Upcoming season or competition: 2026 First Stand Tournament | |
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| Game | League of Legends |
|---|---|
| Founded | March 10, 2025; 8 months ago (March 10, 2025) |
| Administrator | Riot Games |
| No. of teams | 5 teams (2025) 6 teams (2026) |
| Venue | Rotating locations (next location:Brazil) |
| Most recent champion | Hanwha Life Esports (2025) |
| Qualification | Regional leagues (list) |
| Related competitions | Mid-Season Invitational World Championship |
| Official website | lolesports.com |
TheFirst Stand Tournament (FST, also simply asFirst Stand) is an annualLeague of Legends international tournament hosted byRiot Games at the conclusion of the first of three splits of thegame's professional esports scene. It is the third international tournament under the new split structure and competitive calendar by Riot Games since 2025.[1][2]
On 11 June 2024,Riot Games announced the creation of a new split structure and competitive calendar for theLeague of Legends esports scene, including a three-split calendar similar to that of theLeague of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) to be applied to all major regions and the creation of a new international tournament to conclude the first split.[1] During the media day for the2024 League of Legends World Championship Final atThe O2 Arena inLondon,United Kingdom on 1 November 2024, Riot Games announced that the new international tournament would be named "First Stand Tournament" (FST), with the inaugural edition set to take place from 10 to 16 March 2025 inSeoul, South Korea.[3]
Hanwha Life Esports of theLeague of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) won the tournament by defeatingLeague of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) representativesKarmine Corp with a score 3–1, marking the organization's first international title.[4]
In November 2025, Riot Games announced that FST 2026 would take place from 16–22 March 2026, inSão Paulo, Brazil.[5] It will be the second internationalLeague of Legends competition to be hosted inLatin America after the2017 Mid-Season Invitational, which was also held in Brazil.[6] Differing from last year, the format is set to involve two double-elimination groups which concludes into a single-elimination knockout stage, where best-of-five series will be played throughout the entire competition.[7]
The same video that announced the hosts of the 2026 edition of the tournament also confirmed that FST in 2027 will be hosted inSoutheast Asia (including Taiwan), which will be the first time an internationalLeague of Legends tournament will be hosted in the region sinceVietnam andTaiwan's hosting of the2019 Mid-Season Invitational.[6]
The tournament features six (initially five) qualified teams, particularly the winners of the first competitive split from theLeague of Legends Champions Korea (LCK),League of Legends Pro League (LPL),League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC),League Championship Series (LCS),Campeonato Brasileiro deLeague of Legends (CBLOL), and theLeague of Legends Championship Pacific (LCP). For the2025 First Stand Tournament, the LCS and CBLOL were merged into a single league, theLeague of Legends Championship of The Americas (LTA). Each of the six teams will face each other in a best-of series.
The following is a breakdown of the qualified teams per region:
In each series played in the tournament, the "Fearless Draft" format is implemented. Fearless Draft pertains to a draft format inLeague of Legends popularized by China's LoL Development League where teams cannot pick a champion that they've already played in a series. For instance, when one team picks a champion in any stage of the series, they and their opponents may not pick said champion for the succeeding games. Hence, for every game of a best-of series, there will be ten additional bans, narrowing teams' champion pools.[8]
| Year | Final location | Final | No. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Champion | Score | Runner-up | ||||
| 2025 | Seoul | Hanwha Life Esports | 3 | 1 | Karmine Corp | 5 |
| 2026 | São Paulo | 8 | ||||
| 2027 | TBA, Southeast Asia | |||||
| Region | Titles | Runner-up | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Korea (LCK) | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| EMEA (LEC) | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Team | League | Titles | Runner-up | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hanwha Life Esports | LCK | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Karmine Corp | LEC | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| World Championship |  | ||||||
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| Mid-Season Invitational | |||||||
| First Stand Tournament | |||||||
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1 The 2020 Mid-Season Invitational was cancelled and replaced by the2020 Mid-Season Streamathon due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. | |||||||