Fearless Draft coming to new 2025 International LoL tournament

Fearless Draft, the format in which a champion cannot be played twice, is coming to the brand-new international League of Legends (LoL) tournament debuting in 2025, Riot Games has announced.

June 11 has been a whirlwind day for LoL esports, with Riot announcing massive overhauls to the Asia–Pacific (APAC) and Americas region, a new international tournament before MSI, and the arrival of Fearless Draft to Tier 1 LoL professional play in 2025.

Riot Games has officially announced that Fearless Draft is coming to the highest level of LoL in 2025. If you don't know what Fearless Draft is, we have an in-depth guide that discusses "soft" and "hardcore" Fearless Draft, but here's the gist: If a champion is played, it can't be played again. It's already been adopted by the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) and several secondary or academy leagues. This format looks to solve the eternal problem of LoL professional play, the exact same compositions and champions quickly become established and games feel copy-and-paste.

Fearless Draft will be rung in with the new tournament, part and parcel with the new international trophy. The new format will be used in multi-game series and appears to lean towards the hardcore incarnations, where even the enemy team picking a champion removes them from your possible pool.

Here's what Riot Games had to say: "In 2025, we'll implement a version of “Fearless Draft” for best-of series in the regional and international rounds of the new tournament. In a best-of series, Fearless Draft effectively bans champions picked in prior games in the series. This format helps shake up the matchups and provides more variety in the champions we watch our favorite pros play. LoL Esports has not implemented a new draft format in Tier 1 play in many years, and we can’t wait to hear what you all think of Fearless."

The simple truth is that there's no way to know how good or bad widespread Fearless Draft will be for the pro scene. Fans have expressed praise for the LPL's adoption of the format, while professional players like Eric "Licorice" Ritchie have expressed concerns about the possible clarity of the format. Given that, for the time being, Fearless Draft seems to be restricted to the new international tournament, its impact will be limited across the wider ecosystem.

From a viewer's perspective, Fearless Draft seems like a huge win. A big part of LoL esports growing stale for viewers can be the homogeny of team compositions between games. Fearless Draft's solution to this makes games and team compositions feel unique and gives far more space for pocket picks, dark technology, and all the innovation that has made some of LoL esports' best moments like T1's Miss Fortune support.

Whether or not it is adopted in any other Tier 1 regional leagues has yet to be seen, but League Championship Series (LCS) commissioner Mark "MarkZ" Zimmerman has already said it was something the league was open to.