Golden Guardians and Evil Geniuses leave LCS 2024

The League Championship Series (LCS) has announced that it will downsize to eight teams in 2024. Meanwhile, teams Golden Guardians and Evil Geniuses left the LCS.

According to an official post signed by Riot Games' esports president John Needhamn, the LCS will become an eight-team league in 2024. This is due to a mutual decision with the Golden Guardians and Evil Geniuses that lets the latter parties exit the LCS.

"This change will allow us to be much more flexible as we prepare to restructure the league for future success," the post stated. "We made this change prior to free agency that begins today to allow impacted players the ability to pursue opportunities with other teams or leagues."

The post then thanked both the Golden Guardians and Evil Geniuses for their contributions to the LCS scene. It stated that additional details cannot be discussed at this time. However, the global and long-term strategy for the LCS and League of Legends esports will be revealed in early 2024.

The LCS 2024 update confirmed information posted by Michael "Veteran" Archer. On Nov. 18, Veteran made a post about how the LCS might downsize from 10 teams to eight of them.

"All sources confirm at least the premise that two teams in the LCS will not be in the LCS for 2024, depending on Riot's decision come Monday," Veteran wrote. "Not every [team's] GM even has been made aware of this. Currently a LOT of players, coaches, managers, staff that are currently on agreements that they believe extend through 2024 but could not in fact not exist in any form come Monday."

The LCS 2024 teams will include 100 Thieves, Cloud9, Dignitas, FlyQuest, Immortals, NRG, Shopify Rebellion, and Team Liquid.

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