League of Legends fans can recruit and manage their dream team in the Fantasy LCS beta this Summer.
The professional League of Legends summer games start this week and now you can create and manage your own team. Riot, creators of League of Legends and hosts of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), revealed the Fantasy LCS last week. Functioning in a similar fashion to fantasy football (which is popular enough to inspire a TV series), a group of friends can create a league of 4, 6, or 8 teams they recruit and manage.
The Fantasy LCS ran into problems initially as the servers were overwhelmed with fans eager to start building their dream teams. After a couple days, the site seems to be running smoothly. That said, the service is in its beta phase, so you may still run into problems. Also, over the summer games, recruitment is restricted to North American and European teams. Sorry, world champions SK Telecom are off-limits.
It’s not surprising that Riot would create an official fantasy league system. Independent groups, such as loldraft, have started their own, proving that fans want fantasy teams (loldraft has shut down in response to Riot’s official fantasy leagues). It also works as a great cross-promotional opportunity. Everything is handled by Riot: the fantasy leagues, the professional league (LCS), and the game, League of Legends, that fuels this ecosystem.
The League Championship Series Summer Split – the name for the summer “season” – starts tomorrow for European and North American teams. The first game pits Fnatic against SK Gaming, the first and second place champions of the European Spring playoffs, respectively. The North American Summer Split starts Friday, with Spring champions Cloud 9 facing off against Team SoloMid, who placed second in the spring.
Maybe you want to see Xpecial and Wildturtle back together or you think Froggen might get to pull out Anivia this summer. If you want to get in on the Fantasy LCS, get some friends together and head to the site. Leagues must complete their draft before the Summer Split officially starts.
Source: Fantasy LCS
