Big changes over at the LCK where they’ve decided to change up their format going into the 2021 season, tackling different areas such as the playoff bracket and player salaries. The information comes out a day after they showed the rebrand of their logo.
When it comes to all these changes, the biggest one is undeniably the playoff format. From the 2021 season onwards, the teams that finished from 1st to 6th place (which means one extra team will qualify compared to last year) during the regular season all qualify for the 6-team playoff tournament. The fourth and fifth team will play each other first followed by the third and sixth team. The winner of the latter will take on the 1st placed team, while the winner of the former takes on the 2nd placed team, resulting in the finals matchup with the winners of these two matches.
A new era, a new #LCK pic.twitter.com/bJNLwUqB27
— LCK Global (@LCK_Global) January 3, 2021
Salary changes
Aside from the playoff format the LCK also sees changes regarding player and staff salary. The minimum annual salary will be increased for both players and coaches. The prize pool also gets bigger and increases from 300.000.000 KRW to 400.000.000 KRW (An increase of almost 90.000 dollar). Split winners will gain double the amount of prize money they would have gotten last year.
LCK Challengers League
Finally we’ve also got the LCK Challengers League, the reboot of Challengers Korea. Teams can change out players between their LCK roster and the LCK Challengers one at three points: at the start of the split, before the start of round 2 and when playoffs get started. The LCK CL matches will be played on Monday and Tuesday, with their playoffs following the same format as the LCK itself.
The LCK is scheduled to start on January 13.
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