The Fearless Draft mechanic will also be incorporated into 2025's MSI and Worlds format.
Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends (LoL) and organiser for all top-tier LoL esports tournaments, have confirmed that the usage of Fearless Draft will continue throughout the rest of Season 2025. The announcement was made on Sunday (16 March) through a post on the official LoL Esports website.
According to the post, Fearless Draft will be implemented across regional leagues and “will continue through the rest of the competitive season, including global events.” This means that both MSI and Worlds will incorporate the mechanic into their format, including best-of-three and best-of-five matches.
The post highlighted the LoL esports team’s excitement for Fearless Draft, stating that teams will "continue to adapt, innovate, and push the boundaries of competitive play."
While confident in this direction, they emphasised ongoing collaboration with pro teams and data analysis to refine improvements, promising an "action-packed season ahead."
What is Fearless Draft?
Fearless Draft is a revolutionary take on the traditional pick/ban system, designed to challenge teams to adapt in best-of-series matches. In this format, any champion used in a previous game in a series becomes unavailable for both teams in subsequent games. This forces deeper champion pools, more creative strategies and unpredictable drafts.
The new mechanic was first tested in China's LoL Pro League (LPL) in Summer Split 2024. Then it was tested in the first Split of Season 2025 across regions, with First Stand being the first international tournament that uses Fearless Draft, where LoL Champions Korea (LCK) team 
Hanwha Life Esports had a dominant run throughout the tournament to win the championship title, capping off their victory by defeating LoL European Championship (LEC) team 
Karmine Corp 3-1 in the grand finals.
Fearless Draft receives positive feedback from LoL community
When the new mechanic was implemented across regions in Split 1, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with viewership across regions increasing significantly, especially in the LCK and LEC. Players and personalities also responded positively to the new mechanic, including one of the most follow LoL content creators and current founder and coach of esports team Los Ratones, Marc Robert "Caedrel" Lamont.
A poll by Sheep Esports with 14,000 respondents also reports that 90% of the respondents from both players and viewers agree that Fearless Draft is a good addition to the LoL Esports scene. One of the main reason fans love this is because of the diversity of the champion pool. And while others have pointed out that it some champions are still frequently picked, an X (formerly Twitter) user and former LoL analyst Flora “Flora” Parmentier shared statistics on how the most prevalent issue in LoL esports drafting phase was solved.
Flora’s graph compared the number of times a champion was used in the LEC in 2024 vs 2025. The graph shows how Fearless Draft has significantly cut down the number of times a favourite champion was used in a Split.
According to Flora’s argument, while many argue that “the amount of unique champions being played didn't change much,” Fearless Draft “flattens the curve” and removes the “boring handshakes.”
The official LoL Pacific Championship (LCP) has also shared some stats on how diverse the champion pool was for each team in the first split, which supports both Flora’s analysis and the argument that the new mechanic has increased the champion pool of each team in the LCP.
What do you think of the Fearless Draft?