The 2025 LEC Summer Season is the last of Riot Games’ major leagues to kick off. European teams will return to the Berlin studio starting August 2 to compete in this crucial Split, which will decide the three squads that will represent the region at the 2025 World Championship in China. And now, the two groups that will be facing off in this Summer Split have been revealed:

For this LEC Summer Split, the 10 teams are divided into two groups that will play a single round robin within their group, in best-of-threes. The top four teams from each group will qualify for the playoffs. To determine who plays where, the current season’s Spring Split winner (Movistar KOI) was placed in Group 1, while the second-place team (G2 Esports) went to Group 2. Starting from the third-place, teams picked their group based on Spring Split standings. Once one group had five teams, the rest were assigned to the other group.

Fairly balanced groups

The two groups appear fairly balanced, promising exciting matches and suspense both at the top of the standings and for the teams whose splits will end after the group stage. This format contrasts with the LCK Summer Split, which also divided the ten Korean teams into two groups but placed the strongest teams on one side and the weaker ones on the other. This creates clear skill disparities and could negatively affect viewership for the LCK Rise group.

On the LEC side, each group features two strong teams: KOI and Karmine Corp in Group 1, G2 and Fnatic in Group 2. GIANTX and Team Heretics both showed resilience and have rightly secured third place in their groups, while Team BDS and Team Vitality, who underperformed relative to expectations in Spring, sit fourth.

At the bottom, things differ slightly: although SK Gaming and Rogue finished last in the previous split, Rogue is no longer in the LEC. Their spot is now taken by Natus Vincere (NAVI), with a roster quite different from their predecessor’s. The Ukrainian organization will start in a tough group and will have to fight hard to reach the playoffs in their first LEC split.