TL;DR The Summer Split of the 2017 North America Challenger Series will move to a double Best of 3 format with live broadcasts on Thursdays.
Welcome back to the North American Challenger Series (NA CS) where rising stars, wily veterans, and even a streamer dream team will hit the Rift this Summer. Six teams will battle through the regular season to try and secure their spot in Playoffs and the Promotion Tournament. We wanted to cover some changes happening to NA CS for Summer Split around format, schedule, and broadcast:
Format
Regular Season
The regular season of the NA Challenger Series will transition from two back-to-back Best of 2 (Bo2) on a single day with a point system as seen in Spring Split to a double Best of 3 (Bo3) taking place over two days (Wed + Thurs) each week starting this Summer Split.
In recent splits, we’ve worked closely with Challenger teams to understand if NA CS was hitting the mark to best prepare them for pro play. After extensive discussions with the Challenger Teams around their preferred format, their feedback was overwhelmingly to move to the Bo3 format to mirror the NA LCS format and give teams more practice in the format used for Playoffs and Promotion Tournament.
Schedule
Regular Season
Week 1: June 7-June 8
Week 2: June 14-June 15
Week 3: June 21-June 22
Week 4: June 28-June 29
Week 5: July 13-July 14
The full match schedule is available here and similar to NA LCS, we’ll be taking a break for a week in July for Rift Rivals.
Playoffs and Promotion Tournament
The NA CS Playoffs will continue to be Best of 5 and played on-site to better equip CS teams for the upcoming Promotion Tournament on August 11-13.
Spring Playoffs will take place on:
Semis: Wednesday, July 19 & Thursday, July 20
Finals: Thursday, July 27
Broadcast and Content
Last split, we broadcasted 4 games including one full Bo2 series, the second game of a Bo2, and the second game of a third Bo2. As we move towards 2018, our focus is to prepare for the upcoming Academy League, as we believe that’s the best path forward to develop talent within NA. Because of that focus, we’re only able to broadcast the same number of games that we did for Spring Split. A Bo3 series has more variables as matches end in 2 or 3 games - to avoid showing something that feels incomplete, we’ll be broadcasting one of the series in entirety. After talking to pros, they agreed that the benefits of moving to Bo3 where less teams would be shown live on air would still outweigh the additional exposure provided by remaining on Bo2s.
We’ll also be retiring our Challenger VODs; instead we're providing replays of the games to teams, and working with them to produce their own team content. We expect that the move away from directed camera VODs to team created content will provide a variety of new and creative ways to experience CS matches. We’ve had some initial talks with the teams about their plans around producing content and are excited about the possibilities.
If you want to see which NA CS games will be broadcasted live on Thursdays at 5:00 PM PT, check out the schedule below:
Regular Season Live Broadcast Games
Week 1 - June 8: eUnited (EUN) vs. Gold Coin United (GCU)
Week 2 - June 15: Delta Fox (DFX) vs. Big Gods Jackals (BIG)
Week 3 - June 22: Counter Logic Academy (CLA) vs. Tempo Storm (TS)
Week 4 - June 29: Tempo Storm (TS) vs. Gold Coin United (GCU)
Week 5 - July 13: eUnited (EUN) vs. Big Gods Jackals (BIG)
With the increased interest in NA CS based on a certain stream dream team, we’re looking at ways to bring more games to the broadcast and spin up some additional Challenger content. Stay tuned for more information.
Playoffs Live Broadcast
As with last split, all Playoff matches will be broadcasted live.
What about the Promotion Tournament?
As we previously announced, NA LCS will be moving to a model without promotion and relegation next year and the Challenger Series will be transitioning to an Academy League. While the promotion tournament will not automatically promote any teams to the NA LCS in Spring 2018, there will still be financial incentives for teams as well as the opportunity to reward pros for their split’s achievements.
Don’t miss the first NA CS broadcast of Summer Split with eUnited vs. Gold Coin United on Thursday, June 8 at 5:00 PM PT.
http://www.lolesports.com/en_US/articles/2017-na-challenger-series-update
