Before the start of the 2024 season, Riot Games has made a series of adjustments to the allocation of places in League of Legends international tournaments, with the most impactful in the Asia-Pacific region. Neither the Japanese LJL nor the Oceania LCO League will be able to qualify directly for the Mid-Season Championship and the World Finals, and the winning teams from these two regions will compete in the playoffs of the Pacific PCS League to qualify with the PCS teams. As a result, the PCS playoffs have become a cross-regional match, with teams from different countries and regions participating.
The Japan LJL Spring Playoffs have ended on March 3, and according to the new format regulations, the top three Japanese teams can participate in the PCS Playoffs, which are the champion SHG, the runner-up DFM and the third-place V3. The Oceania LCO Playoffs are played in the lower bracket finals on March 1, where GZ and ANC will meet in the finals, and the two teams automatically qualify for the PCS playoffs. These two LCO teams are new faces, having never competed in an international tournament or won a league title before.
There are a total of 11 teams in the PCS Playoffs this season, with 3 spots in the LJL region, 2 spots in the LCO region, and 6 spots in the PCS region. The PCS Spring regular season ended on the evening of March 3rd, with CFO, PSG, FAK, BYG, DCG, and JT securing playoff spots as they compete for the PCS Spring championship with teams from the other two regions. The PCS Playoffs run from March 11 to April 7, and there will be more to see when it comes to cross-regional matchups.
The schedule of the PCS playoffs is more special, divided into two stages, the two teams with the best results in PCS, CFO and PSG, and SHG, the best team in LJL, will directly enter the second stage of the double-elimination tournament. The other 8 teams are divided into two groups, with 4 teams in each group playing an intra-group double-elimination format, with the first place in Group A and Group B advancing to the second stage first, while the second place in Group A and Group B will compete for the last 1 promotion spot. The eight teams in the first stage will only have three qualifying spots.
At present, the draw results have been released, the two Japanese teams have been divided into different groups, and the two Oceania teams have also been divided into different groups, and there will be no Japan vs. Oceania in the first round, and all teams will gather in Taiwan, China for offline matches. Among them, DFM's match against JT received the most attention, after all, DFM still has three pounds of nails, and the previous performance against the PCS team was not bad. JT is the team of star Jay Chou, but there have been a lot of internal scandals this season, and they bumped into sixth place in the regular season, barely squeezing into the playoffs.
To be honest, the strength of the Oceania LCO region is relatively weak, and it is impossible to pose a threat to the PCS team, and it is a joke to win a series, and the two teams that pose the greatest threat to the PCS team are SHG and DFM. Before the start of the LJL Spring Finals, LJL officially launched a Twitter poll, 636% of the **DFM were able to win the title, but in the end it was SHG who swept their opponents 3-0 to win. The PCS team certainly didn't prepare much for SHG either, after all, the team hadn't competed in an international tournament before.
It's worth mentioning that while Riot Games brought teams from all three regions together to compete across regions to qualify for international events, they didn't increase the number of seats in international events. In the 2024 PCS Spring Playoffs, only 1 mid-season championship seat will be born, so 11 teams competing for the championship can be said to be a very cruel competition, and the playoffs are equivalent to a small cup competition. Unless the LJL team makes a leap and break in the remaining month, there is a good chance that the PCS team will defend their regional glory and get a ticket to Chengdu MSI.