Riot Games Applies Fearless Draft to LoL Esports Matches

This year, the 'Fearless Draft' will be applied to domestic and international League of Legends (LoL) esports league matches.

League of Legends. Photo by Riot Games

On the 14th, Riot Games held a press conference at its Seoul Gangnam-gu Korea office and announced, "Fearless Draft will be applied to all best-of-three and best-of-five matches in regional leagues, the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), and the World Championship (Worlds)."

Fearless Draft is a system in LoL multi-set matches where champions selected in previous sets cannot be chosen again during the ban/pick phase. This encourages a variety of combinations, including not only commonly used champions in mainstream tournament strategies but also off-meta champions.

Jesro Cha, Riot Games’ LoL esports operations manager, said, "After gathering feedback from fans, pro teams, and players, we received positive responses regarding Fearless Draft." Single-match formats will continue to use the previous system.

Fearless Draft was applied to all matches in the domestic tournament 'LCK Cup' and the international tournament 'First Stand Tournament,' both held for the first time this year in Seoul.

Matthew Ling Harrison, LoL lead gameplay designer, shared related statistics and stated, "As a result of applying Fearless Draft, the average number of games per match increased, and champions with relatively low pick rates were chosen more evenly." He added, "According to surveys, 76% of fans evaluated Fearless Draft positively, and players also gave favorable feedback in interviews."

The production team emphasized that they are carefully examining concerns that in best-of-five matches, choices become limited in the 4th and 5th sets, and that there is a widening win rate gap between the Blue and Red sides.

Yu Liu, League Studio game director, said, "Earlier this year, we were able to implement several changes by actively incorporating player feedback. We are always grateful for the passion of Korean fans, which inspires the development team greatly."