Did you like seeing Fearless Draft?
Rejoice, League of Legends Esports fans! Riot Games officially announced that Fearless Draft will remain for the rest of 2025. This means that we are getting more unique picks, not only in international events like MSI and Worlds but also in the regional splits.
Riot: Fearless Draft stays for 2025
"Following overwhelmingly positive feedback from fans and discussions with teams across all regions, LoL Esports is extending Fearless Draft for the remainder of the 2025 Season, starting in Split 2," read the announcement made during the First Stand Tournament 2025 grand final broadcast.
Fearless Draft forces players to deepen their champion pool, creating room for improvement on the pros and giving a less monotonous experience for the viewers. Just recently, champions like Zed, Quinn, and Vladimir were picked in FST 2025. Having a wider variety of champions played makes for a more exciting viewing experience. However, this runs the small risk of having our solo-queue teammates attempt to replicate HLE Zeka's Zed performance.
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What is Fearless Draft?
"Fearless Draft" is a way of picking and banning champions in professional League of Legends. The version of Fearless that was present in best-of-threes and best-of-fives of the first regional split this year, as well as FST 2025, is called "Hard Fearless."
In Hard Fearless, champions picked by either team in Game 1 can no longer be picked in Game 2. For example, if Ezreal was picked in Game 1, neither they nor their enemies can pick Ezreal again in Game 2.
What's next?
League of Legends has 170 champions, with Mel being the most recent one. In game five of a series with Fearless Draft applied, a total of 50 champions are banned (40 from the past four games + 10 regular bans). This leaves 120(!) champions still in the pool.
There is a variation of the drafting phase called "Ironman," which functions similarly to Fearless but adds even more restrictions. In Ironman drafts, the picks AND bans carry over to the next games in the series.
With Ironman applied on a game five, 90 champions will be taken out: 20 picks and bans per game for four games, plus the 10 regular bans. This leaves an abundant pool of 80 champions, but this may present unique issues, like running out of a viable jungler or marksman.
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