing under a lower peak ranked account without disclosing a higher peak rank account.
Note if a higher peak is achieved during the split on a separate account this account must also be provided to staff

6.2.1.1 Undisclosed higher ranked accounts within restrictions

If a player is found to have an undisclosed higher ranked account that would alter their teams average MMR enough to put them in a different bracket and the failure to disclose the account was intentional, it will be considered a violation of rule 6.2.1 and enforce rule 7.1.6

If the undisclosed account does not meet the requirements listed in rule 1.2.1 and the failure to disclose it was unintentional, the player will be ineligible to participate until the requirements are met and rule 7.1.6 will not be applied.

6.2.2 Sharing

Playing under an account that has been previously shared with or botted by another person.

6.2.2.1 Exemptions

A shared, or botted, account may be allowed under the following conditions:

• The account is disclosed as such at signups or upon a staff inquiry.
• The sharing or botting occurred more than 1 year ago (365 days)
• At least 200 ranked Solo Queue games have been played on the account since the sharing / botting occurred
• The account is at least level 100

6.2.3 Sandbagging

Deliberately losing sanctioned tournament games.

6.2.4 Orianna Bot

All accounts used during Mini LCS tournament play must be connected to the active discord account the player is using through OriannaBot. Failure to comply to this must be explained to a member of staff and may result in penalties (see 7.1 Penalties List)

7 Disciplines & Rulings

7.1 Penalties List

All penalties, besides warnings, will be announced in #competitive-rulings.

7.1.1 Line-up submission

- If a team edits their line-up submission after the lock-in deadline they will lose their first 3 bans in their first game of the series. (with the exception of 7.1.2)

- If the multi op.gg provided fails to correctly link to the relevant accounts of all players included, they will lose their first 3 bans in their first game of the series.
- If a team fails to provide their line-up 24 hours before their scheduled series, they will lose their first 3 bans in their first game of the series.
- If a team fails to provide their line-up 12 hours before their scheduled series, they will lose all bans for the first game of the series.

- If a team fails to provide their line-up 3 hours before their scheduled series, they will forfeit the series.

7.1.1.1 Player ban exceptions

If a player is banned within the 24hr lineup submission the team will not face any ban loses as a result of Subbing in a player or an emergency sub

7.1.2 Player Substitute
- Using a listed substitute in game 1 will incur a 3 ban loss
    - If a team declares (to the enemy and staff team) that they are using a substitute from their listed substitutes with more than 1 hour notice this will result in no bans lost in game 1.
- Two or more substitutes will still result in 3 bans lost in game 1
- If a team uses an emergency substitute, they will lose their first 3 bans for each game they are used in.

7.1.3 Gameday delays

- If a team is not ready to play at 15 minutes past the scheduled series start time or previous game they will forfeit the game.

        - If a team is unable to proceed as they are awaiting a staff decision/input on a current situation, this rule will not be applied.

- If none of the members of a team are present at 15 minutes past the scheduled series start time they will forfeit the series.

- If a team is not ready to play at 60 minutes after the scheduled series start time they will forfeit the series.

- If a team extends past the 15 minute pause allowance, then the team must unpause at the opposing or staff team’s request otherwise they will forfeit the current game.

7.1.4 Sportsmanship

- Usage of /all chat outside what is allowed will result in a player warning of which the level should be determined by the staff. Two player warnings will result in suspension from their next series.

7.1.5 Competitive Integrity

- If a team trades champions after the 20s left mark in the Pick and Ban phase then the phase must be restarted with the offending team’s champions set as they were at the 20s mark.

- If a team member who is not playing does not leave voice chat within one minute of the loading screen ending, the team will forfeit the current game. If said member is unresponsive, the game should be paused and the staff team should be contacted to kick them from the voice chat. Upon staff request, people may be allowed to sit in the VC but will be server muted to maintain competitive integrity.

7.1.6 Player Ineligibility

- If a team uses an ineligible player or line-up during a game, then the team will forfeit the game.
- If a player is ruled as ineligible during the split, all games they have played in the current stage of the tournament will be forfeited.