LCS Season 2023 Kickoff Event Brings Boomers of the League Up Against the Zoomers

The first matchup of the LCS in 2023 will be the Kickoff Event Showmatch on January 10.

It has been a shaky end to the year for the North American League of Legends, and a not-so-great start either. LCS drew a lot of criticism from the community in recent months with the decisions made about the league’s future like the change of broadcast days and times and some of the faces on the broadcast leaving the league. If anything will disperse the worries of LCS fans, it’s going to need to be the league starting and doing okay. Despite the perceived mistakes from Riot.

And with no Lock-In this year, what is better than to start the season but a showmatch? If you look behind all the behind-the-scenes happenings in the off-season, LCS got a lot more exciting this year, some incredible imports, returning legends and a lot of fresh faces from the Academy. Old guard vs. the new players was already a big narrative during last year, so it’s no surprise to see LCS lean on that for their Season 2023 Kickoff Event showmatch. The two teams that will play in tomorrow's games are:

• Boomers
  • Colin “Solo” Earnest (Top laner/TSM)
  • Juan Arturo “Contractz” Garcia (Jungler/CLG)
  • Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen (Mid laner/Dignitas)
  • Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes (Bot laner/GG)
  • Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in (Support/TL)
• Zoomers
  • Mohamed “Revenge” Kaddoura (Top laner/Immortals)
  • Mingyi “Spica” Lu (Jungler/FlyQuest)
  • Joseph Joon “jojopyun” Pyun (Mid laner/EG)
  • Kim “Berserker” Min-cheol (Bot laner/C9)
  • Alan “Busio” Cwalina (Support/100 Thieves)

LCS Kickoff Showmatch Format and Schedule

The team names were chosen by fans in a Twitter poll LCS Commissioner Jackie Felling put out. And the roster is pretty exciting for a showmatch. Spica, jojopyun and Berserker are already fan favorites among those who follow off-the-Rift content from teams, or things like Champions Queue streams.

Like any other region, except LPL, LCS showmatch will be played as a Bo3 on the Summoners Rift, but in a very different manner to your regular pro-play series. Starting with the pick and bans, the games will follow a similar format to the Fearless Draft mode that LDL was trying out. The players won’t be able to pick a champion previously played, but aside from these repeat champions, there won’t be any bans. And to also test the players’ limits, the victors will have to shuffle their role assignments after each game.

There are also prizes for the winners. Each player from the winning team will have the opportunity to design their own custom emote alongside the Game Design team, which will be available for purchase in the League client later this year.

The LCS part of the Kickoff Event will start tomorrow, January 10, at 11 am PT (2 pm ET). Fans can tune into the game itself on the lolesports website.

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